I think that a lot of this has to do with personality types. If 40 people were pulled out of the population and made directors of music, the successful ones would end up being from half or less of the group, based upon the fact that people tend to be either leaders or followers. The followers would fail, the leaders would not.

It takes a certain personality to be a singer or organist - but especially a singer. To express yourself by shouting, be it in a musical manner and lovely, requires that you be outgoing and often, demanding of yourself...and for that reason also of others.

Based upon that as well as organist's love of playing full organ, many of us knowingly do things in public that we know irritate some people who do not like singing or the sound of full organ. We know that they do not and override any feelings of trepidation for how they respond to our actions.

I do not think that many of us actually do things to irritate people, but do things that we realize may irritate people who are not interested/totally against what we do. But if we give up, we are admitting failure, letting down others who rely upon us to produce music that is, in our minds, appropriate and needed.

How can we get priests to understand that we have a calling as serious as theirs and deserve leeway and discussion rather than a sudden lack of communication followed by firing?