Hallelujah!

Here's one of the many (and, in the scheme of things, less important) reasons I love my church. It is our tradition to do a sing-a-long of the Hallelujah Chorus to close the Easter service. I'm playing the flute in our tiny ad-hoc orchestra, and That Guy is the one in the light green shirt toward the edge of the bass section (on your right) who is not looking at his music. He, of course, still has the bass part memorized seven (eight?) years after learning it. Considering we do this once a year and never rehearse (okay, the choir, all two dozen of us, sings it through a couple of times), we sound pretty good.


Hallelujah Chorus from ClearNote Church on Vimeo.

After this, the men tore down the rest of the chairs in about three minutes flat, and we had our Easter feast, another reason I love these people.

Saturday morning at our place

Me: We should have a waterproof thesaurus.
Him: A what?
Me: A waterproof thesaurus.
Him: A waterproof thesaurus?
Me: So we can look words up in the shower.
Him: Oh, I thought you were talking about a dinosaur.

Falling in Love

So, it's been a while!  I actually did some serious writing yesterday--trains and planes seem to bring that out in me, so I may have something to post shortly.  I've also been planning to do this post as a "Friday Favorite," but I couldn't resist one day early.

A number of sweet ladies of my acquaintance have posted on their blogs about about their courtship/dating/engagement/marriage.  They delight me.

"51 Weeks":  Start at the bottom and read up. Rebekah's most recent post is the one that finally made me post.

If we were to separate? If I had to say goodbye? If my future didn't include him? Oh God, I would feel like part of me had died, I truly would. My chest hurt just thinking about it.

I remember that moment.

Summer Harms: You'll have to do a little searching to find the entire tale, but Summer's got a lovely account of her penpal courtship. I remember this one! I was there the summer they started dating and had no idea they had been corresponding, or even really knew each other. It was Summer's first summer on staff. So when they kept disappearing together, I was really confused. Was something going on? Did Summer just have an irresistible crush and couldn't stop following Grant around (it wouldn't have been the first time!)? Then they started officially dating and it was too cute.

Breeding Lilacs: This is adorable, but the real reason I love it is that her first skiing lesson was pretty much exactly like mine.

He gave me a few general guidelines, let me practice stopping once or twice, then took me up the lift: no lessons, no bunny slope–nothing. And it was incredible! I made it down the first run without falling once, though I must admit that I screamed (half delight/half terror) all the way to the bottom.
Zach stayed with me the whole day. He kept behind me, even though I’m sure my beginner’s pace was painfully slow for him. He helped me up when I fell (for the beginner’s luck on that first run didn’t last all day). And when I really wiped out and sent a ski sliding down the mountain ahead of me, he went ahead to fetch it and then trudged up the slope in his ski boots to return it to me: no easy task.

A Silver Cord: I didn't get married during college, but I did leave college a semester early to do so, so I know a little bit about the feelings Sarah experienced.  This is a phrase I definitely heard quite a bit: "Wow, you're amazing, I could never do that."

And finally, One True Word.  This is actually more of a reflection on Rebekah's story, but it gave me comfort. While I love reading happy romantic love stories, like Joy, mine is "too sad and frustrating" to want to write about. I thought that it would have turned into a good story by now, but every time I go back to look at the writing and e-mails I did at the time, it's still painful. Maybe some day.