Let My People Go

I've had a bit of a sore throat the past couple days. This morning when I woke up, I had one of those extra deep voices. I couldn't help but sing a couple lines of Go Down Moses while waiting at the bus stop. (There wasn't anyone else there.)

It reminded me of one Sunday when I was a Priest. Being 17 years old, of course I stayed up late and slept in until right before church started. So I got up and ready and drove myself to church without having talked to anyone, since my family had left before I got up.

It was my turn to bless the sacrament, and since I hadn't really said anything outloud yet, a booming, deep morning voice came out.

Now, when you have something weird with your voice, you can try to cough a little and clear it up and start over at totally different pitch or just keep going. I kept going. I figured switching in the middle would be more noticeable than continuing on, plus there's no guarantee after clearing your throat that it's going to be any different, so the grunting into the microphone may have been in vain anyway.

The other side of that, of course, is as a teenager, I would have been somewhat proud of my deep, booming voice. If I had to pick now, I'd choose to be able to knock out a wicked high tenor, but at the time, I was proud of the fact that I fit squarely into the bass section in choir. I suppose how low your voice goes fits right in there with shoe size, height, a paycheck over $100, and beard development for a teenager showing off his manliness.

So I was secretly pleased after the meeting at the comments on my sacrament prayer. Of course I now know that if I'm doing enough to draw attention to me during the prayer, people are not thinking about what they should be thinking about because of my distraction, which is bad.

But not bad enough to turn down the chance to bless the sacrament this Sunday if I'm asked to sub and my voice is still in the same shape as it is today.