jill.musick

After a wonderful Christmas at home with family and friends, I boarded a plane and headed back to my other home in Germany.

At the staff breakfast, interim director Phil Peters passed the baton (literally and figuratively) to the new director, Scott Jones. In his opening speech to the staff and faculty of BFA, he challenged us to give ourselves grace in failure. Failure is in fact a part of learning; we cannot grow without making mistakes. Thomas Edison said of failure, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” Giving ourselves permission to fail allows us the freedom to try new techniques and strategies, to improve our craft as teachers.

The only way we can succeed is to be willing to fail. The only way to be strong is to admit weakness. We can in fact boast in weakness.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

In church today the sermon was about God’s strength in weakness. Pastor Markus Gulden encouraged us that in our sorrow we discover God’s grace. We often think that God uses us in spite of our weakness, but instead, he can use us because we are weak. We are not heroes, but willing tools in the hand of the master Craftsman.

This year is a season of discovering God’s grace in my weakness. The theme for the school year is “Only Grace.” This Friday’s chapel speaker talked about “Do-overs” – we all want a second chance to succeed. God gives us that second chance by His grace.

In teaching my guitar class, I am vulnerable with the students – I let them know that I am not an experienced guitar player; as I admit my weaknesses and failures in my attempts to learn guitar, they gain a freedom to also make mistakes as they learn a new instrument. In some ways this year, my greatest weakness has become my greatest strength. My weakest subject is guitar because I only had a semester class in college. Yet God has given me an incredible amount of opportunities to speak into the lives of my guitar students! In allowing myself to admit my weakness, fail a few times, and re-learn how to learn a new instrument, God has worked something powerful in my life and in the lives of my students (while having a great time!).

Guitar Class at the Christmas Concert:

This week we started a new semester; I have a new group of guitar students. Some are nervous about failing, others are afraid their fingers won’t be coordinated, others think they don’t have any rhythm. But all of us will work hard and boast in our weaknesses as we learn and grow together. Hopefully we will all catch a glimpse of God’s power this semester!

What is a life in two worlds? When am I truly awake? When I’m “there,” my family is a picture tacked on the wall, taunting me with the hollow echo of memories. My younger self smiles at me as if to say it was all a dream, “there” is my reality.

When I’m “there,” my reality is music, teaching, hills, castles, coffee, darkness, light. When I’m “here,” my reality is living breathing family, friends, church, and flat hard ground. Mom’s hugs, Dad’s theological lectures, David’s radioactive hair, Erich’s sweet ride. When I’m “here,” the friends of “there” are relegated to dreams and shadowy Skype conversations.

When I’m “there,” I try to hold on to “here” because my roots are “here.” My sense of being, my identity was “here.” All that molded my life for 22 years was “here.”

But what of the fantastical journey of “there,” which seems so dream-like and distant now? Surely my identity has taken on a new flavor in a new place. Now the tables are reversed. Now I am “here,” but I cling to fading bits of “there.” As comforting as “here” is, my heart longs for the adventure, the unknown, the discovery of “there.”

But it won’t be long before “there” becomes “here.” I’m not sure how  I feel about that.

Home is where the heart is; my heart is not in a place any more or it would be torn in two.

My home is in Christ. From the safety of His arms, I can move from “here” to exotic “there,” never feeling lost or losing my identity, my security, my home.

The last month has flown by. Between Christmas parties, concerts, travel, and spending quality time with friends old and less old, I haven’t had time to blog! I’ll try to give a brief update of all the Christmas events at BFA.

Christmas Banquet (in November) is a chance for students and staff to dress up and eat a nice meal together. Guys are impressed by the girls’ hair…

Orchestra Christmas Party – All the orchestras met together to eat pizza, watch the original Grinch movie, exchange white elephant gifts, and play sculpting charades.

Emily and I got a Christmas tree from a farm in Sitzenkirch. We picked out the 10 year-old tree and the farmer cut it down for us!

Some staff members had a Pinterest Christmas Party to share recipes and enjoy some good food.

Nursing home – the High School Orchestra played at a local nursing home. Vivaldi’s Winter was the highlight!

Emily and I had a Christmas party for our small group. The girls decorated our Christmas tree, made gingerbread cookies, cut snowflakes, watched part of the newer Grinch movie, and did another white elephant gift exchange. It was a blast!

