Reflections on 2020: Carol Ayres

Hey everyone,
welcome back to our ongoing series through Lent, Reflections of 2020.
Today we are grateful to have an educator with us,
someone to help us look through the
lens of what it was like to try and guide students during a time when things were different
for all educational institutions and as well as that someone we know well,
Carol Ayers with an incredible background in music,
both at the academic institution and in the church.
And so I’m interested in this part of the conversation that has to do with music, not
something I would have thought of,
Michael, but some interesting detours through what
happened in the musical world because of COVID and what changed for them,
which I think is
a pretty interesting side note.
There’s some really interesting themes interwoven into the conversation that you might not initially
think about, but music was clearly one of the early conversations about COVID and whether
it could or could not happen and musicians that are used to performing live had to radically
switch into far different contexts.
And there’s an interesting crossover that happens both in the musical world and in the
way that that music actually comes into our worship in the church.
And so it’s fun when we get to talk with Carol,
who is both established as an educator and a musician herself,
but also someone who loves and serves the church and those two things
come together.
And I think in a really organic and interesting conversation and of course,
anyone who knows Carol knows whenever you sit down with her,
you’re going to notice and appreciate her optimism,
her creativity,
her just drive to continue to do things well,
even in difficult times.
And I think that that pervades the conversation today.
Yeah, obviously, we are very thankful to have Carol in the congregation and to have her do
what she does for our music programs,
for bells, for all the time she’s helped us find
singers and musicians for different services and for the passion she brings to that,
no less the passion that she brings to her educational tasks.
And we are grateful that she would take the time to sit down and share her reflections
with us and we hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for being back with us today.
Our guest is well known,
familiar face around First Press.
Carol Ayers has been our music director,
well known in the community.
Iowa Lakes,
certainly.
Carol, we appreciate you being with us.
So in your world,
as you think back on COVID,
again, one of the themes we’ve been hearing is how
everything changed so quickly for people.
Not a lot of lead time,
but all of a sudden,
everything’s different as a music teacher,
as a college educator.
Walk us through that process,
what you remember of,
what kind of warnings you got,
what kind of scramble took place in that initial timeframe to try and figure out what do we do next.
Yeah, it was crazy.
The problem with us is we were getting ready for spring break.
And so at the college,
and we were getting ready for our spring musical,
and so spring break happened and we collectively,
as a faculty, were trying to get the administration to make.
And I’m not saying anything badly about our administration,
but if the students are not
going to come back,
tell them now so they can take stuff with them.
But nobody really thought it was that big of a deal.
But in that,
from Friday afternoon till the following Friday afternoon,
the world shut down and our kids went home without stuff.
So I felt really bad for our students because some of them went far away on trips and didn’t
really take winter clothes home with them.
I mean, all those kinds of things.
And I’m really close with my students and everything was locked down in our musical.
We got to practice one day of spring break and the next day it was done.
We were supposed to open up the brand new auditorium.
Done.
Everything was just shut down.
And we were supposed to be ramping up for Lent and Easter and done.
No music.
It was really odd.
So how did that initial transition happen?
Was there some thought at Iowa Lakes that this would be temporary or did they move toward
we won’t be having students back on campus?
Did that happen fairly quickly or did that happen over some time?
We extended our spring break for just two or three days.
And then we said we were going to go virtually for a couple of weeks.
That’s what, I mean, you know, everybody said two to four weeks.
And so we figured we would be back at school,
you know, for the last couple of weeks of
school and you could have those all those final projects and finals face to face and
do those last minute concerts and all that kind of stuff.
And then it just never happened.
So what does what does online music education look like?
Again, one of the things that we are hearing as we talk to people is not only did
everything happen quickly, but all of a sudden everyone was sort of thrust into trying to
develop new skill sets,
utilize new tools for the for the most part.
It wasn’t just simply an extension of what we were already doing.
It was reinventing the wheel in many cases.
What did that look like in your world?
Well, for me,
I had been teaching online since 2000.
I was one of the first college people who did music online.
