Just Sing & You'll Be Fed

We were all saddened at the news of Carolyn DeYoung's passing several days ago, more so since she was a new member at WHCC like us, having attended the 101 Class just one session before us, and we had no time to get to know her personally. It was a pleasure to sing at her funeral with Andy, Drew, and Kani, and I'm sure it was a comfort to Carolyn's family. We know from personal experience that it can be difficult to find singers at short notice, especially on a weekday morning, and often the music simply must be played from recordings. Matt did a splendid job delivering his message, and I have to say that we sounded great in the Chapel(we rocked the funeral). It's easy to sound good when you're singing with a music minister, a music major, and an opera singer. I was even adequate.

In one of my favorite movies, 'The Last Emperor,' there is a telling moment, when Pu Yi, the last emperor of China before takeover by the communists, languishes in a communist prison. He is a disgraced, broken man, having spent his young adulthood as a shiftless emperor-playboy, foolishly giving the Japanese control of Manchuria and indirectly promoting the death of many innocent Chinese people. Pu Yi is really little more than a child in a man's body. He is the epitome of what the Chinese socialists despise, his life having been one of lavish narcissism, waste, lost potential, greed. But instead of killing him, the communists keep him alive as an object lesson, and Pu Yi actually ends up being a spectacular example to the Chinese public, in their socialist eyes of course, of how to 'turn a life around.' After some miserable years of learning to be a simple gardener, and being a walking, breathing propaganda tool for his captors, Pu Yi, the one-time pampered puppet turned captive pawn, bitterly tells his prison commander "You have used me."

Political ideology aside, the prison commander is a wise, thoughtful, fatherly man, and he gently answers, "Yes. But is that so bad? ...to be useful?"

Our Father finds value, 'use' in us that is often the last thing we expect. Often, we become more useful to God only after we are broken, after we have thrown away our self-importance and false pride. It feels good to be useful to God, even in the most modest of ways, like singing at someone's funeral. And it is to WHCC's credit that Kani and I have been made to feel useful, accepted, 'plugged in,' in such an immediate way. That's the way it should be in God's church. It is my prayer that God finds more use of me, and my family, in our future walk.