Paper snowflakes from the small group party decorate my office:

Kandern’s Christmas market was smaller this year than in years past. It was only open one day before I left. Emily and I went and roasted bread on a stick, then sang Christmas carols by candlelight.

The last Friday of classes was entertaining. There was hot chocolate before school, kids wore pajamas to class, the song “Friday” was blasted over the intercom between every passing period, and a couple students gave the announcements. Orchestra practiced in the auditorium to get ready for the Christmas concert. It was a convenient place for a Christmas tree photo!

On that Saturday, the entire school went to Freiburg to do Christmas shopping at the Christmas Market downtown.

         
Christmas Concert day finally arrived. I took up 2 chairs with all my stuff! The concert went really well. Marit’s beginners had great posture and have learned a lot in a semester! Guitar class played comical selections such as Rudolph and Feliz Navidad. One of my students had the entire audience in stitches when she told the story of Rudolph. The Intermediate Orchestra has made lots of progress, especially since lots of them were beginners last year!  High School Orchestra had a more mature sound and wowed the audience by playing  Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ from “The Four Seasons.” You can see part of the High School Orchestra’s performance here.

The night before I flew out, Kara Stuckey gave a masterclass for the students. Kara is the daughter of Peggy Stuckey, the previous string teacher at BFA. A friend of hers also gave a talk on string quartets and explained Rondo form in a creative way. It was an instructive and enjoyable evening.

Thursday morning, December 15, I took a picture of the countdown board and headed off for home!

In guitar class, I assigned a song-writing project. All of the kids put effort into this – a song is something very personal because it has to come from your heart, they told me. Some of them had wonderful melodies in their head, but they couldn’t find a beat. Others had a rhythm that fit well with their words, but they couldn’t find a melody. Others had everything all figured out – except they had no idea how to write it down on staff paper!

Though it was a challenging project, I was pleased with the results. Here is a song a student wrote based on 1 Corinthians 13. I put selected verses from 1 Corinthians so you can hear how her song lyrics matched with the chapter.

1 Corinthians 13 from Jill Musick on Vimeo.

Last week the topic of forgiveness came up in 1st period devotions. ‘I need to know more about the importance of forgiveness. How to let go of bitterness built up against another.’

During one class period, I read the story of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. As a class, we discussed who each character represented. The master was God, the first servant is us, and the second servant is anyone we need to forgive. In this parable, the master and servant are asked to forgive debts. We usually don’t have lots of debts against one another, but we do hold other things against people. The first step in forgiving someone else is counting the cost. What did the person take from you? If not money, did they take your pride? Your reputation? Your time? Energy? In order to forgive the person, you have to acknowledge what they took from you and absolve them of all responsibility to pay you back.

During the next devotional time, we all took pieces of paper and wrote on the top the “cost” – what we have been holding against another person, or what they took from us. Then I read Ephesians 5:4  and said that we tend to verbally abuse someone if we are angry with them, but rather than crude joking or foolish talk we should be thankful. So on the bottom part of the sheet of paper, we all wrote down a “thankful” list – things about the other person or the situation. Then I encouraged everyone to, in their own time and place, get rid of the half of paper with bitter thoughts on it, and when tempted to be angry with a person they should remind themselves of the “thankful” list.

We are to give thanks in all circumstances, including when someone has offended us or hurt us. No matter the offense, our deepest gratitude can stem from the forgiveness and grace He has already given us in Christ!

Living in Europe, it’s not hard to have multicultural meals. One time we had French toast with Canadian syrup, Irish butter, and Costa Rican coffee made in a French press. We regularly get French and Swiss foods at the grocery store (in addition to German products) since the countries are so close. But this month, we’ve been eating entire meals from different continents!

Last Wednesday, the small group girls cooked a Korean dinner for us. Delicious! We had soup, egg on rice, tuna patties, and fried mushroom patties. It’s impossible to describe the flavor – just trust me that it tasted good!

For Independent Living class (basically Home Ec), a couple kids cooked an Italian dinner for us last Monday. We had tortellini tomato soup, pasta carbonara, and (not Italian) lemon angel food cake.

