October 2009 Pictures

Do Re Mi

Luke and I help out in the Kindergarten choir at church.  We mostly enjoy it (there always seems to be that ONE kid you almost have to sit on - this semester it is a child whose name is unusual but I remember it quite easily because it rhymes with "heathen") and it is a good way to give back to the church and have fun with kids that aren't ours.

The director, who is in the sanctuary choir with me, has had me playing the glockenspiel with them the last few weeks on some of their songs.  I am just alternating back and forth between two notes on the beat.  I think it is supposed to be helpful to the kids.  It is very simple.

The kids are singing in a church service on Sunday and to my horror I find I am to kneel in front of them with the glockenspiel playing my two notes while they sing.  I tried to decline but I could not get out of it.  My fellow choir members will get a nice view of me doing this and I am really hoping the cameras for the live stream on the internet will keep its lens trained on the kids and not me.

One small mercy though...when we were rehearsing in the sanctuary tonight and the director was busy with the kids the A/V guy came up to me and asked if I would need the glockenspiel to be mic'ed.  I said something to the extent of "please, no!".  Phew!

Bible Study

I know I have readers who are involved with church and bible study and I have a question for you. 

How do you evaluate whether a bible study is a productive/positive experience? 

I am really struggling with enjoying or even at times tolerating bible study currently.  The topic is fine.  It is a manuscript style study of Mark.  It relies heavily on small group discussion, however.  I feel like I am not in the right place right now or something to be able to take it in and participate.  I have had very little bible study experience and I don't feel like I have very much to contribute.  Also, I find that I have been having a harder time with grief lately, which just makes me tend to clam up in general.  It doesn't help that some of the group knows about Nathan and some does not and I feel like it is this big thing that effects how I feel about things but it is not something I can throw out there.  We do very little personal sharing and so somehow it seems hard to study the bible without applying it to your personal life but that seems to be what we do.  We dissect the text but it doesn't seem like we apply it much to our lives.

I am really considering dropping it.  In fact the only reasons I am reluctant are that 1) there is someone in my group I really want to get to know better and 2) Lauren gets to spend time with one of her best friends while I am there.

This all seems to be about ME and that is not the point of bible study, I know.  If I stop this one I will look for something else, somewhere else.  Someone please tell me if I am being selfish and childish?

Halloween 2009

The first one was taken before school on Friday - thus all the snow!

 

 

Missing my boy today

DC

So - I just bought two tickets to Washington DC. I lived in the area for several years after college and that is where Luke and I met. I have been back once since, when I was pregnant with Nathan.

We are going back for my Uncle's funeral. It makes me realize that we really need to go back for reasons of just visiting the town and the poeple there we love. We fell in love and got married there. I hope we are able to at least drive by our old apartment and wedding chapel! We will only be there for one full day and we don't even know where our children will be while we are gone yet but it is really important for us to go and so we just booked the trip and will figure it all out. It is not until December so we have time. My Uncle will be buried with full honors (not the right terms, I know) at Arlington National Cemetery, thus the delay.

Here is a picture of a young and permed me at the Lincoln Memorial in 1994 (before I met Luke)

Worst Fear

So - Luke and I went to an awesome concert last Wednesday. We were 3rd row center for Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. It was just the two men on stage with their guitars. There was no set-list and it was really casual. It was like sitting on my sofa watching them play. The seats were incredible.

Anyway - during the friendly banter Lyle Lovett asked John Hiatt something about what has he been scared most about recently. John Hiatt couldn't think of anything really and mentioned that he is always scared for his kids. He said the youngest is 21 and they are scattered about but he still worries about something happening to them.

I guess it is probably true that for those who have children, a great number of them have the same "worst fear". That something will happen to harm or kill their child. It struck me that I was sitting there enjoying this concert and that this man's worst fear had happened to me. What is my worst fear? Something happening to another one of my children.

Last week also contained a very terrible event(s). The viewing and funeral of a 17 year old boy who died from cancer. I knew his mom from a childhood cancer support group. I went with my friend and fellow mom-of-child-who-died-from-cancer. The visitation was really hard for me. I have never been to a visitation and so the viewing of the body is something I could really have done without. I don't need to ever see another dead child as long as I live. My own was plenty. Then, his little sister wailed, cried and called out his name and was lovingly escorted from the church and returned again to wail and cry some more. It brought back horrible memories and was just incredibly painful to hear on top of that.

The funeral was also very sad, but at least I got to know a bit about this boy from those who loved him. His mother wailed and cried as she processed in. It is so different from the Presbyterian funerals I have attended. I think this church/culture/community did it right. Crying and wailing from those who loved this boy is the right thing to do, yet it is not acceptable in other churches/cultures/communities. We were all so stoic at Nathan's funeral (except for Julia, who didn't "know" and reacted the way she felt inside).

Anyway - a long post. I wish I could have made it into about 3 separate posts but I could tell it was now or never for me to blog this and so I just put it all together. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!