Finding the right voice

As you will know by now - from my Blog's name, if nothing else - I was a singer before all of this newness started. If you want an idea of the kind of thing I did, take a look at this (but please don't feel you have to!).

At work in a recital in Southern France in 2014

This was a real job, which took time and effort. I worked hard to keep my "instrument" in shape and have lost count of what I have spent on coaching over the years; I made sure I looked the part; and I studied for qualifications in both performance and teaching so I had credentials. I wasn't a big star and was by no means the best professional singer but I was (and continue to be) grateful to God for the gift of a voice I can use and that other people seem to enjoy hearing.

As I mentioned in a blog post last year, as I began to explore my call to ordination, it felt right to lay down any active pursuit of performing.  I don't regret this one bit but it has left me with a bit of a gap in my life. You see, for someone like me, the buzz of performing has huge power. I feel absolutely connected to God when I sing "properly" - like his Spirit is singing with me and in me. I also feel a connection to other people - not just those I might be singing with but also to those I am singing to. Live music is an experience shared by performer and audience alike and there is nothing quite like it.

Singing in church is very different, of course. I love it - particularly how the Spirit moves us as we sing our worship - but it is a different kind of buzz from that of performing.

I thought that I had dealt with all of this and was fine about it all until earlier this summer. I watched an ex-pupil and daughter of a close friend sing her first ever principal role - Annie in Annie the Musical (it doesn't get much more principal than that!). And watching her on stage, sensing her excitement at being there and seeing the buzz she was getting made me really gulp. I remember that feeling - the first moments of realising that this is something that could make you very, very happy. And it's wonderful. And you want more and more. And I had stopped....

I could have coped with this, except for the fact that two days later, SmallBoy and I went to watch Hamilton the Musical in the West End. This is an extraordinary show - full of spoken word and rap, as well as songs. And it is so well-done, with young and vibrant performers showing exactly why they deserve to be on that stage.

At one point in the second act, I found myself almost in tears. This was partly to do with just how fantastic it all was but it was more to with the fact that I watched the energy bounce between the performers; they crackled with excitement and sparkled with the exhilaration of it all. And in that instant, I knew exactly what that felt like and knew I was unlikely to experience it again.  And I found myself mourning the loss of it, as I had when I first felt God asking me to put it all down two or three years ago.

I have been examining these feelings since then. I know I'm not alone - a friend at college was a professional actress and 'gets it' like not many others could. We have both recognised how it can feel like a big loss.

Tomorrow evening, I will lead our Evensong service for the first time and I realised, as I practised the responses, that this will be first time the church will have heard me sing alone. Having noted this, I now need to let it go because this needs to be so much more than delivering a perfect performance. It's about me approaching God with all that I have and I am and offering it to him and leading the congregation in doing the same. However, I feel he is saying, more and more, that he made me with this gift and it is to be used to serve him and build his kingdom.

So I'm back on the performance vs worship tightrope again and need to find the new, right voice that brings the two together. I am sure that singing will be as much part of my future ministry as it was a part of my past performances and I simply need to keep listening to God to find out what that looks like in each church I find myself in.

After all, the buzz of performing is good but the buzz of following God's call is so much better...