{"id":1912,"date":"2004-01-25T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2004-01-26T04:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2004\/01\/25\/classical-mass\/"},"modified":"2022-02-14T14:38:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T20:38:02","slug":"classical-mass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2004\/01\/25\/classical-mass\/","title":{"rendered":"Classical Mass"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your church is open to some musical ministry in a somewhat different key, I highly recommend this guy<\/a>. Rodrigo Rodriguez is a classical guitarist from Ecuador, now residing in Florida, who has turned his musical gift into a fulltime ministry. He’s got a great testimony, and an amazing talent.<\/p>\n

The highlight of the service was his arrangement of Via Dolorosa<\/em>, which cries out to be played on a classical guitar anyway. In his rendition, he adds to the melody a counterpoint of a drum-like plucking of the E and A strings that evokes the cadence of Roman soldiers escorting Jesus to His sacrificial death on the cross. You have to hear it to understand the full impact. He then seamlessly segues into Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus<\/em>. It’s just an awesome and lovely arrangement.<\/p>\n

The downside of attending one of his concerts is that if you are an aspiring guitarist, you might come away vowing to never again pick up the instrument. Having seen and heard a master at work, you realize how far you have to go. (And, of course, that “you” is really code for “I.”)<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Rodrigo addressed this very issue…albeit without knowing he was doing so. He said that he was once asked why he plays with his eyes closed. One reason is that he’s playing for God, not for an audience, and he can visualize God better with closed eyes.<\/p>\n

But another reason is that he no longer worries about making mistakes when he plays, as he once did when he was a commercial artist. He strives for excellence, of course, in order to present a worthy offering to God, but he is also content in the knowledge that God is pleased with a sincere offering, even if it has a mistake or two in it.<\/p>\n

It’s a good lesson for me. If I wait to exercise my spiritual gift(s) in service to God and others until I’m perfect, they’ll never get exercised, and will therefore be wasted. God doesn’t require perfection, just a willing and available heart offered in humility and love. He’ll take it from there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your church is open to some musical ministry in a somewhat different key, I highly recommend this guy. Rodrigo Rodriguez is a classical guitarist from Ecuador, now residing in Florida, who has turned his musical gift into a fulltime ministry. He’s got a great testimony, and an amazing talent. The highlight of the service… Continue reading Classical Mass<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7330,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1912\/revisions\/7330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}