I remember a specific moment of great happiness from my childhood. It was the day I learned I no longer had to sing at school.

I didn’t dread singing until fourth grade. The year I had my first crush, my first acknowledgement that boys and girls really were different, the first realization that what I did really mattered. There was such pain for me at that point in my life and every moment seemed like a new way of embarrassing myself. Thankfully fifth and sixth grade were better: just in time for the agony of junior high.

It was in that later time, that time of things starting to look up, that time in 5th grade that I was given one small reprieve from the increasing number of ways school inflicted pain on me: when our whole class marched down to the music room to sing. That one day when our singing teacher told us that we no longer had to come sing. I could hardly contain my excitement. Of course, I wasn’t alone. Most of the boys dropped out at that point.

There are fond memories of singing before that time. My favorite was learning “Fifty Nifty,” which to this day I use to remember all of the states in alphabetical order. But singing, for me, at 10 years old was about differentiation. It was about what girls and boys sounded like. And I was embarrassed of my pre-pubescent voice. I hated sounding like a girl.

Now, you could try to argue with Little Me and tell me that 10 year-olds aren’t supposed to sound like grown men. You could try and tell me that there is beauty in a child singing. And my grown feminist self could try arguing that sounding like a girl is no insult. It would all come to naught. I didn’t want my voice.

So I locked it away, the first chance I got.

It was nearly twenty years later that I took that key from my pocket, reached through the bars of the cell, and set myself free. I emerged with an entirely different voice. It actually has the depth that my child self longed for. But it is weak. Underused. For years, only released to sing along with Mark Kozelek, Eddie Vedder, and Mark Lanegan alone in the car.

Seminary and the birth of my daughter changed that.

Most frightening, however, is that now that I am learning how to sing, I am thrust into a role of song leader. Not by job, but by calling. And, pardon my French, but that scares the shit out of me.

Last week, I attended Everybody Sings! The 2012 Cranbrook Consultation on Music and Liturgy at Christ Church Cranbrook. It was an intense five days of worship, singing, and music education. I felt woefully unprepared and underskilled in the presence of professional musicians. Yet it affirmed everything I believed about worship and everything I believed about leadership. The voices, gathered in song, were not only beautiful, but so very much church.

Liturgy is meant to be sung. I get it now. I knew from seminary and personal study that was a truth. My mind got it. But the fear blocked the rest of me from understanding that.

So here I am. Nothing inspiring to say. Just me, in my office, planning liturgy for this weekend. Still humming and singing along to songs from last week. I know that I better get comfortable really soon because my voice is needed to sing

We walk his way.

We walk his way.

We walk his way.

We walk his way.