DO-SO-MI-FA (descending).

So we was sitting, yes we was, in the back of Monmouth Evangelical singing along with the piano and the organ and the preacher when all of the sudden I saw my name in the song! It said something like “By the angels and seraphs in heav’n adored.” Then a little later Kon pointed and said, “Hey, there’s Shannon’s name”: “Perfect.” Aw, shucks.

AHQ gave one of our last programs in the foreseeable future tonight. On the way over to Kon’s I was thinking. I was thinking about how much a part of human nature it is to want to be part of something bigger. Most everyone wants to be a part of a team, a group of people that are all working together for some larger purpose. You want to connect with others. We just have to connect with others. That’s what I loved so much about Chamber Choir at Linn-Benton. We had this very difficult music that we worked on all term and then we went out and performed it, made beautiful music…together.

For more than eight years, AHQ has been providing a concrete venue in which I am able to bond together with three other guys and make a positive impact on people’s lives. I hope I can sing with them until I die, but the day may come when AHQ ceases to exist. Here’s the thing, the “larger purpose” in my life doesn’t live and die with AHQ. It’s so much bigger than that. AHQ is just a way God has seen fit to use me presently, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be there forever. That's why Christianity--Jesus--is so...so reassuring. My larger purpose is serving Jesus Christ, wherever I'm at and whatever I'm doing. Like John Eldridge says, the problem is when we let the stuff of earth, the smaller stories, the less-wild lovers, become our end-all. No, no, no, Jesus is my end-all, come what may.