Baptized in an Orchestra Pit

Sunday morning service in the church where our family has baptisms, weddings, funerals. Well, except that the new building was under construction when I was born, so services were at the nearby junior high school. I was actually baptized in the orchestra pit, which is a pretty good beginning for a future musician.

Walked the floor where my father's casket was placed for his funeral. Wandered the halls where Sunday School teachers taught me right from wrong and explained that there were children dying from lack of food and medicine -- which I vowed at age 10 to do something about. Touched the pipe organ that children were forbidden to touch. Walked up to the altar where my soon to be ex husband and I exchanged wedding vows some 30 years ago.

So many emotions from grief to joy, but the overarching sensation was one of gratitude:

For the people who gave sacrificially to build this beautiful place where so much has happened in my life.

For the minister who taught us to be in awe of the astonishing universe God created.

For the teachers who patiently explained lessons of charity and love.

For the kindergarten choir director who had us sing, unbelievably, In Excelsis Deo [Angels We Have Heard On High]. I did years later have occasion to ask him what possessed him to teach such difficult music to 5 year olds. He said he simply didn't explain that it was difficult, and we did it. There's a lesson in there somewhere.


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Photo by Arkansas Wanderer

Heroic rescue: healing the healers

These words of encouragement from Kevin Hayden:

You will, I bet, choose the necessary course. Sometimes (since I've done social work) that requires a psychic retreat to heal the healer. Such retreats never last, as there's always more lives at risk and always more that require extra attention.

Not all will be saved and we have to trust that life's chosen moments include proper moments to cease.

Trust your heart. Those of us who catch glimpses of it do, and for good reason. Folks who love you, even at a distance, would naturally wish you proper health, proper rest, and all the same good that you provide others.

So the moments you choose for your own renewals are just as vital as are the others you carry your missions to. Your life, too, is worth the extraordinary effort, worth the heroic rescue.

Do what you can and do what you must. It is not just the babies you save that adds value. You inspire thousands more (at least) to persist against long odds, to resist the uncaring, to remember that every life deserves extra attention.

You will inspire just as many to care for themselves when you take your retreats to take care of you.

Remember the old TV series 'Mission Impossible'? Only the tapes self-destructed. And the missions proved possible.

Do what you must. And never fear asking others for help when the bad guys are near.