“At the beginning of each day,
after we open our eyes
to receive the light
of that day,
As we listen to the voices
and sounds
that surround us,
We must resolve to treat each hour
as the rarest of gifts,
and be grateful
for the consciousness
that allows us to experience it,
recalling in thanks
that our awareness is a present
from we know not where,
or how, or why.
When we rise from sleep let us rise for the joy
of the true Work that we will be about this day,
and considerately cheer one another on……….”
~John McQuiston II, Always We Begin Again

I have been searching through my bookshelves over the last days, taking stock of the varied books I have purchased over the years. There are novels, travel books, theology textbooks, Bible commentaries and a variety of scripture translations. There are books of poetry and prayer, spiritual inspiration and a few self-help books thrown in for good measure. Memoirs, cookbooks, and the children’s books that have become cherished over the years.

This little book titled Always We Begin Again was nestled among so many others but I pulled it out to remind myself of its wisdom. The pages are filled with an updated interpretation of the workings of the Benedictines. Opening this tiny volume, I was reminded once again of the simple, grounded way of these religious who follow the way of St. Benedict.

It is always a wonderful thing to me to find words that call us to be mindful at the beginning of each day. To set an intention to see the unfolding hours as the gift it is, brings with it a certain dose of humility, encourages me to find that inner rhythm so common to those who live in religious community. It is less easy to grab hold of in fits and starts of the days most of us inhabit.

But the truth about this particular reading is that as I read it I thought of our Seattle son who graduates from college this weekend. He has been surrounded for the last four years by the gentle, intentional way of life of the Jesuits. It has been a gift to see that community help shape these important years of his life and to hear the ways in which he speaks in phrases and ideas in which I recognize the sweet, servant spirit of yet another religious order. This education has clearly been one that has been more than subject matter and has become a shaping of the heart and a lifetime. As a mother, it is a joy unspeakable to see.

McQuiston finishes his poem with these words:
“Life will always provide matters for concern.
Each day, however, brings with it reasons for joy.
Every day carries the potential
to bring the experience of heaven;
have the courage to expect good from it.
Be gentle with this life,
and use the light of life
to live fully in your time.”

Whether Benedictines or Jesuits, the wisdom of these words are for us all, religious or not. And they also carry the deep hope this mother has for the continued growing of a son’s gentle life, fully in his time.

We are beings ruled by our senses. Every waking moment is an interpretation of the world through sight, smell, sound, touch, taste. We take in information through one or more of these modes and in turn make meaning in our lives. While we share some of these experiences with other creations, we are the ones who engage these senses and then create story. It becomes our privileged responsibility to be awake and alive to these gifts, these ways of knowing. Though we may employ all five senses at any given moment of any day, we seem to be hard-wired to lean on one or two more than others.

So when you become aware that one of your less dominant senses is working overtime, it is good to pay attention. This was my experience this particular morning. As I headed out quite early to exercise, I was assaulted by the very scent of the air. It held the weight of moisture from last night’s rain and the fog that still hung heavy in the sight-lines before my eyes. I stopped and breathed in the fresh, sweet smell that wove through humidity and fog, a scent that signaled what I can only describe as the freedom of summer. Standing in my driveway, I allowed this fresh smell to carry me back over the years to those precious first days of summer vacation. Though I loved school, I also relished the sense of the easy going, relaxed possibility a childhood summer holds. Over the last day, I have seen this possibility on the faces of the young ones in the neighborhood. Days, nights, weeks, stretch out before them like a blank canvas begging for brush and paint. They are standing on the precipice of adventure and they know it.

The sense of smell is curious and connects us to our most primal selves. Our brothers and sisters with four legs are more adept than we at using its gifts. And yet our sense of smell holds memory and has the potential to catapult us to places we thought we had long forgotten. It is the place where some of our deepest memories find a home, waiting for the most unexpected time to take us on a magical, mystery tour of by-gone experiences. Certain scents can have me sitting at my grandmother’s kitchen table or dancing on the floor of my high-school gym. Other smells remind me of cars I once rode in and the people who rode along. Still other scents take me to lands to which I have traveled and the interesting people I met there, the foods I ate. Does this ring true for you?

