Contemplative Drumming

     Moving to Chicago has been good for me (Josh) on several levels. Lately I have been included in a small cluster of visual artists that live here in Rebaville. We are together opening a gallery space on Main Street here in Evanston. For the opening show, we are making 100 paintings and attempting to sell them for $100 each. Consequently, I am painting a lot right now. (www.evanstonatelier.com) And I haven’t done much painting in the last few years.

     Another thing is the drums. I used to play the drum kit, and then I didn’t. But this morning I played in the worship band in our meeting. It felt pretty good to be in on that kind of fun again (though I was a little rusty). As I was learning the songs in the hour before worship started, playing together with people that I don’t really know and have never played with before, I was tempted to worry. And I worried. And I felt stress about not keeping up with them or playing badly or dropping a stick (these are the things that stress a drummer, because they are pretty noticeable). But I kept trying to pray at the same time, and remind myself that the music I help to make is for God not those people who gather together. (Recently I heard a man say that our music, our attempts to “give” to God are but refrigerator art to God).

     So there I am trying to keep cool, and not get the nervous shakes (because that too is noticeable from behind the drums) and I remembered something from Thomas Merton that says something to the effect of, “just sitting still and paying full attention to God is really difficult” (again, not a direct quote). So if sitting still in the quiet and being attentive to God is tough for a Trappist Monk, then what am I even thinking trying to be attentive to God whilst beating cymbals and such?

     I can’t say that I had great success in contemplative drumming, but I do feel like it was a good exercise.