Stumbled upon the memory of a song we performed in Toledo… one of those songs that choked me up every time we sang it. It was my heart. There is no other way to say it. It was my heart set to music… “Here I lie. I have had treasure enough. I have had singing…” Tears fill my eyes just to hear it in my head, to feel it within me. I ache to have singing again…

I was reading my friend Dan’s blog last night, and this comment about having his ability to drum restored after a serious injury to his elbow really resonated for me:

“And on the way home from church I realized that I express myself this way: When I speak I feel like I get out 20% of my true feelings. When I write I get out 50% of my true feelings across, when I photograph maybe 60% on a really good day, and when I drum I get 100% of my true feelings across.”

Writing, for me, is a passion and an outlet, but it is still not singing. It clearly and capably conveys something of my heart, and more importantly, something of my Father’s heart…but when my heart speaks the language of the Carmina Burana, or Handel’s Messiah, or John Rutter’s Gloria, well, there just aren’t keystrokes for that. And all that is there goes unspoken.

Got the news last night that if concert attendance does not improve, the professional choir my husband currently sings in will be folding after their 2005 Christmas concert. I am doubly sad: sad for Tom that this outlet may also be lost for him. And sad that there may truly not be another opportunity to ever experience again the caliber of choral singing that we experienced in college and in our choir in Toledo. At least not here, not now.

I grieve again tonight for that loss, and pray that the Lord will see fit to one day again “give us singing.”

music reflection reminiscing writing