February 21, 2008

• Perfectly Lovely Day

   

  Did you see it, did you see it?  The eclipse, I mean.  Even though it was cold (it’s always cold here) last night (about -10, I think), our whole family (well, those of us at home anyway) bundled up and stood outside for almost 1/2 hour watching the shadow of the earth slowly and inexorably make it’s way across the face of the moon.  We watched from about 8:40 until about 9:10 PM.  I tried to get a good picture of it, but even my “fancy” (to me) new camera wasn’t sophisticated enough to get a good shot.  Perhaps if I had had a tripod….

  Watching the eclipse was the perfect way to end a perfectly lovely day.  Yes, yesterday was one of the good ones, in my estimation.  Not perfect, but close.  It was a little too cold, and speaking of cold(s), I have been fighting one since Monday.  It’s not a bad cold, just some slight stuffiness and a little cough and scratchy throat.  The timing is not terrific, however, because I have a concert coming up on Sunday and I need to be in “good voice”, so to speak (or in my case, so to SING).  Concert, you are wondering?  Yes, for the past two seasons (since the fall of  ’06) I have been singing with a Chorale.  It is made up of about 50 adult singers from my hometown and other surrounding communities.  We rehearse once a week and perform a series of Christmas concerts in December, a major works concert in February (that is the one coming up) and a sort of “pops” concert series in May.  Pops may not be the most accurate term to describe the May series, but it is a more casual concert setting than the others.  Our audience is seated at tables and is served coffee (or punch) and dessert during the concert…sort of a coffee house setting.  But I am digressing from telling you about my nearly perfect day yesterday….

  When I was a new Mom, 22 years ago, I was all about the kids.  For at least the first 15 years of parenting I focused almost exclusively on meeting the needs of the family — kids and hubby.  A few years ago, that began to change.  I realized that in order to continue to be an effective parent and wife, I needed to take some time to meet my own needs as well.  One of the things I have given myself  ”permission” to do is to have my hair professionally styled and colored on a regular basis.  I know to a lot of people, this seems like a waste of time and money, but for me it is an indulgence that I treat myself to because it makes me feel better about myself and when I feel better about myself I think I am better equipped to fulfill my many roles.  So yesterday, I had an appointment to have my hair done.  I love my hair appointments.  I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for 3 years now.  She and I have developed a rapport that is approaching friendship.  I hesitate to call it a true friendship, because we never see each other outside of the salon, but we share things about our families and our lives that you don’t share with a stranger.  Besides sharing good conversation with her, I also always get a great hairstyle!  I like this particular salon because I think they go a little bit beyond the usual in terms of taking care of the patrons.  I ALWAYS get a nice scalp and neck massage during my shampoo, and while I am sitting and waiting for my color to process, I get to sit in a very comfortable massage chair.  It would be a calgon moment, if they used calgon in the salon.  It is about 90 minutes of time just for myself.  I turn off my cell phone, bring along my latest read, and simply enjoy taking time for me.  I put all my other “agendas” on hold for the time I am there and give myself over to total relaxation. 

  Another thing that made yesterday special was that I didn’t have to prepare supper!  During the lenten season, our church is serving soup suppers every Wednesday.  My 9th grade son (Mark) is in confirmation class this year, so he is at the church every Wednesday anyway, and on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month Isaac goes to a youth program at church after school, so two of my three sons living at home were already at the church.  Grant and I drove up to church at 5:00 and met the other two boys and filled ourselves with tasty warm soup and homemade bread (at least I think it was homemade).  Yum.  After supper, there is a brief (about 45 minute) worship service.  The focus of the services during lent is Grace — one of my personally favorite theological themes.  The service opens with singing, followed by scripture reading.  The bulk of the service involves members of the congregation sharing their personal reflections on ”acts of piety and acts of mercy as a means of grace”, where acts of piety are those practices which express our love for God and acts of mercy are the practices which express our love for our neighbor.  Last night the experiences focused on worship (piety) and hospitality (mercy).  In the church I grew up in, we would have called this time of sharing a “personal testimony”, but my current church tends to shy away from such “fundamentalist” labels.  It is a personal testimony, no matter what you call it.  It’s all semantics.  The reflection time is followed by sharing of prayer requests, and a closing song.  After the worship service has ended, our weekly choir practice begins.  I have been singing in the church choir ever since we joined this church almost 24 years ago.  I have always enjoyed singing in the choir.  I grew up singing in church.  As a little girl I sang with my family for “special music”, or sometimes I sang on my own.  I recall one of my first public singing experiences was singing “Heavenly Sunshine” in church when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I sang in my church choir and my high school choir as a teenager, and continued singing in the college choir during the years when I didn’t attend church.  I’ve never NOT sung, come to think of it. Singing is invariably an uplifting event for me, whether I am in rehearsal, whether I am performing, or whether I am just humming a tune in my head while I go about some other daily task.   It simply brings joy to my soul to be able to sing.  My particular joy in singing in church choir at this point in my life is enhanced because it is something I am sharing with Mark and Grant, as they have both joined the church choir as well.  Since their voices changed and they no longer sing with the boy’s choir, they have continued to seek out opportunities to sing.  Of course they both sing in the school choir, but I was so happy that they both voluntarily joined the church choir.  I guess once the joy of singing gets in your blood, it stays there! Every Wednesday I leave choir practice with a song on my lips and one in my heart as well.  I cannot have music in my heart and be in a bad mood at the same time.

  Which brings me back to the eclipse.  As I left the church last night, after a day where I had relaxed and allowed myself time to be pampered, where I was fed in body and soul, I was treated to a natural wonder of spectacular proportions.  How can one observe an eclipse and not be moved by the grandeur of the heavens?  “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands”  Psalms 19:1.  As I said — the perfect ending to a perfectly lovely day.

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