Just wondering who of my friends from LiveJournal are here...

I spent my day singing. For that matter, I spent most of this past week singing. Ten years ago, I was new to Schola, new to being soprano, new to studying voice seriously.

Now, from September to June, I spend my weeks singing - and then it's time for the summer church solo season. It is a small offering, but it is what I have to offer. 

I reread my post from the five-year anniversary, and was a bit alarmed and saddened to realize that much of it could have been written today. I am still frustrated, and we as a nation are, primarily, still sitting in the ashes and wailing.

Some of us are beginning to get up and do something. The wars are ramping down; I live for the day when my own private prayers for my own dearest departed are not trumped, subsumed, overwritten by "honoring the fallen" of wars we should never have been fighting. More and more people are beginning to understand that healing isn't just going to be handed to us; we are going to have to work at it. We are going to have to lay aside our anger and our pride, and do the work that leads to wholeness.

We have a President who understands this. Unfortunately, we have a Congress that still doesn't.

This weekend was the first time, since the month of the event itself, that I have attended or participated in a 9/11 memorial of any kind. At first, it was both too raw and something I didn't feel entitled to, since I didn't personally lose anyone I knew. Later, it became almost an allergy; I tried to escape the annual banal jingoism, and that was mostly what it was, five years ago.

But Schola was there, that day. We were in touch by phone and by email, reaching out to be sure everyone was all right - and they were. We threw together a brief memorial concert, because singing is pretty much our primary response to just about anything; because singing was what we had to offer. It felt small to me then; small and unimportant, set against the background of a horror so monstrous.

I have learned much, in the intervening years, and moreso in the past three, about what it means to offer the gift one has. One cannot offer the gift one does not have; one can only offer what one has already. It is not necessary to know what that offering does, for those to whom it is offered; sometimes we are given the privilege to know, but it is not required. All that is required is to take in hand one's gift, and offer it sincerely, and allow Spirit to use the gift as may be best.

So as the 10th anniversary approached, we pretty much knew we needed to sing again. But what?

Would we wallow in the sorrow and horror and grief, and spend an evening among the unquiet shades?

No. On this 10th anniversary, we acknowledged the grief, but we sang of hope, of how we can find a way forward. We sang an arrangement of Amazing Grace, with a Kyrie embedded in it. We sang a setting of "Do not stand at my grave and weep," a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye, and a setting of the e.e.cummings poem "i carry your heart with me." We sang our director's arrangement of Materna, under a reading by a long-time friend and Schola supporter who was a "widow for a morning," believing her husband had been killed in the second plane strike until several hours after when he was finally able to get word to her that he was safe. We sang a setting of the Prayer of St. Francis (Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace). We closed with a song called "Give Us Hope," which is jazzy and engaging and uplifting.

And I barely made it through. I wept through most of Thursday's rehearsal. I wept through most of warm-up last night. The combination of "Do not stand at my grave and weep" (which made me think of all those I've lost - Dad and Grandma, yes, but also all the rest who have gone in the past ten years) and "i carry your heart with me" (which made me think of all those I do carry with me, and how much they mean to me, and how much I owe them) - just took me apart, especially coming as this inevitably does right near the anniversary of my father's death.

Ultimately, though, I found - beyond my own extremely tender spots - the place from which we can minister, bringing with us all that we are and bundling it into the music.

Yesterday, I confess, I really was starting to wish we weren't doing this. Today, I have to say - I'm ever so very glad we did.

Wishing everyone a wonderful, bright and blessed New Year!

(Not yet a new decade, sorry - we count from 1 to 10, not from 0 to 9, so we really don't begin a new decade until next year. I will happily wish you all a wonderful new decade - when we get there.)

I know better, at the tender age of 44, than to make wild promises - I will write every day, I will write something for every single Brigit's Flame prompt, I will [fill in impossible commitment of your choice].

