Musings
MUSINGS – Winter 2009
I’ve been thinking and wondering about trust. What is it really? Why do some have it and some not? What makes the difference?
Why is an invitation extended? What is at the heart of an invitation’s motivation?
Yes! I’ve been thinking… again. And because I think, I am, therefore, confused. Perhaps only a bit confused.
While in
During some layover time in
Those of you who conduct choirs have a sense of the way in which there may be a feeling that choirs and students are somehow personal property.
What I experienced with these two young people (they seem to get younger as I get older) was genuineness in their invitation and their welcome. The experiences were refreshing.
It was refreshing to feel that these teachers entrusted their students to me.
It reminded me of the stories my Mom told of taking me to church when I was a baby and how I was passed from her hands to the hands of others in the church for the length of the entire service and then returned to her arms in time for the benediction. Trust. I think it’s about trust.
In a time when trust (don’t talk to strangers, stay where I can see you) seems to disappearing before my eyes, I was grateful. And on the flight to
Cynthia and Carolyn, thank you for trusting me with your students.
The experience will last long in my memory.
Until next time…
MUSINGS
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 Fall is here in subtle ways. The autumn crocus is blooming in the west garden. I feel the urge to start making bean soup. It’s impossible to keep up with the bounty which the vegetable garden produces and even more of a challenge to make space in the freezer for what appears to be a near endless harvest of beautiful fruit. YIKES!!! And just as I am pondering this abundance I realize I need to plan the music for a memorial service on Friday. Abundance. Which way does it go? Can anybody tell me? On 29 July, I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday. Actually I was born on 29 July 1944. The celebration of my 65th birthday will conclude with the 65th celebration some time in 2010. No! It will hardly be an Olympic event. I've been wondering why I feel caught between a rock and a hard place today. When I re-read the entry of Monday, 01 July 2009, some things become clear. Noone ever said this journey would be easy. Today there are parts of it that feel hard. The adulation shown to Barack Hussein Obama on inauguration day seems to be turning into a platform to mock and criticize for some; public disappointment for others, opportunities for the bigots and racists to emerge from those places where they might have remained if there'd been the magical change that it appears were the unrealistic expectations of many. And this has happened in his being on the job less than one year. What occurs to me today is a personal acknowledgement that many in the United States possesses a fundamental fear of anything that might remotely smack of ‘socialism’ with respect to the national health care package currently under consideration in the United States. I say shame on you for pretending to be the world’s richest country (and even the world’s most affluent) while failing to provide basic health care for your citizens. Shame on you! Do I have answers? No! I do have a question. It's a question I ask myself each day and one that I charge you to ask of yourself... 'what am I willing to ‘become’ to create the kind of change I say I want to see?' There is nowhere I know that is free from those issues that arise as a result of expectations associated with behaviour, dress, class, colour, gender, sexuality and who knows what else. And on this day in this country I join with those who are making the time to take a look at the nation south of us as it is about to remember an attack on its shores on 11 September 2001. It will probably hold itself blameless. Pity! It will proclaim that its hundreds of ‘fallen’ (in the endless war on terror) were either victims of some evil enemy or heroes in the noble fight to keep the United States free regardless of the fact that the axis of evil countries (if such a thing ever existed) probably felt double crossed after cooperating for years with previous administrations’ requests and promises all the while thinking that the ‘alliances’ they’d made held meaning beyond the valuable natural resources of their shores. I wonder. There is a part of me that would like to think I could have been one of those who’d have been delighted to participate in the making of the human Canadian flag on the British Columbia legislative lawn on July first afternoon. And I realize I was between a rock and a hard place then. Consciously deciding to absent myself from the 'celebration' was my tacit statement that I am unable to behave as if all is well in ‘lotus land’. My choice today is to spend time writing in my journal pondering recent events in my personal and business life as I attempt to confront the woman who lives inside; keep abreast of events at The US Open Tennis Tournament; write piano parts for choral arrangements for my choir’s ‘Simple Gifts’ concert in December realizing that for some of the weeks leading to that concert I will be on the road in Manitoba (public speaking and engaging in choral conducting) and wishing I could actually write piano accompaniments like I play them; intermittently watching the progress of bacon in the oven as I prepare dinner for Janet and me while enjoying the exquisite aromas in my home [pork fat rules!]; scouring pots and pans and preparing linens and handkerchiefs for ironing before going to bed. [Oh! I do so enjoy that heavenly smell of lavender fabric spray]. And where is all of this going? Sometimes I confess I have no idea. I know I have no answers. I am, however, grateful that I do have the ability and the willingness to ask myself if anything I’m choosing to do today has the remotest chance of making a difference anywhere tomorrow. One of my god children just phoned... again. And Mother's Day is months away. All is right with the world... somewhere. I look forward to hearing from you. And I’ll see you along the way. Blessings and thanks, Louise