The Sphincters!

Several years ago I was a counsellor at a Junior High Summer Camp, in Minden, Louisiana. The theme of the camp was 'Many Parts, One Body', and each cabin got to decide on a part of the body to call itself; so we had 'The Arms', and 'The Feet,' 'The Ears', etc.--basic body part names; except for my cabin: the little nerds in my cabin thought that it would be cool to call themselves 'The Sphincters, the muscle in the body that helps you poop! Well that's just great--all of the other counsellors get to be arms, ears, and feet, while I am stuck all week with 'The Sphincters'.

I decided to run with this however--(no wait, that's a bad pun, sorry, this article is not working out the way I had forseen!) At some point during the week, when it was my turn to address all the cabins together, I talked about the sphincter muscle. I talked about the 'less honorable parts' as the apostle Paul calls them, getting the most honor, etc.

And one thing that they did not know about the sphincter muscle is that it is one of the most important muscles of all for singing! I told them of a phrase I learned from a voice teacher, who said that as you prepare to sing, think 'SINK, CLUTCH, DANGLE.' SINK--bend youre kness and take a comfortable, not a stiff, stance; CLUTCH--tighten your sphincter muscle, as doing that provides kind of a floor against which the diaphram pushes, giving your voice more power; and DANGLE--let you arms hang loose; let them dangle so that you let all the tension out of your torso. 'So you see,' I said to the fairly interested Jr. Highs, 'some of the most beautiful expressions of human beings are due to the tightening of the sphincter muscle!'

Quite a bit of giggling and hardy-har-harring took place, but I noticed that, from that point on, The Sphincters became the life of the camp--in a good way. They were proud now of being the sphincters; they performed the most service, had the most fun, and went home, I think, having learned something important--that sometimes, doing the less-honorable tasks of service is actually the most fun, most appreciated, and most life-giving thing one can do for another. R.