This morning’s air, doused with the freshness of summer took me on a journey, not only of my own childhood, but that of my children’s early years. As parents we often have the opportunity to re-live some of the moments we held dear in our own childhoods by providing similar ones for our own children. Days at the lake. Campfires. Cherry Popsicles dripping down tiny hands. The act of marveling at the glow of fireflies on a warm summer evening. Laying in the grass looking up at the night sky, feeling the tiny place you hold in the vast universe. These simple pleasures connect us to something larger than our own individual lives.

The psalmists had a handle on what it meant to experience the Holy with all the senses. Theirs was not an intellectual but full-bodied pursuit of the presence of God in the midst of every day living. “May my prayer come to you like the sweet smell of incense. When I lift up my hands in prayer, may it be like the evening sacrifice.” These are the words of the writer of Psalm 141, words that remind us that even prayer can have a sweet, wonderful scent. Perhaps, it might smell something like the fresh, possibility of a warm summer’s day that wakes up slowly and leads to discoveries we never imagined. No matter our age, today could be a good day to live into the possibility of this ever-greening world that is opening up,waiting to dazzle all our senses.

What legacy do you plan to leave? How will you be remembered, not just in death, but by those communities, those people whose lives come into contact with yours? Most days we are so busy living our lives that we give very little thought to these kinds of questions. Mostly we are occupied with doing the laundry, answering emails, mowing the grass, doing the acts of whatever work we call our own, to be too intentional about how all of this might lead to comments people make about our legacy. We often forget that the way we spend our days is the way, in truth, that we spend our lives and the sum total of all this is making an impact, an impact that will be remembered by someone…someday.

One of the great gifts of the work I do is that I have the privilege of sitting with people as they plan for the memorial and funeral services of loved ones. If someone would have told me when I was younger that this is something I would be doing, not only doing but enjoying, I would have told them they were off their rocker! But here I am, holding the space while people remember, celebrate, mourn, and tell the legacy story of those who have shared their lives. Words cannot express the deep blessing this is to me.

Some of this legacy sharing comes easier than others. Not all people have reflected with any clarity on the legacy of another. Even those who lose someone who is quite close, a mother, father, or child, can sometimes find it difficult to articulate the ways in which they were shaped by this relationship. Often this has more to do with deep grief or the lack of experience in reflection than it has to do with any individual, any specific person. The truth is every person has influenced someone, has contributed in some way to the fabric of a community.

Today I was privileged to celebrate the life of one of the matriarchs not only of her family but of our church. Because she had been in failing health for some time and had lived to the impressive age of ninety-three, her family had had the gift of time to find the words that expressed her legacy. It was a beautiful thing to be in the presence of their memories, of the ways in which they so fully knew and could say how her life had given form to theirs. From the young ones to the senior ones, they had come to their own peace with both grief and celebration.

Over the last weeks as I have been planning for her memorial service someone shared with me a song that was a favorite of hers. It is an old hymn, one we don’t sing much anymore. But it is one that was a growing up song for me. I remember the sound of my grandmother’s wobbly voice joining the other wobbly voices of women her age as they sang these words in church:

“I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.

I would be friend to all, the foe, the friendless;
I would be giving, and forget the gift;
I would be humble, for I know my weakness;
I would look up, and laugh and love, and lift.”

As a child there was something in these words that touched on my youthful piety. They were words I hoped would be true of me, that I saw as a kind of challenge. That younger self hoped that the sentiment of this hymn would be some form of legacy that might evolve into my life. I was thankful to be reminded of them and to have the tune become my personal ear worm over the last few days. While I may not have attained the fullness of these words, this week I have remembered the strong women and men whose faith has held me, challenged me, and inspired me, those who could sing this song with an assurance for which I still strive.

Perhaps the lesson is that a legacy takes a lifetime to create.

