Singing Along the Journey
Thoughts about faith and wholeness set to the soundtrack of life

Snowflakes….Day 23

If you've been reading some of my ramblings here, you understand that I have a pretty strong "observer-self"...I long ago developed a pretty dispassionate way of stepping back and taking a look at my behavior patterns and seeing what they tell me about my life, my spirit, and my sense of balance.  And one of the patterns that comes up over and over again is well, my excellent talent at procrastination.  If there is a task to be done, I will, I repeat, I definitely will, leave it to the last possible moment, and complete it in one long flurry of activity.  I have outgrown the college "over-nighter"--I may work all…
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Window-air conditioners and heat-waves…Day 22

I may not have made this clear, but even though I currently live in Washington DC (and do indeed call the District of Columbia my home), I was born and raised in Kansas City -- Kansas City, Missouri, NOT Kansas City, Kansas.  The big city not the little one.  The one where the numbered streets run east and west, not north and south (that's Kansas City, KS).  And as we sit here in DC today, awaiting a day of 103 degree heat, I find myself thinking about heat waves long ago in the place of my Midwestern origins. I will out myself -- I am old enough to remember living…
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Houses…Day 21

Yesterday, we had a visitor at Calvary.  Oh, actually, I'm certain that we had more than one visitor, particularly since it was a holiday weekend, but we had one visitor who sat with me and talked to me and frankly, left me in a complete state of awe. We had a visitor from Beijing, China.  Now you might say -- Great, wow, that's really far away!  Far is nothing for Calvary...we regularly have visitors from all over the world.   But not all of our visitors are people who must risk their lives and their livelihoods to follow Jesus Christ.  But this visitor does risk everything, every time they pray the Lord's…
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Independence Day…Day 20

I have the great blessing this morning to waking on a Sunday when, I just get to go to church -- you know, like one of the congregation.  I love participating in the worship as one of the leaders; I love singing in the choir;  but sometimes I just like to sit in the congregation and worship. [caption id="attachment_313" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Michael Patterson and Amalie Frank"][/caption] And today, for me, is a day of memory.  I used to belong to a church that had at its helm an 85-year-old ministerial spitfire named Amalie Frank.  Amalie taught me many things, both positive and negative (the strength that she showed in her…
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The Day Ahead….Day 19

Today is the first day of a long holiday weekend.  This particular weekend, that of the 4th of July, is a particular challenge for those of us who call Capitol Hill in the Nation's Capital our home all year long. I learned long ago that it is best to provision up and stay in the neighborhood.  Stay off the roads. Stay off the metro.  Avoid the major avenues, even on foot.   For you see, we have been invaded--invaded by people from all over the world that have come here to our 310 acre national front yard, the National Mall, to celebrate. Living here, you do forget, eventually, that you live…
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Panic….Day 18

I will confess -- yesterday became a day of little jobs. That is usually a sign of two things in my life:  procrastination....and panic. It usually means that there is some large, transformational event on the horizon.  In this case, the large event, at least, is my trip to Spain.  And yesterday, my procrastination took the form of this:  everywhere I looked, I saw some small job that needed to be done so that my housemate and dog would be most comfortable while I was gone and not on site to attend to their every need (hopefully, before they can think of it--my obsession, not theirs). I plastered a small…
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Irritation is good…Day 17

Most of my time this morning will be devoted to working on the music for my upcoming trip, but since I really need to turn in my paper and project from my class before I leave, I thought I would devote the pre-breakfast hours to getting the paper started. You may have already guessed, but I have been trying out a lot of my ideas right here. And so, this morning I have returned again to Dr. Saliers as I work on the introduction to my paper, "Social Justice Themes in Opera:  Speaking Truth to Power".    Excuse me, but for most of this post I will be doing the blogging…
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Sacred, sacral, secular…transcendant: Day 16

Back to more serious topics...music as mission and just what music to sing, at least, for me to sing. When I was in Berlin in 2008, I happened to be there for the 70th remembrance (anniversary seems just not the rightword here) of Kristellnacht.  The city was full of concerts, prayer services, and politicians, all scrambling to be appropriately reverant in their remembrance.  What I remember most is that if there was one performance of Mozart's Requiem, there were 20.  I still find it so interesting that it was the Mozart Requiem that was the music of choice, when there are so many beautiful requiems to perform.  But Mozart was…
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On the road again…almost…Day 15

One of the most interesting things that I have learned from Pastor Amy's 30 Day Blogging Challenge is that, well you just can't really plan ahead. You see, I thought that I would get up this morning and write a cheery little piece about all the planning and bustle about my upcoming trip to Spain.  But, as I was drafting in my head while I did the dishes this morning, that isn't exactly the direction my thoughts turned. Last night (after spending a couple of hours comparing Hyundais, Mazdas, and Nissans), I returned to my task of finalizing my hotel reservations.  I had thought that the concert organization I was working…
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Too darn hot…Day 14

Today, I have done the very best that I could to simply not think any deep thoughts whatsoever.  That is usually a challenge for me.  But today, when we only just dodged the 100 degree mark for days upon days in a row, it wasn't a huge challenge. Besides, I had to deal with the effects of the heat on my life:  I had to start car shopping. [caption id="attachment_281" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Goodbye, faithful servant of 10 years..."][/caption] Yes, the time has come to replace our beloved 14 year old Mazda Protege.  The heat, she done done it in, in the language of Liza Doolittle.  That and too any trips…
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