I don’t understand technology,
but I’m not afraid to try it.
Gotcha.
And so we should talk about that sometime because what they made me do with
music to begin with was just silly.
But anyway,
so for me, switching my regular classes over
wasn’t that big of a deal.
But you can’t have rehearsals even still today online.
You see these beautiful choir things and these wonderful band things.
They’re paying somebody a lot of money to put those clips on this screen.
So we just met for band.
We just met.
We had we met once a week.
We zoomed.
Today, you’re in charge of putting together a silly game tomorrow.
Then next week, you’re in charge of doing something.
So they made cahoots online.
And we just just so we still had that relationship.
There is no way.
You know, I can’t say to them,
we’ve got this big grand opening.
So keep playing your horns.
But you can’t do that together online.
So that was really that was the biggest thing.
My my face to face classes went just right on on Zoom.
And I already have all the stuff online because
I’m one of those faculty people.
If the basketball team is gone yesterday, which they were,
I allow them to make it up online.
They can do it on the bus.
They can do it when they get home.
So my stuff is already online.
I mean, they can do it with me.
They can do it on their own.
So I know a lot of people were scrambling.
But for me, it was just an extension of some of the things
you’d already done.
Yeah, I just had to move stuff and open stuff up.
And it wasn’t nearly that horrible for me because I had already been doing it for 20 years.
Right. So what does the summer look like?
I know that you have done online the summer,
even in past years,
right?
So that wouldn’t be different.
But I mean, as you were thinking,
OK, fall is going to come
and we do have instruments,
we do have singers,
we write.
So is that you looking to the industry to help you figure out
what the next steps are or,
Carol, what does it look like as you tried to plan
for what the new normal would be in the fall?
We were really blessed,
I guess, to say that
we had some leaders in in the big universities
who had the insight to get us all organized.
OK, like like internationally,
the music world organized.
Vocally.
The opera companies,
the high school choirs,
the you name it,
band, string groups, we all came together and raised close to a million dollars
from all of our professional associations,
you know,
and we did three.
I didn’t, but I’m a member of many of those associations.
We did three major studies on aerosols.
We did one in Colorado where they have the best aerosol testing
in the United States.
There was one test done in Boston,
which is the second best place.
And they did one in Vienna.
They just they test aerosols,
but they tested aerosols.
They brought in people playing horns and singing and and did all that.
And so we started having national
Zoom meetings and webinars
in March,
the end of March.
I mean, boom, they got it put together and and they told us
what was going to happen.
And we should expect this out the first of June.
And then we should expect it out first of July.
And then it finally came out at the end of July.
And that’s when they said,
you know, you can have you can mask yourself while you’re playing,
you can mask your horn.
You can,
you know, certain instruments are not good.
And they came up with these weird plastic bags to put over saxophones
and clarinets because we have air holes, you know.
And then they realized those were just covid bombs,
because if you blew into this bag
and then, you know, some middle school kid has covid and they don’t know it
and they fold this bag up.
So they decided that those bags were not a good idea,
but, you know, they had to do some experiments on that.
So, yes, so we’ve evolved, but they’ve got the singers
masks that stick way out.
But that way, you know, and we’ve got these masks
that you stick your mouthpiece through.
And then when you’re not playing,
it falls down over your.
You know, it’s just crazy.
And we have masks for our horns and we’re sitting
six feet apart this way and six feet apart this way,
unless if you’re a trombone player and then you have to be
nine feet away because they extend six feet.
I mean, not really, but they extend out three feet.
So anyway, so we have all these rules we have to follow and it’s it’s crazy.
But we at least had the.
Professional organizations giving us mandates.
I shouldn’t say mandates suggestions.
Yeah. And did that community of music people writ large,
which I’m sure is more nuanced than what you can just sort of.
Briefly overview, but I mean, was there largely a unified voice
on that people largely got on board or was that a pretty significantly divided?
No, I think they got on board because it was the,
you know,
that church choir in Seattle was it that got the terrible press right off the bat,
you know, we thought music was going to be done,
you know, organized music was going to be done.