Tired of all who come with words, words with no language
I went to the snow-covered island.
The wild does not have words.
The unwritten pages spread themselves out in all directions!
I come across the marks of roe-deer’s hooves in the snow.
Language but no words.
~ Tomas Transtromer

We are a people driven by words. Words come at us fast and furious from every direction. It is difficult to avoid them. Television. Radio. Email. Newspapers. Voices we want to hear and those that ooze into our conversations from the people who walk the daily path with us. Some we know. Most we don’t. Sometimes it can feel, at least to me, as if we are literally assaulted with words.

I want to be clear. I love words, some more than others. I love how they look on the page, how they sound pouring out of someone’s mouth. I love the way certain words feel in my own mouth…..velvet, charisma, alleluia, Deuteronomy…..to name a few. Words are the vehicle to tell our stories, to name our experiences, to shout our joy and weep our lament. Words are the Sacred’s gift to the human ones, a gift that carries with it immense responsibility.

But there are times when there are too many words. There are situations when there are so many words coming at you that you cease to hear them, to recognize them as language that means anything. In these times, I find that someplace in my brain shuts down and I cannot comprehend what is being said. I am thinking about this because over the last few weeks I have been in more than one situation where this was the case. Word was piled upon word in a way that left many of the deep intentions of those speaking lost to me. While people spoke I knew they meant well, that they believed deeply in what they were saying, but to my over-stimulated ears, their words fell unheard on the floor, puddling at my feet. Has this ever happened to you?

At one point, after a few days of this barrage of words, someone called for a time of silence. It was not a long period of silence at least in a meditation, deep listening kind of way. But that 60 seconds seemed like a gift from heaven to me. More than 1000 people not talking, making no sounds, not forming any words, simply silent. At one point I felt the agitation at this absence of sound for the person sitting beside me. Clearly this lack of words was not experienced for her in the same way I was having it. But when the silence was over and the words began again, I felt as if a balm had come over my whole being. I felt as if I might be able to hear again with new ears.

Silence is a gift. I believe this is true. In the scriptures, there is the story of God’s presence coming in the sound of ‘sheer silence’. In our every day, ordinary lives, silence is indeed golden. We have to work to have it, to allow its blessings to wash over us. Silence is not just for introverts or contemplatives, not just for people of certain generations. Silence can be a gift to the youngest among us helping them to exercise the muscle of deep listening. Silence can be what helps us move into prayer, discernment and be quiet enough to hear God’s movement that is always present. Silence is the gift of the night, the breath of the morning, the air that moves in the spaces of our thoughts and dreams.

May silence bless you this day. May the words that come your way be gentle and few. May the movement of the Spirit greet you without a sound.

Today, June 3rd, is the Feast Day of St. Kevin. St. Kevin captured my heart while I was traveling with a group of pilgrims in Ireland last year. Kevin made his home at Glendalough, a valley nestled into the Wicklow mountains, on the shore of both a crystal lake and babbling stream. He was the leader of a school and monastery that flourished in this place for many years educating priests and teachers, inspiring people to follow in the steps of the Holy.

While walking in his footsteps last year, I was struck with the number of people, young, old and in-between, who continued to flock to this lush, green valley. I assume they were lured there by the stories of this man devoted to presence and patience in what was then a remote place. The story is told of Kevin, a devotee of praying while standing knee-deep in the cold, mountain lake, his arms out-stretched, palms lifted toward the heavens. One day a bird lands in his hand, builds a nest and lays eggs. It is said that Kevin stayed just where he was, praying with arms extended, until the new birds were hatched and flew into their new life. It is a lovely story told in the fantastic way of the Irish.

This morning as I walked in the early part of the day I was very un-Kevin like. While the morning was unfolding before me,my mind was racing ahead to what had not yet been, what might never be. The birds were singing but I was not really listening. The colorful blossoms of an elongated spring were bursting around me but I wasn’t really seeing. My arms may have been outstretched but no bird dared land there for fear of being whipped into a tail-spin. Prayer was more of the shooting star pattern not the deep breath, trusting, knowing gut kind I hope for.

