And be it ever remembered that Christians are not members of a club, of a sect or of an association; they are members of a body, each connected with allo, and all connected by the fact of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with the risen and glorified Head in Heaven. This is an immense truth, and the practical carrying out of it will cost us not only all we have, but all we are. There is no place in all the universe where self will be so pulled to pieces as in the Assembly of God. And is it not well? Is it not a powerful proof of the divine ground on which that Assembly is gathered? Should we not be glad to have our hateful self thus pulled to pieces? Shall we or ought we run away from those who do it for us? Are we not glad–do we not often pray to get rid of self? And shall we quarrel with those who are God’s instruments in answering our prayers? True, they may do the work roughly and clumsily, but never mind that. Whoever helps me to crush and sink self does me a kind turn, however awkwardly he may do it. One thing is certain, no man can ever rob us of that which, after all, is the only thing worth having, namely Christ.
–C.H.M., Short Papers, Self Surrender, p. 18, Believers Bookshelf, pub 1995.
(capitalization his, emphasis mine)
I have probably read that several times before. It’s interesting how the experiences we go through color how (and how much) we understand a thing like that.
Cindy and I went downtown to the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Art for a concert in their series featuring local jazz artists. The weather was kind of doubtful that day and the concert was moved into the pavilion cafe. That looked like a bad decision during the first set, since the weather was partly sunny, the cafe was very crowded and kind of hit. During the second set and part of the third it poured rain, so then we were thinking that they looked like geniuses for having it inside. DC weather is like that.
The big draw for us was the Tom Williams Quintet. I never really got a good picture of all five guys, but here’s some flavor, featuring the man himself.
We had been wanting to go and hear Tom play for quite some time, but this time the scheduling and baby-sitting just worked out and we were off. Tom, Cindy and I all went to high school together, were all in band, lived through the marching, playing in the rain and snow, and the other vagaries of high school. Some others from the old high school band group were there too: Betty (who tipped us off about this gig in the first place, Darren, and Jim. It was great to see everyone and several other folks in the audience figured out that we all knew each other and were asking questions about it. Lots of fun.
The TWQ was the event for the evening though and they played three very nice sets. The music was just great and they were really connecting with the crowd in the close quarters of the pavilion cafe. There was a very nice blend of tunes from “The Theme”, to Miles Davis, to a couple of Tom’s own compositions. Every set had a nice flow and we stayed for the whole deal.
Here’s a picture worthy of reminiscing over. Thinking about how “local guy makes good” and “we knew him back when…”. But truth be told, Tom “made good” a long time ago. If you don’t have his CDs, zip on over to amazon and check out Straight Street and Introducing Tom Williams, both of which are very nice.