And so I think more people I’m sure there’s still people who don’t want to do it,
but more people rallied around it.
And I can tell you the Iowa Band,
the Iowa Bandmasters, which is another group I’m part of,
we were definitely part of it.
And the band director from the University of Iowa,
he was already on this big.
Oversight committee for the National Band Association
and Iowa Band Association and all those kind of things.
And so he was one of the leading guys on the on this covid.
Team, I don’t know how to say it,
but so, yeah, we met and I know Brett,
our vocal guy, he was meeting with the choir people.
We met as band people because you kind of got to divide groups up.
Otherwise, you have such a big group.
It’s not so the college band directors met the Iowa Band Directors met.
So we were having meetings about once a week or every other week,
all from the end of March clear.
We still have them.
I had one Monday night just to talk about how is it working for you?
Did this work OK?
And we want music to continue.
So it’s interesting, you know, other than concerts and venues of professional music,
the places where people probably experience live music, the most often
churches and schools and to to lose access to some of that,
both as a teaching perspective,
but also just for people who gravitate to that.
And in some ways,
you know, maybe manage their own stress levels by either
participating or listening to it.
I know one of the sad things about church has been it is just a different
reality to watch something on a screen musically than to see and hear a person
sing or perform with an instrument.
And, you know,
I think one of the I can’t imagine the challenge of how do we
continue to try and provide that for people in a time that they probably really need
it amidst all of these various challenges.
So as you kind of look at it from that perspective,
what in this moment, professionally speaking,
musically speaking, what has been most frustrating
or most most difficult about that process?
Well, I think it’s what you just said is that we can’t I mean,
I miss our choir here terribly.
Yeah.
Christmas Eve.
I got ulterior.
I still do if I think about it.
You know, not singing in church is weird to me.
I’ve sung since I cannot remember anything different,
you know, and I’ve played.
Yeah,
it’s just it’s just we still get hand bells,
but it’s still, you know, right.
And as a non-musician,
I miss receiving it.
But I probably maybe would miss the reality for a person who offers it,
for the person who says,
I this is how I share my talent with my faith community
or school community or whatever to to lose.
That has to be difficult for people.
It is.
And and lots of people email me and say,
you know, I sure miss choir,
blah, blah, blah.
I don’t want to come back,
but I sure miss it.
And I mean,
well, because there’s also I think that sense and our church choir
is a wonderful example of that.
And a lot of that is credit to you.
It’s not just about the singing.
There’s a sense in which there’s a community that forms and lots of people
end up drawn by those kind of similar interests and similar passions.
And I mean, that becomes for them relational.
And so not only have they lost,
I can go sing in church,
but they’ve lost.
I spend an hour every week with people in my church group,
my choir that I like,
and that we have that those times together.
And we all pray for each other and we have that fellowship.
It kind of functions as a small group,
really.
Yeah, it is.
It’s definitely that.
And so we haven’t got to meet,
you know, for a long time, it seems like.
It’s interesting you say that,
too, because your comment about we were worried
that we wouldn’t have music anymore back in the beginning really struck a chord
with me, because especially in the beginning and these sort of conversations
have really happened throughout,
people have remarked about their fear
about what if people don’t come back to church,
which is a similar refrain,
the idea that what if it doesn’t come back on the other side?
And I’m curious as someone who
like work and passion is invested in music,
right?
What is your feeling on that right now?
Are you feeling hopeful that music is strong and it’s going to come back
in the way that we knew it or will it come back in different ways?
What’s your hopes looking forward?
Well, I hope it comes back strong like it was before.
But I think it will be different.
I think everything’s going to be different.
But I mean, I fear that with.
Now, in Northwest Iowa,
our choirs are meeting,
our bands are meeting,
our schools are meeting,
but there are schools in Iowa that are not meeting.
Their bands haven’t met since, I mean,
and I’m assuming choirs.
I don’t talk to that many choir directors,
but I know their bands have not met since the middle of October
because their schools are online.
You can’t bring the band in.
