3 1/2 minute read
Last Christmas, I received a record player as a gift.
This wasn’t something I’d asked for. To be honest, record players felt a bit too hipster, twee, and precious to me. When people would try to convince me that record players were so much better than digital music, they’d say things like, “But the sound is so true! So warm!” But whenever I listened to records at people’s houses, all I thought was “Does ‘warm’ mean ‘crackly and full of hisses’?” I was unimpressed.
Next thing I know, there was a record player sitting in my living room.
I made the best of it, playing my first two albums—“Time Out” by The Dave Brubeck Quartet and the soundtrack to “Oklahoma!” (my daughters are sing-a-long song girls)—over and over. I started to like the sound a little more, but there was still a problem.
The problem was this: skipping songs. With a record player, it’s almost impossible to skip songs. You have to have the hand control and dexterity of a plastic surgeon to get that needle to drop down onto the exact right spot. It’s a hassle.
So, whenever I’d put an album on, I’d just let it run, listening to every song along the way (including the songs like “Kathy’s Waltz” and “I Cain’t Say No”). I didn’t like playing them all, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice.
I was so used to Apple Music, iTunes, CDs, Pandora, and Spotify where if you didn’t like a song, you just skipped it. No having to sit there, listening to something you didn’t totally love. Skip. Skip. Skip.
We live in a Skipping Culture.
We skip things constantly.
Pull up a show on Netflix and if it doesn’t grab you in the first minute? Skip it.
Fire up a YouTube video. Not laughing in ten seconds? Skip it.
Don’t want to watch the intro to a show? Hit the “Skip Intro” button.
More and more, we live in a world where if we don’t like something, we can skip right over it.
That’s why listening to record albums was so hard for me. I’d become accustomed to skipping what I didn’t like.
I’m slowly realizing that this Skipping Culture isn’t altogether good for me, as a human.
Sure, there’s no real material harm in skipping over a song or a video. No big deal.
But is it training me to have the expectation that I can skip things in life I don’t like? Skipping Culture may be telling me things like…
In a job you don’t altogether like? Well, skip it. Get a new job.
In a friendship that’s challenging? If it’s too hard, break ties. Bail. Skip it.
Dating someone and it’s not all daisy farms and smiley emoticons and holding hands under a rainbow? Eh. Break up. Skip it.
Is your marriage hard? Check out. Pull back. Why bother? Maybe even get out, altogether. Skip it.
Raising kids more frustrating than fun? Focus on work or hobbies or something else. Skip the challenge. Skip the effort. Skip it.
Following Jesus bringing up difficult issues and going against your natural tendencies? Skip it… or slowly start to drift away from the One who brings you life.
Challenge? Pain? Difficulty? Skip it. Skip it. Skip it.
I think I’ve been getting used to skipping challenges. And I don’t think God designed us to be a “skipping” type of people who bail when life or relationships get tough.
I think God designed us to be—and wants to grow us into—the kind of people who face challenges, work hard, and (here’s a great word) endure.
(Note: I’m not talking about destructive or abusive situations. I’m talking about times when the level of challenge seems to outweigh the level of enjoyment.)
So, here’s what my record player is teaching me: it’s teaching me to play all the songs. The ones I love (“Take Five”! “Surrey with the Fringe on Top!” “Blue Rondo à la Turk!”) as well as the lesser-loved tunes.
And, in doing so, I’m letting myself get trained. Trained to not just give myself what I’m wanting, trained to take it all in, trained to be present even when it’s not my ideal, and trained to not just “skip it.”
I’m really starting to like my record player.
(All this said, I sure wish I didn’t have to flip the album over at the end of every side.)