A Vulnerable Valedictory
The invitation was a surprise, and it wasn't yesterday's last one. My prospective employer, a small Christian college with a conservative repetition, took my interview seriously enough to startle me by opening it in prayer. I've done this before, but I haven't done THIS before, I thought as I settled in. The interview that opened with a prayer closed with an invitation, as the person who took the lead in asking the questions at one last one for me. He asked me to come be a part of the college's choral celebration last evening. Sensing, possibly, despite my game face, where socialization usually ranks in my priorities, his friendliness persevered. "It only lasts an hour."
The college which takes interviews seriously also takes celebrations seriously. Coats and ties were the norm in the audience, and tuxedos matched long black dresses among the choir. A few songs in, two representatives step forward from the ensemble in this attire. I puzzled at what I thought I heard this pair sing. I wasn't alone. No musical aficionado, I glanced at the imposing non-English title in the program and readjusted a pensive gaze appropriate to the setting. They sang on, and members of the audience squirmed. The barrel-chested half of the duet began to reveal a smile of increasing breadth as his audience began to yield in the fight to construct something formal and academic from his notes. He and his partner in mood-breaking were alternating feline song stylings. Mee-oow. Mee-ee-oo-oo-ww. Quiet laughter rippled through the audience.
Ecclesiastes 3:4 is right. There is a time to laugh. Lest I with my serious, over-analyzing tendencies look too carefully for any sign that the new choir director, a recent graduate of this institution violated some taboo in order to make her mark, the head of my interview committee commented afterward that the comic relief was in just the right place. Indeed. It was in the right place for me to find the funny and share it with my readers after looking for a change of tone a little too diligently. It was in the right place to keep me from stereotyping my potential employer, and my brothers and sisters in Christ, in my own image. It was in the right place to keep me from altogether assuming that the lighthearted enthusiasm I let through in part of the interview was entirely out of place.
It was also in the right place to allow us to focus in on the program's keynote when the time came. The school's president took this audience back to the first time he shared in another forum the pain of losing his father and another relative in the same act of violence. That time, he said recalling, he was embarrassed by his tears and the difficulty they caused in getting through the presentation. He pledged not to be that vulnerable again but recanted quickly. His willingness to trade tight control of the impression he managed for authenticity brought one woman in his original audience back to God. Perhaps it also allowed him, as the years passed, to encourage authentic emotion, even humor, in the institution he now leads. Starting the day in the most rehearsed, over-formalized format of a job interview as an introduction to this culture, I did not expect to get a rewarding glimpse into the soul of the place. It would make an interesting new home.
The college which takes interviews seriously also takes celebrations seriously. Coats and ties were the norm in the audience, and tuxedos matched long black dresses among the choir. A few songs in, two representatives step forward from the ensemble in this attire. I puzzled at what I thought I heard this pair sing. I wasn't alone. No musical aficionado, I glanced at the imposing non-English title in the program and readjusted a pensive gaze appropriate to the setting. They sang on, and members of the audience squirmed. The barrel-chested half of the duet began to reveal a smile of increasing breadth as his audience began to yield in the fight to construct something formal and academic from his notes. He and his partner in mood-breaking were alternating feline song stylings. Mee-oow. Mee-ee-oo-oo-ww. Quiet laughter rippled through the audience.
Ecclesiastes 3:4 is right. There is a time to laugh. Lest I with my serious, over-analyzing tendencies look too carefully for any sign that the new choir director, a recent graduate of this institution violated some taboo in order to make her mark, the head of my interview committee commented afterward that the comic relief was in just the right place. Indeed. It was in the right place for me to find the funny and share it with my readers after looking for a change of tone a little too diligently. It was in the right place to keep me from stereotyping my potential employer, and my brothers and sisters in Christ, in my own image. It was in the right place to keep me from altogether assuming that the lighthearted enthusiasm I let through in part of the interview was entirely out of place.
It was also in the right place to allow us to focus in on the program's keynote when the time came. The school's president took this audience back to the first time he shared in another forum the pain of losing his father and another relative in the same act of violence. That time, he said recalling, he was embarrassed by his tears and the difficulty they caused in getting through the presentation. He pledged not to be that vulnerable again but recanted quickly. His willingness to trade tight control of the impression he managed for authenticity brought one woman in his original audience back to God. Perhaps it also allowed him, as the years passed, to encourage authentic emotion, even humor, in the institution he now leads. Starting the day in the most rehearsed, over-formalized format of a job interview as an introduction to this culture, I did not expect to get a rewarding glimpse into the soul of the place. It would make an interesting new home.
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