Sing Something New

Psalm 98:1-5

I'm writing today's thoughts almost 12 hours later than usual, which gives me the opportunity to relay and relate what happened today. Our school teaches the juniors and seniors in what is termed an "academy" style. There are several academies, each of which focus on a career path. These academies carry such names as Health, Industrial Technologies, and Graphic Arts. Those of you familiar with "magnet schools" will have an idea what I'm talking about.

The academy I'm assigned to is Human Services. Our career paths include education, food service or culinary, and travel and hotel. Mixed in with those who identify with our academy are nurses, social workers, and other relational-related careers. The best way to describe the average Human Services student is to say they are thoughtful, caring, and energetic individuals - very energetic.

Sometimes the energy level in the classroom can be overwhelming. This year it's been more than sometimes that the class has been more than energetic and more than once the teacher has had to raise her voice to calm the students down. Today, on one of those occasions, I stood next to a table and quietly made the comment, "You guys are making her sound like a broken record."

The gaze of puzzlement alone was enough to make me smile, imagine my glee when one of the students replied with, "What does that even mean?" The students within earshot of my comment honestly had no idea what the adage "broken record" meant. I simply smiled and responded with, "You're making her repeat herself over and over." To which another student commented, "Don't blame us, she's the one that's broken."

That last comment made me laugh out loud which brought a glare from the teacher. I apologized and moved on.

When I read the passage this morning I wondered how I was going to best portray what it means to sing a new song, or why doing so is important. Fortunately, because of a technical glitch with this blogging website I had the privilege of a day's interaction with today's youth to help me make sense of things.

Sing a new song to let your God know of all the wonderful things God has done in your life.