Thursday and Friday, I had the pleasure of leading chapel for the Centerville Academic Christian Preschool. Once a month, I meet with the students in the sanctuary at Centerville UMC to sing songs and talk about the Bible.

Today, we focused on Psalm 150. We talked about how we can worship God wherever we find ourselves (at church, in the car, in nature, etc.). We also talked about how we can praise God with our voices, with instruments, with our thoughts, and so on.

So, I brought some of my instruments over to the sanctuary to let the kids play. As I was packing up my instruments, I made some observations.

The first is how hilarious it is that my mother bought me a hand drum with pot leaves (yes, marijuana leaves) carved into it! My innocent mother, while on a Caribbean cruise with her innocent best friend, bought me a djembe that promotes marijuana! Now, let me be very clear, I’m positive that neither my mother nor her best friend had any clue what type of leaves were carved into the drum. Had my father been on the trip, well, I’m pretty sure he would have been able to help my mother find a different drum! But, my mom bought it for me, so I continue to use it.

Another observation is that Centerville is the first place I’ve used that drum and not had someone ask me about the pot leaves. Each time I used it in Lafayette, someone asked if I knew there were pot leaves on the drum! I guess Lafayette is a bit more liberal than Centerville.

The final observation came when I was packing up my equipment. As I was loading drums into cases and gig bags, I was overwhelmed by what can only be described as the smell of Headliners. For those of you who are not aware, Headliners was a dirty, smoky bar in Muncie best known for live music, penny beers, and being the headquarters of the Muncie Matey’s. For some reason, gig bags and cases seem to hold on to smells for years. So, as I loaded up congas and drums, I was met by the aroma of a dirty, smoky bar! It brought back some really great memories of great friends and great music. Isn’t it interesting how a smell can take you back to very specific times and places?

So, I’m thankful for the preschool chapel day! Not only did I get to hangout with some cool kids and talk about God, I had a good laugh over my marijuana drum and had some fun reminiscing about the “good old days”!