...that I haven't updated my blog recently. So I'm trying to remedy that.
The problem is that everything in my life seems simultaneously too large and too small to write about. What am I doing but homework, sitting through lectures, finishing my fourth year of lab work, long Tuesday and Thursday mornings? And housework, doing dishes, sweeping the floor, making sure rent is mailed on time, visiting the Comcast office in Harrisonburg when we're charged too much for our internet?
In short, small things; the things that make up an ordinary life; the things that aren't so interesting to write about.
And yet, at the same time, I move through this semester and come to those moments of finality: the last hymn sing. the last Easter chapel. the last birthday in Harrisonburg. I am coming up on the last morning at Early Church, and I am mourning this loss already.
These are things that loom large in my life, and that I don't know how to start to explain.
Last night was the last hymn sing, full of Easter songs and finishing out with call-out requests. As we stood in a circle in Martin Chapel, I thought - I will miss this - I was standing between two friends with strong voices, soprano and alto, and I thought about how I learned to sing my part in four years of circles like that one. I learned a bit about what it means to belong, and about how to articulate my theology, and about loving place and people.
We sang the two best Easter hymns, Low in the Grave He Lay and Lift Your Glad Voices, and they were beautiful. At the beginning of Lift Your Glad Voices everyone sings the same four notes and then splits into four parts, and when we reached that moment in each verse it felt like the room was alive.
The best thing, though, was maybe when we sang the song about Christ making all things new; the lyrics are lovely words to meditate on in light of graduation:
(Chorus) Christ is alive, and goes before us
to show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings;
our God is making all things new.
This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.
For by the life and death of Jesus,
love's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.
Then let us, with the Spirit's daring,
step from the past and leave behind
our disappointment, guilt, and grieving,
seeking new paths, and sure to find.
The problem is that everything in my life seems simultaneously too large and too small to write about. What am I doing but homework, sitting through lectures, finishing my fourth year of lab work, long Tuesday and Thursday mornings? And housework, doing dishes, sweeping the floor, making sure rent is mailed on time, visiting the Comcast office in Harrisonburg when we're charged too much for our internet?
In short, small things; the things that make up an ordinary life; the things that aren't so interesting to write about.
And yet, at the same time, I move through this semester and come to those moments of finality: the last hymn sing. the last Easter chapel. the last birthday in Harrisonburg. I am coming up on the last morning at Early Church, and I am mourning this loss already.
These are things that loom large in my life, and that I don't know how to start to explain.
Last night was the last hymn sing, full of Easter songs and finishing out with call-out requests. As we stood in a circle in Martin Chapel, I thought - I will miss this - I was standing between two friends with strong voices, soprano and alto, and I thought about how I learned to sing my part in four years of circles like that one. I learned a bit about what it means to belong, and about how to articulate my theology, and about loving place and people.
We sang the two best Easter hymns, Low in the Grave He Lay and Lift Your Glad Voices, and they were beautiful. At the beginning of Lift Your Glad Voices everyone sings the same four notes and then splits into four parts, and when we reached that moment in each verse it felt like the room was alive.
The best thing, though, was maybe when we sang the song about Christ making all things new; the lyrics are lovely words to meditate on in light of graduation:
(Chorus) Christ is alive, and goes before us
to show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings;
our God is making all things new.
This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.
For by the life and death of Jesus,
love's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.
Then let us, with the Spirit's daring,
step from the past and leave behind
our disappointment, guilt, and grieving,
seeking new paths, and sure to find.
