Criticism

So, last night was the Ames Anthem. Personally, I liked the Iowa City Anthem better. It may have been that I knew all the songs or people here, but not in Ames. It may have been that I like the atmosphere in the old Fieldhouse better than in Cornerstone's auditorium. Maybe it was that they started off with a song that wasn't familiar to me, and I had a hard time getting into it after that. Whatever the reason, I kept catching myself being really critical of the band and tech people last night. Thoughts kept popping up like "the rhythm is off on that song" or "they're playing that too fast" or "the lyrics person got behind, and the band doesn't know the words".  I kept noticing things like that, and it was getting in the way of worshipping, so I had to rein in the critical part of me and just let loose. The criticisms kept popping up, so I had to keep driving them back.

I have never been like that before. I used to not notice things like that, but now that I see the work behind the scenes all the time, I guess I've gotten to a point where I keep thinking "they could have done better."

After the final song, I got into a discussion with some of the Ames people about the split in Anthem. I argued that we have the "real Anthem" because we have the backbone--drums and bass--and the heart--Mark--of the original. We talked about other things, and they looked surprised when I said that the band here is working on enough new songs to make an album out of it already.

I also got to demonstrate how crappy my phone is. After sending a text at 6, asking someone if they were going to be there, my phone decided that it wasn't getting signal anymore--and the next time it did, I was back in Iowa City, asleep. Hooray for cheap cell phones.