But overhead, high in the sky, the Holy was flapping, trying to get my attention. A honking, musical and lyrical continued its song cutting into the thoughts that gripped me, just outside my consciousness. I shook my head trying to bring myself into the present moment as I tried to walk into the metaphorical cold water as Kevin might have. I stopped. I got my bearings and allowed my head to angle up toward the sky. In the pale light of morning, a huge gaggle of geese flew in perfect formation, their V-shape an arrow cutting through the morning light. Only one lone goose flew outside this geometric shape. I felt my chest clutch as I saw it. Standing on the sidewalk, my head tilted, I urged this solitary bird to find its place. I watched as it seemed to work incredibly hard to fly harder, faster until……it moved perfectly into place. The formation was complete. At least for that one moment.

Whether or not the story of St. Kevin is factual is not important. What is important is that it is true. The gift of St. Kevin to us is the example of what it means to live in the community of all beings. Kevin held his patient prayer long enough for there to be new birth. He stood still making his connection with water, air, earth and heaven. He became ‘home’ for this most fragile of beings and in so doing probably learned more of what it meant to be human.

This morning, on St. Kevin’s Feast Day, I was offered a similar gift by the gathering of high flying geese. Their song woke me up and nudged me to breath deeply of the incredible gifts of this day. Like the lone goose flailing outside the perfect formation, I was folded once again into the gentle rhythm of Creation. It was almost as if St. Kevin himself was standing patiently, waiting and praying.

And to that I say “blessed be.”

This statement is in the realm of “Well, I’d never heard that before.” This week at the Minnesota gathering of the United Methodist Church our bishop pointed out that this gathering which we do once a year once had a very practical purpose. In the days when the small gatherings of people who had hung their faith-star to the ministry of a man who became known as the founder of Methodism, the communities were scattered all over a newly settled land. Preachers rode from settlement to settlement on horses giving rise to the name of ‘circuit riders.’ These faithful held on to one another in a landscape that was new to them, one they were trying to learn to call home. But once a year, the preachers gathered for an annual conference. The primary purpose? To see who was still alive!

I had never heard this before and after the bishop told this story, I began to think about these early holders of this faith tradition. I imagined their difficult and dangerous life. I also imagined what it must have been like to travel dusty roads, sleep in precarious places, not know where your next meal might be found, all in the work of telling the goodness of God while bringing hope to a marginalized people. Frankly, it makes my daily work seem quite easy if not trivial.

But to think about the idea of these men, and they were at that time all men, coming together for the purpose of proving to one another that they were, indeed, still alive gave me pause. Still alive after riding dangerous roads. Still alive after sleeping in the heat, cold, snow, rain. Still alive after eating food caught, shot, received as gift. Food that was held without benefit of refrigeration. Wounds that were treated without benefit of antibiotics. “Are we all still alive?”, they asked.

Of course, this gathering, this annual conference of which I have been a part did not carry such a dramatic question at its heart. At least, not in the sense that our ancestors did. And yet, there is a sense in which this question, this intention still holds true.

I know of those whose work in their churches has been difficult, painful and down right spirit-killing. There are those whose gifts have not been used in the ways in which they have been offered, ways that might have brought life to their community and life to the one who was making the offering. There are those who have had difficult life situations that have made doing ministry a complicated and fragmented enterprise. Are they still alive?

As a church we continue to be embroiled in speaking the language of inclusion while taking actions and passing legislation that denies our intention. We have conversations and debates that spin endlessly and arrive in no particular place. Many of these conversations hold the seeds for change without the courage to plant them. We are reluctant gardeners. The message of justice that has been at the core of this movement called Methodist since its beginning often gets lost in the minutiae of language and the very diversity that gives us our identity. Are we still alive?

