For Wilshire Baptist Church
One of the scariest words in the English language, for me anyway, is “improvisation.” And yet improvisation is a key to success in many regards.
That word came up Sunday during a “chat and chew” with Wilshire’s George Gagliardi. Lunch conversations with George almost always include some music notes, and I don’t recall the specific context, but improvisation was part of the mix. I confessed I cannot improvise at all. I can play notes on a page reasonably well, but take the page away and ask me to improvise, and I can’t do it.
To improvise in music, you need to know what key you’re in, the chord structures native to that key, and how the notes in those chords go together in a pleasing way. Somewhere in my musical education I missed or avoided classes on music theory that taught those types of things. To improvise, you also need ample doses of creativity and confidence, and for performance, some extroversion and fearlessness. I learned I was lacking all of that in high school jazz band. I got the gig my senior year because I was the only baritone sax player around, but when I got the nod to stand up and improvise a solo for the first time, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t get the nod again.
We often talk about improvisation with regard to the arts – not just music but painting, sculpting, drama, comedy – but I believe it applies to life more broadly. Most of us are called upon to improvise in our chosen fields – taking knowledge and skills gained in school or from experience and applying them sometimes in irregular and unexpected ways to create a desired result.
My entire career has been a string of improvisations. My degree in journalism had me prepared for newspaper work, and I was happy doing that, but the twists and turns of life had me working at magazines, corporations, institutions and organizations small and large. It’s all still been writing, but I’ve had to improvise how I use words to tell a story, describe a service, deliver information or promote a cause.
Improvisation is also part of the less serious aspects of life. For example, we’re in our regular spring mode of getting our flowerbeds in shape for the summer. It’s hit and miss every year because we aren’t master gardeners with all their knowledge about soil, sunlight and irrigation. Still, we’ve developed some nice beds by improvising with new plants and moving old plants to new locations.
Occasionally we watch cooking competition shows, and we’re amazed at how chefs can improvise with ingredients that seemingly don’t go together, and how they can transform a disaster into an attractive and tasty dish.
We all witnessed amazing improvisation in business, education, health care, entertainment and church during the pandemic. At Wilshire we learned how to worship, learn, serve and give together while the doors were closed. I believe our flexibility borne out of the need to improvise set us up well for the transitions in ministry leadership that have followed. What we once called “the Wilshire way” includes the willingness to improvise.
When you think about it, our entire lives are marked by improvisations. We start out on the journey with our plans and dreams, but things change and we have to improvise new paths to happiness and contentment. God helps us along the way with the gift of improvisation if we’re willing to give it a try. And don’t you know God has to do a fair amount of improvising with us as we wander in and out of God’s will.