For Wilshire Baptist Church
Last week I took my baritone saxophone to a band instrument and music shop in Garland. The conversation went something like this:
Repairman: “She’s a beauty. What seems to be the problem?”
Me: “Nothing that I know of, but I’ve been playing it for 17 years, it’s never needed a repair, so I thought I’d bring it in for a check-up during this down time when we’re not playing.”
Repairman: “Seventeen years . . . really? It looks almost new.”
Me: “Well, we rehearse once a week and play in church just once a month so it doesn’t get a lot of use. And . . . I never march with it.”
He laughed behind his mask as he inspected the leather and felt pads under the keys: “You must have low acidity in your saliva. This instrument doesn’t have the deterioration you’d normally have over that much time.”
Me: “My director would probably say that’s because I don’t practice enough.”
Another laugh through the mask. Lame band humor for sure, but I left the sax at the shop and will pick it up in a few weeks after he makes whatever adjustments and fixes are needed.
If you watched Wilshire’s worship service online on Sunday morning, you saw the Wilshire Winds in a virtual playing of an arrangement of “Amazing Grace.” I played the baritone sax for that recording, and it’s just another example of how Wilshire has allowed people like me to participate and add something to the worship experience.
At the beginning of this writing, I said I took “my” sax to the shop, but sometimes I forget that it isn’t mine. It was loaned to me by the church in 2003 and I’ve tried to be a good steward of it these past 17 years. If the church didn’t just happen to have such an instrument, I would never have joined the Winds. A middle-aged man who hasn’t played in 25 years doesn’t go out and buy a multi-thousand-dollar instrument like that so he can play with the church wind ensemble. But a middle-aged man might join the ensemble if the church has such an instrument.
So, thank you Wilshire for loaning me an instrument and giving me a place to play. Someday I’ll have to quit and I’ll turn it back in, and maybe someone else will take it up and fill the gap. But for now, I’ll continue to try to be a worthy steward of the sax, just as you’ve been a great steward of my continuing spiritual formation and growth. That’s something that Wilshire has always done and continues to do well, even during this time of pandemic.
When we’re back in the church building, and even during this time away, there are many ways to get involved – to “worship, learn, serve and give” as we like to say. It might be teaching, serving on a committee, joining a mission effort locally or abroad or just showing up on Zoom and being part of the community. It might even be joining the Wilshire Winds and playing music, or donating an instrument so someone else can.