Oldcontroller's Blog

The woman I mentioned before, who had received an email from my boss about collaborating or cooperating or whatever, met with him. He did try to recruit her to conduct the Singing Christmas Tree. She explained why it wasn’t going to be possible. The interesting part was what she told me about their conversation, and what he said to her.

He said he’d let her pick 4 pieces for the Tree. Now, back several weeks ago, when he first told me he was approaching my ex-boss about conducting the Tree, the boss told my ex-boss the same thing he told me, that he was going to maintain strict control of everything involved with the Tree, that he would pick all the pieces for the Tree, plus audition and select all soloists and ensembles. He turns down my ex-boss when he receives his counter-proposal, which he decided he couldn’t live with. And then he gets to this music leader, his second (as far as I know) attempt to find someone to conduct, and changes his tack.

Except he told her he offered my ex-boss the same thing.

He lied. He lied. It’s not the first time I’m aware that he’s lied, but it just never seems to get any easier to deal with. He’s a pastor. He’s not supposed to lie.

I’ve said this before too, but here I go again. He’s human, just like the rest of us. We make mistakes. Christians trip over ourselves on a daily basis. We don’t have it figured out. But we know Who does. And we’re supposed to do what He wants us to do. And not do what He doesn’t want us to do.

He doesn’t want us to lie. He was very clear about that, among other things.

I complain, but I shouldn’t. My job situation has been much, much worse. At this job nobody yells obscenities at me, nobody calls me stupid. Nobody cuts my hours out of pure spite. Nobody treats me like I was just looking for an opportunity to steal the furniture.

My ex-boss was the best boss I ever had, bar none. The boss I have now isn’t the worst, not even close, but… I don’t expect to have to put up with being lied to by my boss, the pastor. I cannot wrap my brain around that.

I also never expected to have to keep him afloat. Between the choir, the organist, the pianist and me we’ve kept the music program running. If it were up to him, it would have been long gone.

Here’s the thing — this summer I have plans to be elsewhere. National Band is in July. My professional pianist friend and I are going to DCI events at the end of July and in August. And once my passport arrives (I stupidly let it expire, what an idiot I am, but have reapplied) I’m going to apply to go on a mission trip in August, to Romania. If they select me to go, and they might not, I’ll be gone for the first two choir rehearsals for the Singing Christmas Tree. I can have everything ready to go, and there is an entire choir full of people who would love to help get things running (they were a Godsend last year, not kidding, it would have been a fiasco without them). And yet I wonder if the boss won’t put the kibosh on my application just to keep me from being gone then.

National Band and DCI he doesn’t get a vote about. I’m going. Plus, if something develops with my mother and I decide to head home for a bit, he’s not going to get a vote about that, either.

What will he do when I’m not there? He’ll have to pull music, make sure everybody’s got copies of music charts and the flow of worship. If he elects to buy more PraiseCharts stuff, even of pieces we already have, which he does almost every week, that means shrinking, formatting and copying 60 choir copies — which isn’t hard but he doesn’t know how to do it. I can’t even get him to sit still long enough to teach him appropriate directing gestures or discuss key signatures and their relationship to one another.

The other music leader, at the other church, when I told her I was afraid if I let go it would all collapse, leaned over, touched me on the shoulder, and said, “Let it. Let it collapse.” I’m not sure I can. I wasn’t raised to stand by and let the train run over everybody.

Even if, realistically, I can’t stop it.

Lord help us.

In case anyone’s wondering why I believe the other music leader and my ex-boss regarding the substance of the conversations they’ve had with my boss, here’s the reason: I know these people. Have known them for many years. Neither one of them would lie if you threatened to set them on fire. Whereas I have caught my boss lying to me. And then there was the whole pathetic attempt to subvert the choir officer election process.

I’m not supposed to have to worry about this stuff. My boss is a pastor.

God is in control. He has a plan. He works everything for good. Little insignificant human me cannot see a way out of this without a screaming catastrophe.

That doesn’t mean God doesn’t have a way. He does. I have to remind myself of that, every day. Every day.

So, this afternoon I got to work a bit late. It was about 1:15 when I was headed for the door, lugging my karate stuff with (I had class this evening). The boss’ family was in their van (parked in a handicapped spot, in spite of the fact that they don’t have a placard or a need to) and he came bopping out the door to meet them as I was headed in. He spotted me immediately.

“How hard would it be,” he began, and then he switched gears. He does that a lot. “I wrote a song,” he said. For Mother’s Day. This Sunday. In 6 days. He wanted to know how hard it would be to write a piano part for it.

I’ll spare you what I was thinking, as I spared him. It was a strange moment. What came out of my mouth was that I couldn’t, really, I’m not a pianist (and certainly not in two days, as the pianist would need it then, for rehearsal and so she could practice), but I knew someone who might (even though I knew she has no time for any of that stuff this time of year) but that she was extremely busy as May is recital time. He dropped it immediately, went on to talk to his family. He told me not to contact her when I asked if he wanted me to. And that was that.

