If you can’t sing well, then just sing loud.

I must confess I am a big fan of the idea that if you can’t sing well then you should just sing loud, it says so much about confidence in the innate worth of the individual that I smile to think of this as a philosophy for life.

When I was small I was very small, smaller than all the other boys, even some of the younger boys were bigger than me, my little brother for one. I was always the last one picked for sport, lined up along the fence as all the heroes of playground footy/cricket/anything were numbered off by the opposing captains: just me and the fat kid, or just me and the kid on crutches and with plaster from groin to ankle awaiting the sealing of our fate, who would be chosen to leave the last one as the “default pick”. It was often me. I would like to say that I then played “loud”, but in all honesty my size was but one of my handicaps, the other being far more devastating: I was utterly crap at footy/cricket/anything and basically spent lunchtime running about calling vainly for a pass...never getting a touch.

Oddly enough, or perhaps it isn’t; singing was one thing I could do. I didn’t need to sing loud because I could sing well, (I still can). But I did sing loud, if not in volume then in influence: I was the only boy in the school choir. Nowadays being the one boy among twenty two girls would be a bonus, but as a twelve year old it underlined the awful truth, I was too small to play footy/cricket/anything with the boys. But I didn’t care, because I could sing and I did sing, and I sang in the front row where everyone could see me and admire my bravery at sticking with choir. And I did know it was brave, I realised that I could never compete in sport but I knew I could sing well and represent the school at that, and I did.

Now I sing at church along with the congregation, I was only in choir for two years, (the second year with four other boys, all too small for sport), but I remember the whispers and the words of praise my parents accepted on my behalf from the proud mums of Pakenham. I have decided to live well in the ways that I can, and loudly in all other things.

Jesus counselled the Laodicean Christians to be hot or cold but not lukewarm: this is the only way to live according to the Messiah. Perhaps he was talking about the life of faith, but then the life of faith is more than just about the stuff you do at church, it is living with purpose and bravery. It is a life that sings loudly at all times, learning to sing well by choosing to sing often: my life.