You know, I don’t know if their sports are meeting or not, but, you know,
so it’s hard to stay motivated by yourself as an elementary student,
as a as a middle school student.
You know, are they going to continue to play?
Are they going to continue to?
That’s what I worry about,
is that are we going to get so much dropout?
So the attrition rate is going to be so high that it won’t.
I mean, I don’t worry.
I’m not a worrier.
OK, but I do ponder it sometimes.
You know,
I my sophomore class.
My current sophomore class,
half of them didn’t come back to school.
Because they didn’t want to be online.
Or even virtual.
Let’s just take the semester off.
Well, they didn’t come back this semester either.
So are they going to come back to school and will when they come back,
will they participate in music?
You know, those are,
you know,
trust me, I’m reaching out to them, but.
Yeah,
well, and music is
fundamental in our lives in so many ways,
but but it’s also connected to things.
For instance,
you know, high school basketball games that are now finding a way to play,
but no pep band.
So I mean, just even those places where
live music intersects with other things and to lose that kind of frame of reference.
I can see the concern,
you know, has that created a lag and what will it look like to to catch back up to that?
You know, you have kids going to college
next year who may not have been in their band for the last 12 months.
And what does that gap look like in terms of closing it down the road?
That’s really that’s really interesting.
Well, music is a lifelong skill.
I mean, nothing personal, but you’re not going to play football when you’re 80.
Yeah, probably.
Nor should you.
But my grandmother played the piano and sang up to two weeks before death
in at age 89,
you know.
So I play in a big I used to play in a big band.
And, you know,
those
we played with some people who played up to their death,
you know.
So, I mean, it’s it’s so you think this group of people you’re talking about who maybe,
you know, they were sophomores and they didn’t have band their sophomore year.
So they didn’t mean it wasn’t so cool.
Then again,
because it yeah.
So they really missed out where they may have been.
Had they kept it,
they may have been a lifelong player.
Or yeah, I just hope the world doesn’t miss them all.
Yeah.
Well, and we’ve talked about this,
about how very difficult in the digital space, ones and zeros,
it is to accurately represent music.
And I mean, like just to make that very
practical in our church services to to have music that is
even a decent replica,
I’m not know that replica is not the right word,
representation of what you would have heard in the sanctuary is very hard.
It takes a lot of technical skill to get microphones and mixing.
And I wonder, Carol, if you think that there will be a new appreciation for.
Acoustic music,
I mean,
music in that band that shows up at the restaurant,
the place where you go to hear live music.
Do you think that there’s a sense in which there’ll be a new
resonance with that after this time?
I hope so.
I really hope so,
because I think it’s going to be important to perpetuate it.
You know,
the other thing what we were
talking about the other night is that when you record something for church,
you’re so picky.
You know, I mean, let’s do that again.
I made a mistake.
But if you were doing it live,
people would just think,
oh, that was awesome.
They do not hear every little nuance.
But for some reason,
when it’s recorded and they can back up and go, what?
What did they say?
Did they say that word wrong?
Or was that a little flat or I know a lot of people don’t do that.
But we musicians do that.
We’re so critical of ourselves,
you know.
And but so that’s I’m hoping live music,
you know, gets revised because
it’s hard to keep recording.
We’ve laughed about the same phenomena preaching that the ability to call time
out and restart, you don’t have that with a live audience,
no matter what you said or meant to say,
or what if you lost your place,
you you push through it and figure it out.
And what a different what a different
approach it is to say,
let’s redo that part.
Or now that’s not what I wanted to say.
And in some ways.
In some ways, perhaps that makes for a cleaner end product.
But what it does is remove people from
being in the experience with you,
which I think when it comes to music,
is such a fundamental part of.
Of why we have the same 10 songs at every funeral and why we just there’s a
there’s a resonance with people that that matters.
Hearing it live, I think in a way that isn’t always true in other things.
Along that same lines,
like we recorded our Christmas concert and our jazz
concert and the first song was really good.
And they went.
No, I’m not being critical,
but no one appreciated it.
