No news is opening my heart of Hearts, a commute with Kate Campbell

this is the only video I could find of the tune that resonated with me today on my "no news during Lent" commute. She leads into the song around 2:45 into the video. It is about searching to find the love deep within us. I personally dig the idea of a rosary made of bowling balls. Of course I imagined them mosaiced by Mosaic Woman.

an apparently wise decision ~ choosing to attend the World Day of Prayer

art by Anne-Lise Hammann

For weeks I wondered, do I want to do my usual thing ~ linger after work then head off to Owen J Roberts High School to set up for a craft show and miss the annual World Day of Prayer Service.

Or ~ go to the service and wake up early on Saturday morning.

I went with the new path and it was wise.  Friday I let two students crawl under my skin and push buttons so hard that I let them annoy me.  Both ended with a plan to help things go better the next time around, but I was tired as I drove home towards worship.  So sitting in church and watching women from my local community do what women all around the world were doing, helped to soothe me.  As did seeing a fine friend for the first time since a great sadness came upon her.  As did drinking a glass of wine, with some friends at the reception.

and as I sit here 24 or so hours later, I feel blessed to have chosen to rise early this morning.  And hoping I can find a video of the tune that brought forth that community of women last night. (for info on the artist of the poster)

news on no news: Pierce Pettis follows Patty Griifin

and so it (no news for Lent) began on Ash Wednesday as I headed off to work with no NPR.  Patty Griffin singing about those times when emotional rains storm down upon us.  

Yes, I am curious as to what is happening in the world, but I'm Ok with visits from voices from my past.  Last night one of my best friends from college came over for pizza.  900 miles he travelled for that meal, well, not really.  But after a day of business in Philly working on how to help people own their own homes, he drove out to the suburbs so I could feed him and see his face.  It was the first time I had seen his face in 26 years.  So no news from NPR, but plenty of news from my friend.

Today I grabbed a Pierce Pettis CD and headed out to scrape some snow off the car to head to work and tried to remember:

"Oh, everything matters
If anything matters at all
Everything matters
No matter how big, no matter how small
Oh, God believes in you
God believes in you"

just plain baffled...

now I am baffled, because... Last Sunday I sang a hymn.

Well, I have a memory of singing a hymn, so I took Red's advice and went to the band and asked them what the closing hymn was the previous week. They showed me. I said, "That's not it. It started with a line about falling to one's knees and at the bottom of the music it said it was based on the third chapter of Ephesians." They pulled out their play list and we went through the whole service. Nothing.

was I dreaming? mystical experience? elaborate conspiracy to drive me loopy. I came home and talked to Mosaic Woman about the experience, and did one more quick google search for the hymn. I walked up stairs to my studio, pulled out a cassette from my past and this was the first song. and yes, this did happen and yes, I will let the mystery be. Mosaic Woman asked if I had chosen this song to play because of my experience at church. I hadn't.

Maybe an answer will arrive to explain what happened last Sunday. maybe it was a way to walk up the stairs at church and have someone in the band ask, "What instrument do you play?" Twelve hours earlier I had been talking to Mosaic Woman about how listening to an old guy play piano had yet again rekindled my desire to create music.

The song also took me back to a movie. A movie in which the song was used much to my delight. The beginning of Little Buddha...

unsettled

That's how it feels right now. and I don't know how to write about it. So I turn to Julie Miller.

Her CD, Blue Pony, is one of my favorites and I had not listened to it for a couple years. I hoped something would resonate.

I have been openly telling my life story to a new friend, who I wish lived closer. She came to my school on three occasions to train us teachers this past year. After the second visit I e-mailed her and said I thought we would be friends if she lived closer. She agreed, but I did not keep the messages flowing. After the third visit, I e-mailed her to say that I would have made an attempt to be social with her, except for the fact that I had signed up for a silent retreat which started two hours after the training. She e-mailed with questions about the retreat and I did not stop the flow.

The scientist inside wants to know why I can see a person and sense a new friend, or in the case of Mosaic Woman, a person to intimately share a life. But the part of me which is glad the world is still filled with mysteries, is feeling joy when yet another e-mail arrives from my new friend and is glad to leave it there as a mystery. I fall into a trust as I tell her how I have arrived here in 2008 over a series of e-mails, and I am blessed as her story unfolds in the messages sent back to me, and I listen to Julie Miller sing these words:

By Way Of Sorrow (Julie Miller)

You've been taken by the wind
You have known the kiss of sorrow
Doors that would not take you in
Outcast and a stranger

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

You have drunk a bitter wine
With none to be your comfort
You who once were left behind
Will be welcome at love's table

You have come by way of sorrow
You have come by way of tears
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

All the nights that joy has slept
Will awake to days of laughter
Gone the tears that you have wept
You'll dance in freedom ever after

You have come by way of sorrow
You've come over a stoney ground
But you'll reach your destiny
Meant to find you all these years
Meant to find you all these years

Tinkie Tunes(ASCAP)/Martha Road(ASCAP)

Peace