Weekend stuff

[kayre]

The kidlet spent 14 hours at the stable yesterday, assisting with a clinic on basic horse training. She came home happy about helping all day, delighted with what she had learned while assisting, smug about being rewarded with a steak dinner-- and utterly exhausted. Amazingly enough, she headed back out today after church, but she’s promised to come home early in the evening so she can get extra sleep before school tomorrow.

I spent yesterday polishing my plans for church today. I was guest speaker/songleader at my previous church. My main focus was a message in which I talked about the authors of a bunch of hymn texts, people who in one way or another are examples of great faith; we’d follow each mini-biography with a couple of verses of one of their hymns. I discussed John Newton, Fanny Crosby, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rich Mullins (for a contemporary touch), and used We Shall Overcome to represent both slaves (it probably began as a spiritual) and those who work for justice. Also played the prelude on organ, sang and played (on the Kawai keyboard) Awesome God, and led the final song on guitar. People seemed to be very appreciative, and I had a wonderful time. I’d love to have more opportunities to speak or teach this way, but there’s not a lot of demand for lectures on the history of church music!

It was fun to go back to visit... but also made me realize, again, that leaving was right for me (and probably for them as well). Too many familiar faces were gone-- and if they had stayed for me, I’d have been a source of division. And I’d have been miserable, and still driving way too far.