Still Learning

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost and Mother’s Day with a brand new organ as part of the service. It is an electronic organ that delivered on its promise to sound like a pipe organ that it replaced. I was amazed as we listened to it for the first time. Someone said to me afterward, “You can even hear the air going through the pipes!” The fact is that you can hear the air going through the pipes because each note is a digital recording of a pipe organ. It is amazing!

Even more amazing to me was a conversation that I had with our organist on Monday morning. She had worked very hard to provide excellent music for us with only a short time to practice on the new organ since the final installation had only been completed at 2 p.m. on Saturday. As we talked she told me how excited she was to start taking lessons on the new organ. Her instructor was going to start coming to the church to give her lessons.

You might not think much about that, but we will celebrate this December her 40th anniversary as our organist. She has been an organist for 70 years. It is wonderful to see the excitement in her about learning new things. Made me reflect on that fact that many of us think that our learning is over when we finish school and that we know what we are doing. When I was teaching at the college level I always told my students that my goal was that I would inspire in them a desire to be lifelong learners. I couldn’t teach them enough in the short time we were together about the subject matter to make it relevant for the rest of their lives. They would have to continue to read and seek out knowledge in whatever field they decided to pursue.

In the 35 years that I have been a Christian, I have learned how little I really know. The more I learn the more I understand that I am only touching the tip of the possibilities. I read extensively and almost every book I read leads to at least one other book that I want to read. I am always looking for that tidbit of information that will make me a stronger disciple and disciple maker. Like my organist I want to continue to learn and be inspired so that I can find new ways of connecting to the world around me.

This week I have learned new things about an organ, been inspired by a woman to never think I know enough, and have grown more excited about the possibilities of what God has to teach me yet.