Like any willing member of the Church, I have held any number of callings over the years. I’ve been everything from an elders quorum president to a nursery leader. (Seriously; in the same ward. I joked at the time that nursery leader is what they call failed elders quorum presidents to serve. Now I’m not so sure it was a joke.)
I’ve come to find that certain callings are celestial, while others are simply eternal. I think you know what I’m talking about.
Question: how many wards have you lived in where it seems some people get called into an organization over and over again? Think about it. Scout leaders are generally marked for life. They’re the ones with one whole wall of their garage dedicated to camping gear. Likewise that one sister in the ward who can’t seem to escape the black hole of the Primary. She just gets called, over and over, rotating between presidency and teaching positions. They retire her when the Sunbeams are about as tall as she is. She’s the only lady in the ward who can’t recite the Relief Society motto. Instead of “Charity Never Faileth,” for her it’s “Primary is Forever.”
The bishop’s counselor and I had a fun chat last night. He talked about the challenges connected with calling people to serve in different positions. He admitted that, while the Spirit definitely takes a hand in pointing the bishopric in the right direction, there certainly do seem to be those callings that are considered “pigeon-hole” callings for certain people.
Music callings are my particular pigeon-hole. It runs in the family. My sainted mother sat at the organ Sunday after Sunday pretty much the entire time I was growing up. Even when she was serving in other callings they were loathe to give up her keyboarding prowess. Over time that calling grew into other duties as well. She and Dad became musical fixtures in the Simi Stake where I grew up. They were at the center of nearly every musical activity sponsored by the stake over the years, including not a few musical stage productions.
Dad, for his part, was the eternal ward choir director. Also the Sacrament chorister. This is where Dad got his training for becoming a High Priest later; he would sit on the stand every Sunday, and began wearing dark glasses so as not to be so obvious when he nodded off during the meeting.
With Mom and Dad being so musically gifted, it naturally followed that some of their offspring would be drafted into the service. My first music calling in my ward was as a chorister in the Sunday School, back in the day when it had its own meeting time and included the sacrament. Dad was Ward Music Chairman at the time, and he concocted the idea of using Sunday School as a training ground for young choristers and pianists to learn how to perfect the craft for future callings in Sacrament Meeting.
By age 17 I was conducting my first Stake Youth Choir. This was a by-product of the old “services and activities” committees that were designed to find something for kids to do instead of sneaking pot into the bathroom at school. (This was the 70′s and I know whereof I speak. Not that I ever participated, of course!)
Between my mission and my first marriage, I served as music chairman both at the ward and the stake level. Shortly after I married my first wife, we moved to another stake where members of the church go who wish to hide from Salt Lake. Since I wasn’t there to hide it didn’t take long (about two Sundays, generally) for our new ward to notice that we could sing. That leads to being drafted into the choir, which ultimately leads to being called as the choir director when the previous choir director begins their stay at Happy Acres Resort and Rest Home.
Of course I love music callings. It’s in the blood, so to speak, and I can’t not be who I am. But what, you might ask, are my celestial callings? Teaching callings. My very first calling as a newly married man (before they caught on to my mad choir skillz) was Course 12 in Sunday School. They suggested I bring my machete to class in case they got a bit unruly. Truthfully, though, I loved that class. I’ve loved every class I’ve ever taught, and I’ve had my share of challenging classes.
Naturally I try to teach in my music callings as well. The problem there is, I don’t bring much to the calling besides some innate talent to wave my arm in time, and a better-than-decent ear. Theory-wise I am horribly unschooled. I can talk smack when it comes to hemiolas and melismas, but please, please don’t ask me what key we’re in. Couldn’t tell you. Maybe this time around I’ll go back and brush up on some of that basic stuff.
So teaching callings come and go. They just released me from the Stake Sunday School presidency where we had served just short of three years. It was a wonderful, if anonymous, calling. But timing is everything in life, and it just so happens that both our ward and our stake music chairs are leaving in short order to serve missions with their hubbies. It was even money as to who would talk to me first, and the ward won.
Fun facts:
1. I have served as Priesthood Chorister in every ward I’ve lived in since I was 16. I have yet to be set apart for it. Ever.
2. There’s actually been only one ward in my adult life where I did not serve as choir director. That was the first ward (Santa Susanna 5th) where I lived as a newly married man. We simply weren’t in the ward long enough for them to retire the old director and toss me in there. At least, that’s my theory.
3. Although I’ve only served as Stake Music Chair in two out of the four stakes where I’ve lived, I have conducted stake choirs in all four of them by assignment.
4. As many people have said over the years, “They’ll keep calling me to this until I get it right!” Maybe this time I’ll actually get it right.
