Yesterday I got a call for work asking me to compile someone an Audibible for a Christmas present for her Gadsup speaking friend. I went onto our servers and found several old song files that were not of a quality to be distributed. I wasn’t ready to put my stamp of approval on them. The Scripture files were fine, but the song files needed editing.
So I began post-producing them. And as I was doing so I realized that half of the songs were from a choir that is currently in intense conflict with the originators of the other half of the songs.
The likelihood that this gift could become a huge problem was evident to me. So I stopped my work and started calling around. I found the man who did the recordings and he told me that he had gotten both choirs from the different villages to agree on allowing 2 songs to be used on a ‘sampler’ audibible. What I was producing would have violated that agreement, without me knowing it.
So I dropped what I had created, and went in search of this Audio sampler, found it and boom, done. Gift given, all is well.
But I realize as I sit here, that had I not been unhappy with the quality of the sound, I would not have dug deeper into the files to get the info that told me where they came from. I would not have realized I was about to create a listening device that, if overheard by the wrong people could bring a world of hurt down on the organization I work for, and my department.
Negotiating this rather volatile situation is difficult to do, and I am thankful to God that He put this thought on my mind to look into it, so that I didn’t accidentally contribute to making things worse.
Imagine if you would, accidentally getting caught up in the Hatfields and the Mccoys?