Charles Wesley, the brother of our founder John, wrote these words to a hymn we sing often: “And are we yet alive, And see each other’s face? Glory and thanks to Jesus give, for God’s almighty grace!” This being church is a tricky business, filled with fragile humans, all trying to live out their faith the best way they know to do. When I think of this week, the many joys and the deep pains that have been shared, it is the blessing of the faces I will remember. The tired faces of those who have labored long and hard. The glowing faces of those who are full of the idealism of youth. The inspired faces of the newly ordained. The faces of those who are retiring and have a mixture of wonder, weariness and resolve. The faces of the faithful with all our differences….theological, political, educational, economic, racial, gender, social.

Next year, when we gather to ask the question once again, “Are we still alive?” there may be faces who will have faded into the distance, those who have left this earth. Some will have given up on this thing called United Methodism and will have taken their questions and wonderings someplace else. I pray God’s blessing on all these faces and those who will show up, yet once again, to prove to one another that, indeed, we may be bruised, we may be battered, but indeed we are still alive.

The act of creating community is a powerful one. You can be intentional about it and then, sometimes, it just happens. Many times the community is very visible and other times it is unseen, a knowing that you are connected in ways to a presence that exists in some special way. There is the community that happens in a school or church setting. There are communities that happen when friends commit to travel life’s paths with one another. Families are communities and neighborhoods can be, though many no longer embody this quality.

I have been thinking about community over the last week or so. I spent time at a retreat center last week whose hosts live in intentional community with one another. They share in the work and the welcoming of those of us who can do with a little ‘time out’ from the rhythm of our regular lives. Observing the kindness and care this community took with one another warmed my heart. I long for more time spent in their midst.

Last evening I watched an independent film created by a group of college students from the University of Michigan. The filmmaker had attended high school with our Seattle Son and had launched one of those ‘help fund me’ campaigns to which I had donated. The name of the project which the film followed was called “Thrive With Less”. Its purpose was to create a simpler life than the one these young adults had been living. Their experiences had them cutting back on all the things we seem to think so necessary to a 21st century lifestyle: excess in belongings, attachment to technology, addiction to fuel-consuming travel, and a need for large living spaces. They made a commitment to one another to change these behaviors and then began to live it…..and document what they were doing.

It was a fascinating look at a group of young adults who were truly reflecting, not only on their own lives, but the life of our nation, our time. It was both painful and joyful to watch their struggles and hear their questions. And while they would not necessarily describe it as I do, what I saw them doing was coming to an understanding of what it means to live in intentional community. This community was also what some might call contemplative. My words, not theirs. They made the commitment, at least for a time, to reflect on the ways in which they were ordering their days, what that meant, how they were accountable to one another and how their lives fit into the larger picture of the world.

How we make those connections to being a part of the world matters. Seemingly simple acts can produce the most amazing results. We are experiencing just such a gift of connection right in front of our eyes, actually right in front of our house. As a Christmas gift, my husband got me a Little Free Library. It was created by some men at our church who fix and build things around the building, using their gifts while they also create their own intentional community. These small structures have popped up in neighborhoods around the Twin Cities. Their purpose is to share books with passers-by, neighbors, strangers. Anyone can open the door and choose a book to take, return it or keep it.

After the ground finally thawed enough to be able to ‘plant’ the library, my husband placed it in front of our house. I had made a mental note of the books I wanted to put into it but did not have time to do so right away. That evening when I came home, I walked out with the books I had ready to go into the library. Opening the door, I saw a row of books already there. Someone had taken the opportunity to start the sharing! Over the weeks that the library has been open for business, children and youth from the neighborhood have been walking by, opening the door and checking out what is inside. Others have dropped off a book on their way to the school bus in the morning. Adults, walking briskly for exercise, stop, open the door and take a book ‘for the road’. As I have added a title now and then, I have noticed others that I did not put there. Our Little Free Library has become a sharing in a community, visible and invisible.

Today might be a good day to reflect on the communities of which we all are a part. How are these groups of people in which we are known intentional? What kind of community does your heart yearn for? How do our communities help us, and the world, thrive?

Remember…..sometimes the beginning of community is as simple as sharing a book.