On Friday I was craving Mexican food, so I made Chipotle burritos. It was amazing. It may technically be American food, but either way it’s international!

Today, a Dutch student came over and cooked Chinese food (she grew up partly in China, so she knew how to make it the real way). I don’t remember the names – she said they translated to things like “Vegetable with thinly sliced meat” and “Vegetable with square meat.”

Then we made caramel apples and tried to eat them with chopsticks. That was humorous.

Maybe we should make some German food since we’re living in Germany…..

Learning a new language can be a daunting task. It’s fun to watch Emily take her first steps toward learning German. She’s taking several good actions, such as going to German church to be immersed in the sound of the language.

She recently bought a children’s story book. It’s a good place to start! We enjoyed reading about Frederick der Maus. Once we were done with cute mice telling stories about summer days, we moved on to German history. Actually, I moved on while Emily continued to look at the pictures in the Frederick book.

Keep it up, Emily – one day you’ll understand the stuff in my book (even if I read it in an Alemannisch accent)!

Saturday was the 2nd Music Recital of the fall. Music recitals give our students a chance to perform their polished pieces on stage for family, friends, and dorm staff.

I opened the recital by reading from 1 Corinthians 4:

⁵For what^(O) we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with^(P) ourselves as your servants^[b] for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For God, who said,^(Q) “Let light shine out of darkness,”^(R) has shone in our hearts to give^(S)the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in^(T) jars of clay,^(U) to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Musical instruments are like jars of clay. The instrument itself isn’t very impressive, but the music that comes out of them displays the treasures of musicianship, practice, and skill. Students performing at the recital gave the audience the treasure of music using unimpressive instruments. Pianos, violins, cello, trumpet and voices became the simple backdrop for beautiful music.

Our lives are much the same. When we have an unimpressive appearance, the treasure of Christ in us looks that much more impressive. When God does a great work through a great person, others often credit that person with doing something amazing. But when God does a great work through humble, insignificant people (jars of clay), He gets all the credit.

I am a jar of clay. Use my simple life to display Your power and glory, Lord!

What is hope?

In the Old Testament, there were several different words that we translate into “hope.” Some of the definitions include:

• Eager Anticipation
• Object of Longing
• Confidence
• Trust
• Something waited for
• To confide in
• To trust
• To wait

The Greek, however, had only 2 words for hope:

• “to expect or confide; thing hoped for, trust”
• “to anticipate with pleasure; expectation or confidence

Nowadays we use “hope” to mean “thing I want to happen in the future” or “to wish for.” In religious contexts, hope and faith become these magic words – “Everything will be ok – I have hope!” But using the words like this will not help us in reality. They may make us feel good about a bad situation, but they will not change the situation.

What can we hope in? What can we have faith in? If we take the “wait” definition of hope, imagine you are waiting for a bus. It is reasonable to wait for the bus and hope that it will come on time. If the bus is reliable, it will come approximately on time and bring you to your destination at the intended time. Let’s say, though, that you are waiting for a bus; you check the schedule and suddenly realize the next bus isn’t due for another 45 minutes! It would be folly to “hope” that the bus would come early. You were trusting in a bus that was not going to come.

What if we do that in real life? Let’s say a close family member is sick with cancer. Can your hope make this person better? It sounds good to say “hold on to hope,” but is hope itself able to rescue you?

“Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him” – Ps. 42:5

If our hope is in God, we can wait on Him. He is the trustworthy One who will always come right on time.

“But those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength;  they will mount up with wings like eagles’; they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be faint.” – Is. 40:31

We cannot wait on our circumstances to have joy. Our circumstances may never improve. Rather, we wait on God and we will have joy in whatever the circumstance.

One excellent example of a man who waited on God rather than his circumstances is Chinese Pastor Zhang Rongliang. Last Sunday was the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church; as my roommate Emily and I were praying for various persecuted Christians in the world, we came across this man’s story. During his time in prison, many Christians around the world worked to get him out. He, however, said he was “glad they failed” because his time in prison gave him the unique opportunity of reaching people with the Gospel, since prison ministries are not allowed! If his hope were in freedom, this man would be depressed. Yet his hope is in God, so his imprisonment became fodder for thankfulness.

Where is your hope? Do you have hope in God that leads to thankfulness?