I know that I will try to write more this year. I've been writing more since August, although not here; in fact, I think I wrote more between August and December than I'd written in the previous two years. I know that that has been absolutely necessary to my emotional and spiritual well-being, and that when I have not been attentive to that writing, there have been less than desirable consequences.

I know that I will be singing more. Schola is headed for Canterbury, to be choir-in-residence for Evensong, from July 19 to July 22 (if you're in Canterbury then, come hear us - we're pretty terrific, actually). And I have at least one solo commitment already on my calendar, and the suspicion that there will be others come summer.

But really - I don't know much about what lies ahead. None of us do. We look out through the moonlit doorway, and at midnight we step through - we turn the page of the calendar, we start a new page of the diary, we open a fresh new book of days to read. Somehow, in that magical, midnight moment, all possibility is open to us.

We like to see that as positive, and it is; we can indeed turn the page and move forward. We can do that every day, but somehow it feels more momentous as the old year rolls out and the new tolls in.

But really - we do not know what lies ahead on this road. If we're realistic, we know that there is pain as well as joy awaiting in this new year. We hope for more of the latter than the former, but there are no guarantees.

I think of where I stood a year ago, fresh from two exhilarating performances with the NJSO, eagerly anticipating the spring season. I did not know that within four short months I would lose not one but both of my beloved feline companions. Nor did I know that come August, I would step up in front of my congregation and sing a duet with a good friend, nor what would follow from that audacious step.

I think of a little tiny life, a life entirely and completely enclosed by the 2009 calendar and by her mother's body; a life that never breathed the air, never saw the moon, never opened a book. In the grand scheme of the universe, she is barely a footnote, so briefly here and so swiftly gone - and yet she has touched and moved so many of us in the past two weeks. She never drew breath in the world, and yet she has left an indelible mark on us. What power there is, in the smallest life!

I think of the eerie, striking juxtaposition - on St. Stephen's Day, her tiny white coffin with its elegant spray of pink flowers, placed so that behind it one inescapably saw the manger and the infant Christ superimposed. Death and life, grief and joy, ending and beginning - all together, inseparable, indivisible, eternally intertwined. In the midst of life, we are in death - but in the midst of death, we are in life, as well. Joy and sorrow are two faces of one coin.

So I do wish you all joy in the coming year, but more than that - I wish you all the keenness of that joy that comes from knowing how brief, how uncertain, and thus how precious our lives are, every moment of them, however small and insignificant those moments may seem.

Bright blessings!
kls

Cross-posted from a Facebook note



She was almost abandoned with her brother on the street in New Brunswick at the tender age of three months old.

She was rescued by friends who named her and her brother (Jetsam, of course), and invited us to dinner.

She had enough feline dignity for two cats. She did not chase her tail (except while sitting on the side of the bathtub). She did not chase a silly flashlight beam (although she would jump up the bedroom wall for hours chasing car lights moving across the wall - in the middle of the night, of course). She did not come when called (unless you had something she wanted).

She disdained human food - unless she could steal a lick from a dish left within reach. When caught, she pretended to know nothing about that dish she was licking clean. Also, cream or half-n-half was acceptable as an offering of adoration.

She was hedonism personified. If there was a decadently warm, cozy place to be, she knew where it was and it was hers. On the back of the couch under the table lamp, in a sunbeam, or snugly under the bedcovers were special favorite places.

She loved snuggles and cuddles and petting - on her terms. She grumbled in complaint if you looked like you were even thinking about petting her without permission - and then purred like an outboard motor once you did.

She loved to lie on my pillow (particularly if she could lie on my hair and prevent me from turning over), or curl up right next to it. Her fur was the first thing I saw in the morning many, many times.

She had an unerring radar for an opportune moment to pad up the bed and demand the prime spot between the humans (the best place to get the most petting). Even better - burrowed under the covers between the humans.

She had the softest, silkiest fur I've ever seen on a cat.

She was the best little nurse cat ever, padding up on the bed and carefully snuggling down tight up against your side, if you were home sick. She was sure if she just purred at you enough, you'd feel better - and then perhaps you would get up and feed her.

