Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I'm Gonna Let It Shine

On my last day Frank (publisher) had me cover a Worship Summit at the convention. Roland put on the show Sunday morning. When else would you expect a good 'ole fashion revival?

While sitting in the back near the exit trying not to attract attention, I spotted an ad sales guy from my work. I paged through some of the literature on the seats. Riveting. Shortly after, I went and sat by my coworker.

"Are you ready to be saved?" I asked him.

"I actually play in a worship band at my church and the guy playing today is pretty good," he responded.

After swallowing down the taste of foot, I asked him some questions about it.

In no way do I intend this to be a religion bashing post. I go to church. I sing. Going to, by comparison, conservative Catholic masses I wasn't prepared for the Christian rock. Something just seems wrong about it to me. For some reason I perceive the musicians to be insincere. Don't they know rock is the devil's music? Maybe this is their way of putting a positive spin on rock.

If the spirit moves them to make the music I have no issue with that. When I think church music I think of an organ or a guitar group with an elderly lady on piano and some off key singers backing up the vocalist. I don't think of a fog machine, video show, drums and electric guitars.

One of the things I noticed about the music was the repetition in the songs. "For the glory of it all" was a song that included that text at least 30 times.

Below is a conversation via text message with my boss. There is some background info to fill you in on. My mom and I switched phones before I left so I wouldn't incur roaming charges while in Cali. On numerous occasions Frank had "mistakenly" called my mom instead of me. It was growing in to a running gag. I'd ask Frank how my mom was doing when I'd see him. He'd inform me that Aunt Sally had taken a fall, etc.
10:05 a.m.
Me to Frank: "i think i'm going to be saved at this roland worship thing."

10:54 a.m.
Frank to me: "Amen your mom and i were hoping for that."

11:24 a.m.
Me to Frank: "guess who i saw. Jesus. Got a picture."
One of the things I really enjoy about my job is the ability to joke around, as exhibited above, with my coworkers.

There was a younger woman who kept looking in my general direction as I stood in the back. Perhaps she sensed that I was out of place in the room. Throughout the con-service a few people threw their hands in the air (like they just didn't care) and kind of waved them around, cupped to the sky. I never learned that move in CCD. There was some clapping that went on. Not wanting to cause dissension I meekly clapped along and sheepishly sang along to the Karaoke lyrics on the big screen.

As I started contemplating leaving, the girl mentioned above, got out of her seat and stood next to me.

"Uh-oh," I thought. "She's going to try and convert me."

I had prepared the line I used when the Jehovah's witnesses came to our house. "It's OK. I believe." Luckily I didn't need to use it.

Like the organ meeting I went to earlier in the week, I started getting sucked into their vortex of praise. I thankfully had a meeting with a woman at Roland at 11:30 about their products, so I snapped some pictures and hastily walked down the aisle to the cool air, synthetic women and rockers.

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