Auction Magic to the Rescue!

#sanctuarymoment

from Barbara Seidl

Do you know this song? Sing it if you know it…

Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes…

My partner and I were super excited because our granddaughter was about to turn 1, but… we weren’t going to be able to be there! So we thought it would be so great to rewrite the song for her, record it and send it for her folks to play on the day.

Something like…

“How do you measure, measure a year? In diapers and bottles and late nights and something something.”  …Like that.

There was only one problem – we sucked. The lyrics were pretty similar to what you just heard.  We were equal opportunity musical key users – as in as many musical keys as possible all at the same time. All are welcome.

And then I remembered that, at the Sanctuary auction last year, I had won a music session with Sanctuary Band members Ashley and Soren!

For those of you who are new to the Sanctuary auction, this is not your grandmother’s church auction. Auction items are often gifts of talent or time or shared events….things  like “I’ll bake your favorite batch of cookies” or “I’ll send you encouraging post cards,” or “we’ll have a game night or roast marshmallows together.” And money isn’t actually hte main . Anyway, it’s brilliant and amazingly beautiful – ask someone to tell you about it.

So last year, I bid on and won a music session with Ashley and Soren. I think the original idea had been that they’d come play for an event…but we reached out and told them our brilliant plan to rewrite and record this song for our grandaughter’s birthday and they agreed to come over for the afternoon.

And they saved us – they came to our house, helped us pick a key, fixed the lyrics, rehearsed with us, played back up on piano and guitar, sang harmonies, helped us set the right audio on the phone - Sanctuary Auction for the win.

And that’s not the best part. I’m telling you all this not because this is a story about how Soren and Ashley saved the day and that the answer to creative projects is to hire a professional to fix it.

I’m telling you this because, while they came over for the afternoon, it didn’t take them long to right the ship, so to speak. And suddenly, we had time – time to be together, to hear about Soren’s family and Ashley’s growing interest in ministry, to talk about the unexpected joys and challenges of being new grandparents.

And we discovered that for all of us, when we want to do a hard thing that we don’t really know how to do or imagine ourselves maybe a little more capable than we really are…for all of us, it’s been our community that helps us get to where we want to be.  

-Barbara Seidl