She was scrupulously, obsessively clean. She was so fastidious she actually tried to use the litterbox without getting her toes in the litter. She managed to get three paws up on the sides, and stood on tippy-toe on the fourth paw. She tipped the litterbox over on herself once, trying to manage all four feet.

She only ever bit anyone on purpose once - and that was because she knew my husband was fetching her out to put her in the carrier and take her to boarding. Don't ask how she knew - but she did, every time. Once she delayed us almost an entire day going on vacation, and although she eventually came out, we never figured out where she'd been hiding.

She almost died of liver failure thirteen months ago, and fought her way back to being her old feisty self - at least for a while. We got her a set of pet steps, since she was never a great jumper anyway and her illness left her too weak to jump onto the bed. A few weeks later, we discovered that she'd recovered enough to jump up - but she was careful to do this only when no one was watching. When she could be seen - she used the steps.

About two months ago, she was diagnosed with kidney failure. It had been creeping up on her for years, very slowly; we hoped it would continue to progress slowly.

Last week, she was clearly sick, and her bloodwork showed that her kidney failure was accelerating. She was admitted for diuresis, in hopes of buying her some more quality time.

On Monday night, she came home for the last time. She was too weak to walk at all; she couldn't eat; she couldn't swallow her pills. She soiled herself because she was too weak to get to the litterbox. We knew it was time - far too soon, but anytime would have been too soon.

Now she has gone to the Long Home, where the mice are plump and the birds are easy to catch, and there are enough cozy places in sunbeams for a cat to choose a different one for every hour of the day.

Rest in peace, little princess. You will be missed.

Writing Prompt: Novel Ideas
NaNoWriMo starts today. Give us a one-sentence description of the novel you plan to write.


I think it's a romance, or possibly a mystery; hard to tell, because the characters haven't seen fit to tell me yet.

Okay, I have to be crazy - but you all knew that. So here goes...
Hmmm...apparently that link didn't work. Not sure how to get it to work...ah, well.

Those who know that my weekly calendar routinely includes something like 20 hours of scheduled meetings will find this pic rather telling...

[Edit: the link apparently broke, and I cannot now find the picture. It's a cat with his chin on the table, looking utterly bored...]

But not the one you think. Five years ago tonight (the Monday evening before the attacks on Tuesday) was my first rehearsal with the chamber group I sing with.

I was running late; it was raining and thundering and the storm moving through right as the sun was setting made an eerie light over the Manhattan skyline as I came over the Turnpike extension. I always loved that view; it looked as though you were heading down the last hill and right in through the gates of a magical place. I distinctly remember thinking what a joy it would be to see that exhilarating view on Monday nights, on the way to rehearsal.

The next morning, I watched that view destroyed forever.

We were fortunate, all of us. We lost not one member of the choir. Not one member of the choir, that I know of, lost anyone close. We were amazingly fortunate.

And immediately our thought was, "What shall we do? What can we do? We can't just go back to singing Christmas music..." And so we put together, in two rehearsals, a brief memorial offering of music. I remember that I was mostly fine until I saw the man openly weeping in the front pew, and then it was all I could do to hold it together. I remember that it seemed like the only thing we could do, and like doing nothing, and yet like the only right thing - all of that at once.

It seemed simple, for a few days at least. We will mourn, we will rebuild, we will move on.

So far, as near as I can tell, all we've managed to do is mourn. We are still mourning. We have made a monument and a hobby and a lasting occupation out of our mourning. We have not yet rebuilt. We certainly have not moved on.

That, I think, dishonors those who died more than anything else. We have not rebuilt. We have not moved on. We insist on remaining stuck in our grief and rage, like a two-year-old whose tantrum goes on out of all proportion to whatever proximate cause it might once have had. We prattle about "protecting our way of life" and we tell journalists who ask that "I guess it's okay to give up some privacy if it's keeping us safe."