No one clapped.
It’s hard to keep.
I mean, if no one cheered through the whole ball game,
which no one.
It’s hard to stay up.
You know, even this, you know, we recorded the handball the other night and not that the applause is important.
It just means we appreciate you.
In my opinion, we appreciate that you did that.
Not that you were awesome.
Oh, my gosh.
But thanks for doing that.
It just there’s something about I’m not I’m not a glory seeker.
No, but the difference, the difference between two dimensional and three
dimensional is a real thing that that’s a very real dividing line.
Yeah, it’s very different.
But it has implications for worship.
I’ve actually learned this about worship
in this season that we in the reform tradition talk about worship as
participatory, that the people there are participating.
And the idea is that you’re sitting in the pews and these musicians are offering
their gifts in the reform tradition,
we say that we’re all worshiping in that moment,
not just the person up front,
because we’re all sharing in this moment.
And if I can’t sing that song,
they can on my behalf.
And my prayer is God hear this this song.
I think that’s exactly the thing that is difficult to do
on a 2D screen in your living room is to feel like,
God, that’s my prayer to I’m with Carol,
I’m with Doug, I’m with this musician that’s offering this.
I think it’s far easier to look at that screen and to say,
hey, this is where I tune in to get a laugh at night.
This is where I watch ball games.
This is where we watch movies.
And so this is another form of entertainment,
which is what worship isn’t.
Worship is participatory.
So that, though it is a challenge,
it makes me wonder,
you know, how do we continue
to try to both encourage and also be reminded as worshipers that this too is
a setting in which we’re supposed to try to engage with this person.
So my point is,
I think it’s not just hard
for the musician who doesn’t feel connected to the fellow worshipers.
It’s hard for the worshipers to feel connected to the musician in a meaningful way.
No, I agree.
Yeah, because I’m sometimes on the site listening to those people.
And and I like to be involved with them, too.
I like them to be live.
Right. Carol,
one of the questions we’re sort
of asking people to reflect on in their own circles,
you know,
as this pushed us all to develop some new approaches,
maybe some new skill sets,
is there anything in your world,
either academically in general or music
education in particular that you think stays with us when covid hopefully isn’t
with us anymore?
In other words, in the midst of developing Zoom meetings and different approaches to education,
is there anything that you can see that may stick that we’ve learned to do now
as educators and we feel like it’s worth continuing?
Does that make sense?
Yeah,
I don’t.
I can speak for an educator,
maybe not as much as a musician.
I think these virtual choirs and stuff are amazing.
But you have to have some serious technology skills to get those done.
But I love it that I can go to all these different meetings without driving to Des Moines.
And I love it that I can go to all these
different conferences without having to cancel my classes.
And I also like the fact that,
you know, we have five campuses and I never get to teach the kids in Spencer.
They all shouldn’t say that I never get to see the kids in Spencer.
They’re always totally online.
And now because of virtual classes,
you know, I’m seeing and meeting the soccer players meeting,
not meeting, but at least seeing him in that little tiny box.
So I think even though when we go back to face to face classes,
I will probably still have a virtual class just for their sake,
because not everybody wants to take a totally online class.
And so you can still guide them through the process virtually.
So I think we’ll probably keep some of those.
And I love that,
you know, faculty meetings, we have to drive to the other campus.
We can just I I think that’s really good.
So I see that happening,
but I can’t wait to have real people in front of me.
Right.
Right. Let me ask a follow up question,
because I think I’ve heard this conversation
to some extent as as students,
college students, and one of them,
you know, is in my house off and on,
depending on what’s happening with the world.
Part of that conversation has been what is the value of going to campus?
In other words,
if kids can take these
classes online, if we can provide,
you know, without the dorms and without
the cafeterias and to some extent,
it may be a way for a college to cut expenses.
But we’ve been managing to do some of this now.
And I know that there are families that have asked,
well, why does my son or
daughter need to go off to school?
And so I would just be as a as a person who’s spent a lot of time
with college kids, building relationships, is passionate about that.
