GRUMPY RED ARROWS

There are different types of grumpiness, I reckon. Much like the way aerobatic displays have planes swooping and diving, there are lots of things that look like a plummeting-mood, which you may, or may not be able to pull out of before you hit the floor.

I was doing alright first thing at worship practice this morning. I’d been to the gym, pushed myself further and felt more alive than my bleary-eyed drive in, and I was ready for anything.

Almost anything. The music stand I use for my MacBook was gone. My microphone, also missing. All the music stands at the back were broken (weirdly in the same way). And no-one knows where the microphone went.

So... I carefully, diplomatically, politely... asked a few gentle questions - which, somehow betwixt my lips and the ears upon which they fell, came across as grumpy. Then, when everyone thought I was grumpy, it was near impossible to pull out of the swoop and convince them that I wasn’t. And that of course, actually made me grumpy. And then it was pointless to argue the difference.

We made a make-shift music stand, by attaching the head of one of the broken ones to the body of a spare microphone stand, and I balanced my laptop on it. Then we all prayed, I apologised for being grumpy and we pushed through it.

Perhaps it’s possible to ‘fall with style’ and make it look like flying. Perhaps, like the narrative point in Toy Story, it makes no difference at all which it is, to the spectators. Or perhaps, as all creatives know, the best stories always involve a twist of expectation when the hero somehow pulls out of that fatal plot-dive at the last minute and soars into the air with the sound of sweeping strings and a glorious fanfare.

I certainly hope that’s possible the next time I’m grumpy, I thought to myself as we cycled through the chord-shapes and checked sound levels, whether it looks like that or it actually is that.

Some time later, mid-song, mid-service, and mid-moment, my MacBook wobbled off the makeshift-music-stand and clattered loudly to the wooden floor, landing upside down on the stage.

Wind whistled, black smoke plumed and the spinning ground swam closer as the engine spluttered.

I closed my eyes and held on tight.