I vented a bit once I got inside the door of the church, where he couldn’t hear me. Even though I knew the ladies in the office would hear me. Not clearly enough to make out what I was saying, but that I was talking. And what I said was, “Are you kidding me? Six days out? Really? You gotta be freakin’ kidding me.” And so on. I didn’t continue all the way into the office, but they did hear me. And asked who I was talking to.

I wonder if they realize what the situation is. They do hear me in his office occasionally, explaining music and counting and telling him when and where to cue people in and out, and when to cut them off. I don’t think they know anything about music either, but for sure they know that I never but never had to explain that to the ex-boss.

It’s just crazy.

Now, I could have come up with a piano part to his song. Given enough time. Like all those monkeys on typewriters eventually coming up with the works of William Shakespeare (which is impossible, by the way — it’s funny, but not possible).

But not in 2 days.

Sheez.

Also — A woman I know who’s head of the music program at another major church here told me the other day that my boss had emailed her and said he wanted to get together with her, collaborate or confer or something. She says she knows what that’s about, and she’s probably right. He wants to draft her to direct the Singing Christmas Tree. Won’t happen. Her boss, the head pastor at her church, would have to approve her going to another church to direct our Christmas program. And he wouldn’t. They have a Christmas program also, and other services starting in Advent continuing on through Epiphany. There’s no way. Even if she were willing to accept the restrictions my boss is going to continue insisting upon. Which she isn’t.

We are now 4 months behind in the planning process. I have no idea if he’s decided on any music. And we don’t have a conductor.

Oy vey.

God is in control. He has a plan. We’re getting closer and closer to the cliff. I have no idea if He intends for us to march right off it, to teach somebody something. Or if there’s a miracle about to happen.

I just hope I do what He wants me to do. Whatever that is. He’ll let me know.

Just FYI. The last two bills we received from the folks who are upgrading / changing / fixing our sound system total about $12,000. Not kidding.

Meanwhile the roof leaks.

It occurs to me to be somewhat concerned for my paycheck, small as it is. Granted, the monies for all these upgrades comes from another account, but the boss told me some weeks ago he’d transferred money from one account to another to pay for something he wanted to do. So he can do that.

They don’t pay me much, but I need it. And even with all the uproar going on, and the weirdness and uncertainty and occasional buffoonery (some of it mine), I still love this job. It would break my heart to lose it.

I have to remind myself every day, several times a day, that God is in charge. That the one phrase repeated more than any other in the Bible is some variation of, “Do not be afraid.” So, it’s going to be okay.

Eventually.

When Jesus comes. Then everything is finally, finally going to be okay.

Prior to that…. Keep the faith.

This Sunday we’re recognizing our senior members. The senior choir, called the Celebration Singers, is leading worship. They’ll be in the choir loft, and the regular choir gets to sit with the congregation and relax a bit.

It wasn’t originally going to be that way, even though that’s traditionally how it’s done. The boss, being a young, hip, with-it kind of guy, wanted to do something a bit different. Originally he figured the worship choir and the Celebration Singers could share the choir loft. Or, if the number of chairs needed would be a problem, the Celebration Singers could sit elsewhere on stage.

Problem, as I queried the boss — where are the musicians going to be? If they’re in their accustomed places (the stage is pretty fair-sized but not quite expansive enough to accommodate a cast of, well, tens) where to put the senior singers was a problem.

At first he said they could get up on stage, sing the first hymn to open the service, then go elsewhere until they were needed to sing their second hymn which would be during the offertory.

Problem — stairs. There’s no way to get up on the stage (or down from it) without traversing stairs. There is no ramp. The church, and stage, have been in place in that particular building since 1973, I think. Several of the senior choir members have mobility issues. You do not want to force them to climb the stairs more than once. It’ll take awhile. And someone might get hurt.

The leader of the Celebration Singers, who is also in the worship choir and a member of the local woman’s afternoon music club (and who can read music and has a wonderful soprano voice and can direct, and everything) put the kibosh on that idea right away when I mentioned it to her. “Oh, no,” she said, very clearly. The Celebration Singers needed to be situated in the choir loft and left there for the duration of the service.

Which is what we usually do.

So, that’s what will happen Sunday. They’ll be placed, and left alone. They’ll stand to sing the opening hymn, they’ll stand to sing for the offertory, and the rest of the time (during the contemporary music, of which there are two songs, and one more traditional hymn) they can sit.

The worship choir will be in the congregation, so there’s no need to stuff chairs in wherever we can make them fit.

I am more relieved about this than I can express. I’m not sure why it took the boss so long to grasp that moving the elderly folks around was a remarkably bad idea.

I do hope he doesn’t change his mind about it Sunday morning. He hasn’t done that lately, yanked the rug out from under anybody. Maybe he’s over it….

One can hope.