music
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Small
I met and held the teeniest, tiniest, most perfect baby today. She was so impossibly light, both in luminescence and weight that it was hard to believe I was holding a real live person; she is so small. As a Mom of college kids, it’s easy to forget. My two babies were small once, just…
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Melt
“We’re not going to do the snowman song today, are we?” a four-year old boy asked me as I was setting up for music class at the local children’s museum. I wasn’t clear on what he said or meant in the moment, but then his Mom apologetically reminded me about a class about four weeks…
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Window
There is a large interior window in a dance studio where I teach early childhood music. On one side of the window is the seating area for waiting families and on the other, my teaching space. As I was prepping for class this morning on my side of the glass, my students came in with…
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Namaste
I was putting my strawberries and avocados on the checkout counter at the farm stand when I saw him. A baby boy just old enough to sit in the front of the cart with a tiny Red Sox cap on his little head. He was looking at me before I saw him, and I got…
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Twenty-five
Tim and I have been married twenty-five years today. That the day falls on an ordinary Tuesday in the midst of a busy week seems appropriate somehow. Our marriage is built of days like this one. As I look back, it’s hard to remember those two kids who had no idea what they were saying…
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Oceans
I am almost afraid to tell this story. It’s a story of promises fulfilled and prayers answered, but mostly it’s a story about the nature of life and the nature of God. Life is unpredictable; it bends and moves in twists and circles, yet, through it all, God is steadfast. Something I know now for…
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Celebration Song (Red, part two)
My mother had a print of a painting in her house and I said I liked it, so of course she bought me one. It’s called ‘Celebration Song’, by Tim Steward, and it seems to depict in streaks of earth tones a Heavenly scene of thirteen spirits rejoicing together. It’s a bit abstract, but to…
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Red
If you ask any of my former preschool-aged music students what they remember about my classes, they may sing one of two phrases back at you. The first is ‘sticks on your shoulders’, which is sung to an annoying, but memorable tune. It’s a reminder to the kids to keep their wooden rhythm sticks on…
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Round
When I heard the news that my first music teacher had died, I thought what most of her thousands of students probably did: Ta ta ti ti ta ti ti ti ti ta ta It was a sweet way to teach basic sight-reading. On a huge, poster size flip board were illustrations and simple syllables…
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Sing
I am pretty sure I sang flat for almost all of Mass today. There was a monitor issue, and one of my ears is a bit blocked, and (insert excuse here), but I wasn’t happy with what I was doing and not entirely sure that any ministry I may have been attempting was hitting its…