Making the most of every opportunity

 Spring semester at GIAL has a slightly more relaxed pace for me than the fall. My teaching load includes a number of distance-based classes, individualized directed studies with students, and supervising master's students as they write their theses. I don't have daily classroom teaching and preparation. This gives me time to focus on other important tasks, such as research, writing, speaking, and school committees.

This month I was honored to be invited to Simpson University, in Redding, California, to spend time with several classes. Over just a couple of days, I spoke to four different classes. In those presentations, we looked at poetry by Emily Dickinson and Rainer Maria Rilke, excerpts from Shusako Endo's novel Silence, and ideas gleaned from Japanese American artist Makoto Fujimura. Those passages and concepts framed our story of working in Papua New Guinea for over 12 years, and the bigger picture of music and arts in missions. We pray that some of those students were challenged by a glimpse beyond their own borders and experiences.

The classes I spoke to included:

• an upper-level Music Theory class;
• Theology in Context;
• Survey of World Musics; and
• a class that combines music and theology, looking specifically at issues of time.

For the class about time, we looked together at Ephesians 5:15-16:

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

I explained how different time felt to us while living in a Papua New Guinea village, and then played music from a bamboo flute music style that we learned while living with the Alamblak people (click here to listen). In that style, each of the five flutes plays just one pitch. It's impossible for any single flute to play the entire melody. But working together, with each flute sounding its pitch at just the right time, the song is brought to life. In the same way, none of us is the entire story that God is working out in this world. But when each of us is ready for the opportunities that come our way, that story moves forward.

I also think about that idea as we move through Lent. Reading the gospels, we see Jesus carefully making his way ever closer to Jerusalem, and his betrayal and death. Jesus made the best use of every opportunity during his ministry, pressing ahead at just the right pace, even when people around him wanted him to move faster, or in different directions. May we also learn to follow God's leading, being ready to make the most of every opportunity.

(Recommended reading: Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, by Makoto Fujimura)