Hand help

One of the defining characteristics of the worship at my church has been the drums. Well, recently I have become a rather consistent part of the drum chorus--three or four djembes that play along with the worship. My question is this: how do you play a djembe for a long period of time (the singing portion of worship went almost two hours yesterday) without making your hand swell up? After worship I put, with some difficulty, my ring back on my right hand (it cuts up my finger if I keep it on and play), and was unable to take it off the rest of the day--my finger(s) were that swollen. Maybe it's normal, but I'm not exactly a percussion expert... Anybody know?

Things that make me smile

These are things I've stumbled across in the last day or six while wasting time online. The first is for all you math nerds out there...



And the second is for all you music nerds out there...it's a pictoral representation of the phrase "shut up."

Intercession

I had the distinct pleasure of hanging around after worship on Sunday and chat with some visitors to our church--a couple who were, for lack of a better word, missionaries. I think they currently had jobs in America, but used to be full-time overseas and still go on numerous missions trips. Anyway, this couple had dealt a lot with spiritual warfare and things of that ilk, so it was very interesting to hear some of their stories.

However, early on I was being introduced to them by the "mom" of our church (the female leader whose house we meet at). We'll call her "Lisa" (because that's her name--but since this is the internet, we'll leave some ambiguity--it might be her name). Anyway, they were introducing some of my traits and, of course, dancing was mentioned, because it's not normal and because Lisa in particular loves to dance (I have to teach her and her husband some swing on many of my trips there). So at one point in our dialogue, I said something to the effect of: "the only reason they keep me around is for my dancing." (hmm...side note: am I grammatically allowed to colon and then quotation mark?) Of course, everyone kind of chuckled, and then Lisa said, "No, your dancing and your intercession." Oooooohh.

Now, I know all Christians are intercessors in some sense, or at least should be. And God has prophetically linked Lisa and I, for whatever reason, as two people who need each other's prayer support to operate fully in His name. But to be labeled by a believer you respect as an intercessor was cool (and humbling, but that's maybe hte topic of a later post). I once read a Peretti novel (I think This Present Darkness) about spiritual warfare and a preacher who would enter rooms and the demons present would say things like, "Oh no! The praying man!" Part of me always wanted to be that guy, even if the thought of that kind of up-front spiritual warfare is mildly intimidating. So, to have my intercession be one of the primary traits Lisa mentioned was pretty cool. Made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Ok, enough mush...I should probably go do some war!