More Cohesive Reflections

Home from a week with San Jose Youth Symphony kids at their overnight camp, I’ve come away with more reflections. Almost directly after spending a month and a half in East Oakland with good old East Oakland folk, I spent a week at a retreat center in Felton near Santa Cruz with orchestra kids, their counselors, and conductors. The disparity between the two populations is huge, and I got to experience such a dramatic shift in such a short time in one summer.

Classical music is such a privilege and luxury. To have the time or interest, let alone the money, to pursue playing a classical instrument indicates big time privilege that is unfortunately unappreciated and undermined. Watching these kids rehearse all week, I wondered and imagined what it would look like if we gave every kid in inner city Oakland a violin. The image was foreign. But I guessed that lots of them would excel and showcase hidden musical brilliance. It’s just too bad that most of them will never receive the opportunity or the support.

I also learned that my made-of-dust body will easily consume my fickle mind. All week, I made a conscious effort to intercede for the CSEC I had learned about and seen during BAyUP, even in the midst of duties and responsibilities to the camp. The second to last night, we held an all-nighter during which I didn’t get any sleep; I spent the last day organizing and tying loose ends before leaving the camp. By the end, I could think of nothing but getting home and crashing. This morning I realized that in the last two days, the thought of raped and abused children had completely evaporated from my mind. No conscious thought of them at all. I was fatigued; it’s understandable, but I long for continued transformation, that my person would be one that is constantly conscious of the things the Lord is conscious of. I also take away that because I am finite, I need to grow in my discipline of rest. It is the only way.

Meeting up with different friends is such a blessing because in sharing with them my experiences and convictions, I get to process and reflect over and over, with growing confirmation of those convictions each time that I share. I only wish that I had a few more days at home, but I move back to Berkeley tomorrow.

But I’ll continue to seek rest in the Lord, wherever I am geographically. And wow, I’m in such a place of growing, receiving, absorbing. What grace. Again, I dare pray for more authority, that the weapon I am would be potent.

Monday Aug 8 @ 01:30am
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  1. shelajeong posted this


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