Dealing with Change

The most prevalent thig on my mind this morning is yesterday, and in all honestly, I should have just let it go by now, and moved forward, but it stays with me. One thing you learn in a working environment is to deal with change as a positive thing and embrace it (blah, blah, blah). Well, what change is is personal. Sometimes change is a positive thing; sometimes it's a negative thing; and sometimes it's completely temporary and really nothing to be conerned about. When you factor in personal history, temperament, minset, and probably any number of other factors, how you react to any change is going to be 100% personal and likely nothing like the corporate gurus intend.

Let me interate the change I'm referring to. First, it was completely temporary. Yes, it's a was. Second, the person whose "fault" it can be best traced to wasn't even on the premises when it happened, but it all came out of a gross misunderstanding because the recipient of the bad information didn't understand what it actually meant. There are words that I personally avoid in conversation because I know they are very, very rarely true, and I make a solid attempt to always be truthful and accurate in what I say. These words are everybody and nobody. Can you really make a statement where "everybody" does something or "nobody" wants something? Sure, if you're talking about a predetermined group of people where both the speaker and the recipient are clear on who this group is. What if someone isn't clear? Well, this happens.

So I don't know if I've mentioned it before (I probably have), but I play in my church's praise band on Sunday mornings. What do I play? Well, in descending order of frequency, bass, guitar, drums, and piano, but for the moment, I'm primarily on guitar. Been doing it for nearly 4 years now, and it's become a real highlight of my week. This last week at some point, the church secretary (who is also the pastor's daughter) told the new youth pastor's wife that "everyone" was going to be out of town this weekend. Let's talk about "everyone" to each of these people.

The secretary has this view of "everyone:" her immediate or extended family and the normal leaders of the band. The youth pastor's wife assumed that since the topic of discussion of the moment was the praise band, "everyone" meant the members of the band. We already knew that this other girl would be leading; she told us several weeks before. I, at least, had also told her which of the three weekends she was leading that I wouldn't be there for. I told her weeks ago that I would be there yesterday. However, when the message from the youth pastor's wife was relayed that "everyone" was out of town, the youth pastor's wife assumed that no one out of the normal praise band was going to be there, to include myself and the current bass player, neither of which falls under the secretary's definition of "everyone."

So the message was relayed to this girl, who freaked and called all of her friends to find someone to back her up. She found a guy to play acoustic guitar on all of the songs she picked. They rehearsed that morning, and to top that off, they'd gotten candles and created this intimate, subdued environment for the worship service. Then, to her horror, both I and the bass player showed up, fully expecting to play.

Here's where I went wrong. You can see the setup. In retrospect, it was a complete misunderstanding, but you have to also understanding that at 10:25 Sunday morning, I didn't know anything before this point. I came in and was told that she was told I wasn't supposed to be there, and as such, she had planned around my not being there. I was a little thrown and asked why she thought I wasn't going to be there, and she told me that she was told that I was going to be out of town. Now, at the time, I felt she should have called me to make sure, but in all fairness, why would you do that? After all, I don't truly know the exact message she got, and how she interpreted it. Anyway, I was rather miffed by all this, because I get a lot out of playing with a group. To me, it borders on being therapeutic in nature because of my relationship to music.

That being a topic larger in scope than this situation, I'll move on. I apparently looked pretty angry, because I was twirling my guitar stand in one hand and standing confrontationally. This girl's husband and the pastor came over and stood there to make sure "I didn't do anything," as the Queen put it. Now, I'm not a violent person, and needless to say, I didn't react in any way except being upset, but it's that part of the day that I feel the worst about. After all, I don't want to create a negative relationship with anyone, and with this person, I've likely managed to do just that.

Well, after this, I was unable to enjoy the praise & worship part of the service, since all I saw was a guitar player out playing me. He was really good, and since I really only started playing guitar in the last year, his skill was nothing I could match. Maybe it's childish, but during the service, I felt replaced. Add to that the confrontation before service, and that we haven't really had anyone to play guitar in recent history meaning that it's fairly non-essential, and I could be in for one "maybe we don't need you anymore" kind of time. My skills aside, people don't want to deal with someone who is trouble, and that's what I'm shaping out to be.

So here I sit on Monday morning, regretting yesterday, and hoping that when I carry my guitar in next Sunday that it won't just sit unused again.