“May perpetual light shine upon
The faces of all who rest here.
May the lives they lived
Unfold further in spirit.
May all their past travails
Find ease in the kindness of clay.
May the remembering earth
Mind every memory they brought.
May the rains from the heavens
Fall gently upon them.
May the windflowers and grasses
Whisper their wishes into light.
May we reverence the village of presence
In the stillness of this silent field.”
~John O’Donohue

Today is Memorial Day. I have been reflecting on the differences in the way this particular day has been as compared with the observance of this day when I was a child and teenager. Growing up in a place which is a bit warmer than Minnesota, my Ohio summers began with holiday. School was finished for the year before Memorial Day. The swimming pool opened on this national holiday. There was that sense of freedom and deep breaths that come with the realization that the rhythm of your life is about to change. Memorial Day was the beginning of the adventure of what the summer months might hold.

The day was usually warm, quite warm and began with a parade. Not a large parade but one that included the marching band and those veterans who had served and were able to march. It was a small town, a short parade, but its unfolding also signaled the unfolding of so much. As a child these veterans in their varying styles of uniforms seemed mysterious to me. My own father had served in the Navy but he did not march with this group. I wondered about them, what they had seen and experienced and if they ever spoke of it to their children. My father certainly had not.

As a teenager, I had become a part of that marching band and things in the country and in my own understanding of all kinds of institutions had become confused, complicated. It was the midst of the Vietnam War and there was so much to wonder about, so much to question, so much that seemed full of an ambiguity I had not known as a child. I continued to observe these men who had served in wars that had happened before I was born knowing that somehow their experience seemed different than that of the young men I had seen return from the war that spanned my adolescence. These young men seemed removed, lost, filled with a woundedness I had not seen before. They also were not a part of the parade.

Of course, the route of the parade ended in the cemetery where prayers were prayed, flags were raised and the mournful sound of ‘Taps’ wafted across the humid, summer air. We were there to help hold a memory of the ones who had not returned and all those, whether military or not, who had slipped from our sight.

Today My Memorial Day held none of this. I no longer watch as the band marches by or the veterans carry flags in procession. I am the poorer for it. But I can still hold, and do, the memory for those I have known who have served and pray God’s ‘perpetual light’ upon them. Some have passed from this earth yet others, still living, carry their own memories of what this way of honoring their country means to them. At least one in our family is now serving in his own way and will be storing up his own experiences. My prayers surround him as well.

For what or for whom do you hold memory today?

“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
~Voltaire

Every birthday celebrated carries with it a certain uniqueness. Just the sheer act of adding another number to your age provides difference. There are golden birthdays. Milestone birthdays. Birthdays that are quiet and those that are overflowing with celebration. The older one gets there are birthdays that are remembered as particularly special. They were celebrated in a unique setting. There were surprises. And sometimes there are birthdays whose number a person does not want to admit. A lifetime, I imagine, holds them all.

Yesterday as I celebrated my birthday, I remembered the first birthday party I ever had. The yearly blow out celebrations kids have these days were not an annual occasion then. If you were lucky, you had two or three parties in your youth. Mine was a party at my house. My mother had placed a long table in the living room and chairs were arranged around. There was a table cloth. The girls wore dresses, Sunday best dresses. And the boys arrived in coats and ties. It was a scene out of Leave It To Beaver! Just thinking of the awkwardness and the excitement made me laugh. And thinking of how drastically different this party was from the many we arranged for our sons had me shaking my head.

If I had to describe my celebration yesterday, I would have to say it was an embarrassment of riches. The ways in which people offered their well wishes caused me, once again, to remember the amazing people in my life. When I tried to decide how I wanted to actually celebrate, I realized that I simply wanted to do more of what I already do. I wanted to go to my favorite coffee shop, have coffee with my husband, read the newspaper, walk through the neighborhood I love, spend time talking to friends and have dinner with the family that is near by. I want to believe this is contentment and a love for my life and not simply a failure of imagination.

