listening

today i had a little panic attack because i thought i had forgotten how to read music. i haven't REALLY read music in years - most of what i do these days is nothing, and if i play the piano at all it's usually improvising, playing worship songs with chord sheets, or trying to remember how to play 'tarantella' at breakneck speeds. that middle part is tough to remember. but to think that i had forgotten something that was once such a vital part of me freaked me out a bit...so on my work papers, on top of all of my notes about the documentation i need to write and the usability tests i'm going to go over with my boss tomorrow, i started scribbling treble clefs and bass clefs and trying to remember "every good boy does fine" and all of that critical information. i think i remembered it accurately. but i really should get a piano, or just play one. i miss music. or being a part of making it. i'm jealous of guitar players who can just take it on the road, borrow someone's, grab it around a campfire or at a music store or a friend's house. but i guess it's better the piano than the alto sax or something. you don't find a lot of those lying (laying?) around.

we went on a retreat this weekend with all of our high school students. not all. 70 ish. it was really good. i didn't want to go at all. nothing seemed more tiring, and almost none of the girls in my small group were going...but i went anyway, pretty much because i didn't have any real reason not to except that i wanted to be lazy. so i went anyway, and it was good. i'm exhausted today of course, and i think it made me get a cold, which i hate. but i love talking to kids. i love meeting with the girls in my cabin and asking them questions and just listening. i can't believe the horrible things that happen in these kids' families. parents say awful, awful things to their children. i know i'm not getting the whole story, since i usually don't get to hear the parent's end of it, but telling your daughter that she's fat, or lazy, or stupid, or that she's never going to get married, or that you don't like her, or that she should try not eating for a while, is a lasting, devestating, destructive comment, regardless of context. it's really clear to me that parents are broken people too. talking to these girls makes me realize that there are a lot of broken people in the world, that very few parents have answers and know how to avoid doing damage in their relationships. people are hurt, and they don't know how to deal with it. it's hard to listen to. i had seven one-on-ones with girls on saturday and spent a lot of saturday night talking with them about families, and with the exception of one, there is a lot of lasting hurt there. it doesn't, somehow, just crush me to hear all of that. i know that God is working in these girls, and guys, and i believe that he can heal them and heal their parents. i guess it's because i get to see these kids' hurt but also be with them as they experience joy and friendship and sharing and healing. i wish their parents got to do some of that.