Do you have a you have a an opinion in that conversation?
Do you have a thought in terms of what is it beyond the class part
that we offer kids that makes having a place where they go and study worthwhile?
I think that’s an interesting conversation,
not one that I’m well versed
in, but I just wonder if you have some thoughts.
Well, I think the purpose of the college campus is is like a melting pot.
Right now, in my one class,
I have two young men from Africa who are here to play soccer.
I mean,
yeah,
in Essarville, Iowa, just just in my one class of 30 people,
I have two kids from Africa.
So that in its own right is a unique situation,
especially here in Northwest Iowa.
I also think it’s
you don’t want your kid to live in your basement their whole life.
I mean,
so this is a way for them to go and have some guided
development.
Yeah, they’re not necessarily off the deep end right away.
Well, right.
Sink or swim.
They’ve got a little entry into it.
And, you know, as an advisor,
I am an advisor
for more than just classes.
Like yesterday, we had a long discussion about a boyfriend who wasn’t very nice.
Now,
that student could have had that conversation with their parents,
but they may not.
You know,
and so I always say to people,
I’m not your mother,
but you can consider me like maybe your favorite aunt.
You know,
I will just tell you how it is,
and that’s how it is.
But so there’s a different kind of relationship.
It’s just I think musically,
I can’t say all professors do that.
But my kids are with me a lot.
My kids,
my kids see how I say that.
My students are with me a lot.
They are my kids.
I take care of them and we celebrate birthdays and we we we feel badly when
there’s a funeral and and we support each other.
And so we make our own little community,
which is good for them.
And I, I,
I hope they learn values and things like that.
Like one of these people today said to me,
you’re going to make cupcakes for your niece’s graduation.
My family would never do that.
And I said, well, maybe you can be the start of that.
I didn’t even know this girl.
She was not in my program,
but I offered them cupcakes.
I said, I’m practicing because I have to make cupcakes for my nieces.
You would do that.
So what I think I hear you saying in that is that beyond the grades and the degree
and the education,
part of what a college campus offers kids is to opportunity to expand their circles,
both with adults,
with others,
possibly with some multiculturalism and just begin to get a sense of the bigger world that certainly
is probably lost if you’re at home looking at your computer screen for the
bulk of your your secondary or college education.
Well, and you can you can attend
concerts and sporting events and maybe belong to the chess club and you’ve never
played chess, but you want to learn how.
And there’s a whole group of like minded
people who want to learn to play chess and and just just there’s a lot of
opportunities that there’s a lot of opportunities in your community,
too.
But you go out and you have to go out.
I mean,
I think maybe if it’s OK,
just very briefly to sort of hone in a little bit more personal,
one question that we’ve been asking those who’ve been willing
to join us is to reflect just for a moment on the challenges of this season personally,
obviously, we all have the things we’re navigating professionally.
And but how has this touched you in a way that you would say this season of the last
eight, nine months has been hard?
Has it been relationally or spiritually or is there a way that this has been heavy
for you as a season?
And I don’t mean to sound like
Little Mary Sunshine,
but it wasn’t hard for us.
It was kind of a blessing.
All of a sudden,
my world came to a halt.
Now, mind you, I had to work hard professionally to keep all my classes,
which lots of things I when I do face to face,
I don’t have as much grading.
So I had a lot of grading,
but I didn’t have any responsibilities at night.
Doug didn’t have any responsibilities at night.
We put together puzzles.
We ate a lot.
Then we had to I had to diet, but cut back.
But it’s like, hey, should we have popcorn tonight?
I mean, you know, so just stuff like that.
But the hardest part about the beginning was
Emily went and lived with Laura and we were not allowed to come
because Matt moved out and everybody was scared.
So that was hard at first because,
you know, my girls and I see each other a lot.
it was
it was kind of nice being home really
more than one night a week.
We missed everything and it was disappointing.
This thing got canceled and and then this thing got canceled and then this thing got canceled, but
you had time to actually read a book and and study in and
I don’t know if I didn’t I thoroughly enjoyed church.
