This week has been really hectic! I've had four 15+ hour days since Monday. I would leave the house at 6 AM and be gone the rest of the day. I am doing things i enjoy and love to do, though! I just wish they wouldn't stack up all at the same time.

Anyway, I could use some help in the prayer department for several items.

1. I have been contemplating since last weekend about a possible full-time position at the college I'm teaching at now. It was actually advertised, but I found out about it first in an email for the department chair. I've had discussions with some folks at the school and elsewhere, and I'm going to submit my application. Since I'm only 2 hours away from full-time right now, it would be a fairly easy transition. Besides, the pay would be close to $40,000 per year, plus benefits. I could live with that for a while.

2. A student of mine told me yesterday that they would be out of town for a rehearsal we had set up for their high school horn quartet that they are playing at contest. Her uncle, Rogellio, will be undergoing triple by-pass surgery on Saturday morning. She was quite upset about it.

3.I've been asked to consider two positions at a national summer music festival for high school and college students. They pay for everything, including transportation, and a generous stipend. It would mean being available to teach there at a later date. I'll be talking with someone on the staff at a music educators' conference on Saturday afternoon.

4. I've also been asked to consider teaching a course, online, this summer at the community college. The nice thing about the course is that I don't have to be there.

5. Last, I've been asked to serve on an imprompu committee at the school to work on recruitment materials to begin attracting more students -- especially band students who want to keep up with playing during their fitst years in college.

I will appreciate the prayer help. There's lots to consider and contemplate...and worry about.


PEACE!
Nancy

Nancy, we will certainly be in prayer regarding all the requests you listed. The full-time position sounds exciting. However, if you accept that full-time position are there other things that you can forego or even things you can give up in order to give your body and your spirit some sabbath rest? You simply cannot go for 15 hours a day and expect to be healthy. After a while your body or your soul will simply say "Enough, give me a break!"

Oops, maybe I've gone from preaching to meddling. Unfortunately, I have seen too many people ruin their health to advance their careers.

Consider one full-time job and some quiet restful time in the summer nude by the pool.

Hopeful

Hopeful,
Yes, I've considered the fact that if I was to take a full-time position at the college I would need to jettison some other responsibilities, namely all-day sectionals, etc. I would keep my private horn students and be selective about taking on any others, i.e. they'd have to be serious about what they were doing and really work for me. There is one high school that I'd like to keep a presence at for masterclasses each week. The band directors there are very supportive, one of them will be serviing as a reference for the position, and the kids are hard workers. Any other "sectional-type work" would have to be done in the form of masterclasses -- coming in once or twice on a contract basis to work with the kids. That's once or twice a year. As the only music instructor at the college who had first-hand knowledge of the band programs in the area it is important that I maintain some kind of relationship with them because it will certainly help in the fledgling recruiting process we are about to start. That's all in anticiptation of the new fine arts building that has been approved via a bond election in November. If the school is to offer courses in music theory, history etc. that can transfer to a four year school for music majors, then we need to get serious about having some kind of ensemble -- brass, woodwind, or a band of some sort.

PLEASE meddle and preach all you want, though. I need someone to keep reminding me that something will have to give. Trust me, I certainly have felt the effects of long days. Yesterday afternoon I was supposed to go to this music conference, or should have, but gave it up for a chance to relax and take a nap. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm not as young as I used to be. I get grouchier the long the day goes.

Thanks for the prayers. I'll keep you updated. Oh, and summers nude by the pool sounds like a mere fantasy at the moment. But let's hope I can do it.

PEACE!
Nancy

Nancy,

I lost one of my two jobs a week or so ago, but I was working 15 or 16 hours a day, much of it on the road in heavy traffic.

You can only keep up that pace so long before you mind and body rebel.

My remaining job may be reducing my income a bit, but I am actually getting some rest, getting organized and beginning to think about exercising my body again, getting involved in church, etc...

You have quite a load on your plate and you are asking for more? Ambitious!

But it is said, if you want something done and done right, give it to a busy person.

Let your student know that triple bypass surgury is so common it's almost an In and Out procedure. I think he will be fine. My dad went through that and is fine.

I was thinking about your blessing of work you love to do and realize that as an "artist", you are doing what God wants you to do. To add something to your personal reading material, I ran across a book that has a lot of great stuff in it.

The Creative Call "An Artist's Response to the Way of the Spirit" by Janice Elsheimer.

I love the explanation or metaphor on page 73 under The Creator, The Spirit, and the Word: "I see God the Father as the Artist or Creator, Jesus as the expression of God's creativity, and the Holy Spirit as the source of inspiration for that which is created."

Taking the Genesis account, where the spirit was hovering, brooding, over the waters, until the darkness was conquered by God's words: "Let theire be light". God the Creator, the spirit was both there from the beginning. Both were at the creative process. But was Jesus there too? According to John, yes, he was there, and he was God. He was the word that spoke, "Let there be light".

I also noticed that when God said "Let us make man in our image and in our likeness", he was speaking of all three. Not just in bodily form, but in the creative process. As creator, being inspired by the holy spirit and speaking the word. We have all three elements within us that helps us carry out the work of God with our talents and abiblities. You don't have to be an artist or musician, you can be anything that God made you to be, but it is to do HIS work. And that IS OUR WORK TOO.

Notice a child playing using their imagination. It is the way a child "works". We call it play, but they are sometimes in their minds working just as hard as you are. In fact, they are probably working harder. That is what God called them to do. That is why they are so free and able to do wonderful things. They are not afraid to tell the world the work they have done.

Why are we? When did we decide that what we did as a child is no longer work? When we read "As a child we did childish things, but when we became adults, we put away our childish ways"? I don't think that applies here, because Jesus said we must be like little children in order to be in the Kingdom. What does that mean?

Be open to the calling God has called you to. We must listen to the spirit of inspiration.

On page 77 of this book: "Second Timothy 3:16 begins, 'All Scripture is inspired by God' (RSV). The word that is translated here as 'inspired by God' is theopneustos, which litereally means 'God-breatedh' in the Greek. To receive inspiration means 'to breathe in the spirit'. Inspiration is God's breath taken into ourselves. God wants to breath his createve life into us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We need simply to accept the gift."

She explains that our talents are not just a little gift that we use on occasion after the "important" work is done as a little reward. No, it IS our WORK!

Keep listening to the spirit, Nancy, but also listen when the spirit says "Take some quiet time" (preferably at a resort, especially this July here with us...ok, maybe that won't qualify as "quiet" but you get the idea)

Boyd Allen
"May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may he allow us to be seen by those who will."

Boyd,
Thanks for the suggestion of the book. I'll get it.

Going along with your thought, I've always thought of God as
the conductor of the orchestra, and I'm one of the members.
He conducts us and uses Jesus as the soloist who shines
brighter than any of us because of what He did for us. And of
course the spirit's there seeing us through the performance.

Just a thought.
Nancy