But yesterday’s birthday was also filled with the privilege of being a part of the memorial service for one of our dear ones. This ninety-eight year old had been both mentor and colleague. Her life was filled with the tragedies and triumphs of most lives. She had risen above most of them through a faith and perseverance that was inspiration to us all. She was a writer and student of scripture whose quick wit and welcoming spirit had been the companion of our community for more than forty years. To be able to participate in the celebration of her life was a gift to all who were present and to me.

In the late afternoon as I was driving home, I heard a report on the news that caused my heart to race and fear to well up from that place it lives when its not wrecking havoc. A group of fourth-graders had been fossil hunting in the park near our house and there has been a landslide. Children were hurt and missing and one was known to be dead. Arriving home after a circuitous drive past emergency vehicles and flashing lights, the sound of helicopters over head became the soundtrack for our pre-birthday dinner conversation. We know this park well, our son takes groups of students there regularly. We could imagine just where these young people and their adults had been climbing. Our neighborhood seemed cloaked in a fog of sadness and my prayers are being sent to all those families and innocent ones affected.

Each day carries the fullness of life. There are births to celebrate. There are lives to mourn. There is the joy of a long life, well lived and there is the overwhelming tragedy of those that did not get to celebrate another birthday. This living is big and it does not serve us well when we choose to pretend otherwise. Each day is a gift held out to us in the hope that we will not take its importance lightly but that we will honor it with the sacredness it offers. This embarrassment of riches is the gift of every day if we have the eyes to see.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story within you.”
~Maya Angelou

The weekend was bookended by two musical events. The first, a solo cabaret show and the other a concert with choir, jazz ensemble and brass orchestra. It was a sweet and inspiring way to spend a weekend in May especially one that danced with varying levels of intense rain. Thinking about the many ways music can be experienced, I marveled at the contrasts in these two events.

On Friday evening, I was blessed by the gifts of one woman telling a part of her personal story using music that was familiar. It reminded me of the times when I have imagined a soundtrack that underscores my own life. A show tune here. A jazz piano there. A little rock, a banjo or two, finished off by a symphony. Depending on the mood and circumstances that make up any day, the music changes to fit the feelings, the experiences. Have you ever done this? Imagined a soundtrack for your life?

Listening to this woman’s story I was struck with her vulnerability, her ability and willingness to tell some very deep and powerful tales that pulled me in and allowed me to identify. As she wove her own spoken story with familiar music, she allowed me to hear these tunes, understand these lyrics in new ways. Mostly I was stunned by one person’s ability to hold the attention of an audience with her own story, her own beautiful reflection of what might be seen as a rather ordinary set of life circumstances. But when told with such intention and passion, when held in the beauty of music, these experiences many in the audience had probably also had, created a spell-binding show.

The Sunday evening concert was big with content and with sound. The words of scripture and those of Martin Luther King, Jr. set to music by jazz legend Dave Brubak combined to create a bigger than life experience. There were few quiet moments and so the ones that did happen carried an even greater weight. I looked and listened to all the people who had joined forces to tell a story of justice, its illusive nature and yet the deep hope we have in its realization. It would have been difficult for one single person to have told this story or given voice to this longing. The music and the message needed a host to bring its telling to life.

I thought of the many stories we tell as humans. We are, after all, the ones who tell the stories of those who have gone before. It is the task of being human to not only tell our history but also to imagine with words that inspire the hope of a future. And the place in between, this place where we live in the here and now, is the story we are living. In its dailiness with all its ordinary and amazing experiences. This ‘here and now’ was once a future and will, in the blink of an eye, be our history.

What might the story of your life look like if you took it to the stage? Would it be a comedy or a tragedy? Would it have the audience cheering you on? Might there be moments when others might wince with knowing at some of your choices? Might others be inspired and moved to tears by the telling? I imagine all our stories would hold these elements and so much more.

These life stories we are privileged to act out on the stage of our lives are ones none of us auditioned for. And yet, we get to be the actors, we get to choose how we will play the part. Sometimes it feels like a solo cabaret show and other times we have a full company of performers who help us keep the show going.

And sometimes, if we are exceptionally blessed, there is music. Sweet music to help bring the fullness of our own story to the world’s stage.