I I think part of that was I wasn’t constantly working.
In church, I don’t mean that badly.
I love that part,
obviously, but but just
Doug and I are rarely on this side.
We’re usually up there doing something on one side,
you know, on the other side.
And so just you could just fully.
I don’t know.
We I did not have a terrible time with it.
I was very disappointed that the grand opening, you know,
those concerts still haven’t happened.
We’ve had not had audiences in that.
We have not been able to have music as we know,
used to know it.
We’re having rehearsals, but people are, you know, it’s this weird.
But I haven’t struggled that way.
Maybe as an educator,
maybe you anticipated the following question as well,
because that that seems to be where the next question was going, was what can
what how have you adapted to whatever struggle that is?
And what have you found on the other side of it?
And it sounds like you’ve already been processing.
I guess I wonder, then, Carol,
do you foresee that experience that you just
described shaping the future choices that you make on the other side of this?
When we return to opportunities where calendars can be filled every night,
do you think that this will shape how you orient yourself to that or or or not?
No.
Clint’s laughing before I even answer.
No, I will jump back in,
dive in head first and be completely immersed.
Yeah, this is who I am.
I can’t help it,
but I I was kind of scared
that I was going to be stir crazy because I’m
well, I’m Doug, too,
you know, but I think we were OK.
You know, I don’t know that I would have
ever thought of it like this, Carol, but with.
With music,
probably not quite so much with education,
but but with corporate music,
it’s interesting how much of that happens on a kind of buildup.
In other words, it’s sort of event driven.
As you say, we had this concert,
we had the spring musical,
we had these these things that months and months of prep go into.
And then they’re over either that night or in a couple of shows.
And to to kind of your your life is sort
of constantly start a new ramp,
jump it off,
start a new ramp,
get it done.
And sometimes you’re trying to drive on two ramps at the same time.
Yeah, I can imagine.
And so the the idea that
at some level, what this provided for you was a long flat road to say.
I did the next thing that that all I have is the now thing that right.
I I’ll put a puzzle together because there’s nothing else that I have to do instead.
And I’m I’m sure that does feel at some
level like a reprieve from a very busy treadmill
that I, of course, know you’ll go back to.
But I do think I do I don’t think you’re alone in that,
even in these few conversations that we’ve had,
that idea
that covid canceled all of our calendars and we didn’t have a choice.
And that seemed initially like a bad thing.
But it turned out it wasn’t all bad.
It wasn’t all bad.
And I think that is an interesting place for people to reflect as they reenter
the possibility to begin reconnecting,
to to be able,
hopefully, not to abandon that
completely and to maybe be more intentional about how do I structure
so that I do feel like I’m at some extent at some level in control of my calendar
instead of the other way around.
And yeah, that’s a very I think that’s a very interesting and I don’t think unusual experience.
So I guess I’m curious if we’re looking for last words.
We asked
Carol,
the educator,
what is a lesson that you would offer
that you’ve learned in this season?
Hmm.
Just stay positive.
I don’t know.
I’ve always been,
you know, not always perfectly positive,
but there’s always something exciting that’s going to happen.
And I don’t know,
I just have always I was I don’t mean to get really weird here,
but, you know, I was raised in a really strong Christian home and it was like,
why are you worried about that?
Why are you why are you worried about that?
You’re not in control of that.
God is.
So just let it go.
That’s what my dad said all the time.
As a farmer, he was like,
my mom would be like,
oh, no, it’s like you don’t have
control over the weather.
Let it go.
God’s in control.
And so just God’s in control.
All the political upheaval.
It’s confusing.
It’s crazy,
but God is in control and there’s no reason to worry.
Carol, we want to thank you for your time,
not not just in this instance,
but for all you do for First Press.
We are blessed by you regularly,
by your work and by what you mean to the choir.
And I hope I hope you know that of the things people look forward to returning
to live music at church is high on their list as regards First Press.
So we look forward to that soon and hopefully in in coming days.
Good.
I hope so too.
Thanks for your time.