Life is not safe. Life was never safe. It was not safe on September 10, and it was not less so on September 12. More than that, Life demands growth, and growth demands risk. If all we want is to be safe, we might as well bury ourselves with our dead and be done with it.

All our weeping and saccharine-sweet over-sentimentalized yearly chest-thumping and flag-waving will not bring the dead back. Nothing can do that. What they were is no more. What they are is not yet for us. Our place is here among the living. Our task is to stay here, and live.

I am not trivializing by any means the grief of those whose loved ones were lost. To lose them, and in such a tragic way, is a wound that will never heal. Their lives have been altered forever, by an act of such evil that the mind simply boggles. That grief is real, and dealing with it takes the time it takes. I would never but never suggest to any of those people that they should "just get over it."

What irritates me beyond measure is the media hype, the enforced national dragging it all out and picking open all the scabs and tearing at it for a month. There is the ritual showing of the footage, the ritual recounting of how it all happened, the ritual detailing of how there will be a ceremony and the names will be read and there are moments of silence at the Sacred Prescribed Times...it all rings a bit hollow, when accompanied as it is by the recounting of the endless bickering over what kind of memorial there should be and whether the names should be listed all together or in groups, and what the involvement of this or that group should be...there's a selfishness in some of this grieving, a me-first-ness, a to-hell-with-everybody-else-ness, that is unattractive at times.

We don't seem to have much grief to spare for the destruction our nation has wrought in revenge. We don't seem to care much about the innocents of those nations we have dismantled in our rage. Let the dead bury those dead; they aren't our concern. Neither do we seem much outraged by the acts of evil perpetrated in our name. We make light of the tortures, and say tough-sounding things about how "they" must deserve it.

We don't seem to be able to admit our faults, anymore, either. We have some kind of need to be pure, to be totally innocent, to be seen to have been undeserving of the horrors meted out to us. To suggest anything else - to suggest that America is not God's new pure and spotless chosen people - is heresy.

To say that America was complicit in the history that led to these acts of terrorism is not to say that anyone was deserving of what happened. No one is ever deserving of such horrors - not us, and not them, either. But if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. And that empty pridefulness, I think, is what outrages me so, when we come to these anniversaries.

We have lost - no, more - we have abandoned the beliefs that made this country great. We seek security and safety, while destroying those very things for anyone else but us. We seek to protect "our way of life," as though driving gas-guzzling SUVs and shopping ourselves into endless debt were the ultimate achievement in life. We're for freedom of religion - that is, our freedom to shove our own religion down everyone else's throat. We're for freedom of speech - that is, our freedom to say whatever we want to get our own way. We're for freedom of the press - so long as it only prints what it's told is okay to print.

We need to go back, and read those old documents again. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

We need to remember what risks those men took, who founded this country. Freedom is risky business, for the very reason that it is free. It is not pre-defined. It can go many different ways. To be truly free, we have to be willing to fail. It can't all be safe and cozy, if we're going to be free. If we're free, everybody else gets to be free too - not just those we decide should be.

Most of all, we need to stop picking at the scabs. We need to stop having a national melodrama for a month every September. The best way to honor those who died is to live, and to live free; to fight - for freedom, for the freedom not just of those we like or those we agree with, but for everyone's freedom; to look honestly at ourselves, and confess what faults we find. Only then can we move past mourning, and rebuild a better world for those who come after us.

Having an attack of decluttering...tried posting an old LJ meme but it now leads to a dead link. Ah, well - at least I know I can just dump the note with the code.

Very neat quotation, found at the very beginning of the Winter 2004 issue of Parabola (which I'm just now reading and let's not talk about how weird that is). As you may or may not know, each quarterly issue of Parabola focuses on a theme or topic and then examines that theme or topic as related to spirituality in a wide variety of ways, including poetry and interviews and so on; for Winter 2004, the theme was Friendship.

Stay together, friends
don't scatter and sleep.
Our friendship is made
of being awake.

—Jelaluddin Rumi