today is a rare day in the year. i had to come to the office on saturday to finish up some statistics before monday morning. my job is pretty much 9-5 with a few evening programs, and the flexibility to work at home several days a week over the summer. i never come in on weekends. but today i did. and now i’m enjoying the quiet of the office and the actual time to post something to my blog!
i’m heading home soon, so don’t worry! i have a tea this afternoon with a bunch of my friends from choir. then, sharon and i are driving to frederick, maryland to meet up with a bunch of folks for the caedmon’s call/andrew peterson show there. a late night it will be, but worth it! tickets are free since bryan got us on the guest list. i was planning to go anyway, but the free-ness makes the trip all the sweeter. i’m hopeful that andy will play his new song, Far Country, that he played at last night’s show in Richmond.
FAR COUNTRY
Father Abraham, do you remember when
You were called to a land and you didn’t know the way?
Cause we are wandering in a foreign land
We are children of the promise of the faith
And I long to find it
Can you feel it too?
That the sun that’s shining is a shadow of the truth
This is a far country
This is a far country
Not my home
In the dark of the night
I can feel the shadows all around me
Cold shadows in the corners of my heart
But the heart of the fight
Is not in the flesh but in the spirit
And the spirit’s got me shaking in the dark
And I long to go there
I can feel the truth
I can hear the promise of the angels of the moon
This is a far country
This is a far country
Not my home
Not my home
I can see in the strip malls and the phone calls
The flaming swords of Eden
In the fast-cash and the news flash
And the horn blast of war
In the sin-fraught cities of the dying and the dead
Like steel rock graveyards
Where the wicked never rest
To the high and lonely mountain
In the groaning wilderness
We ache for what is lost
As we wait for the holy God
Father Abraham
Father Abraham
And I long to go there
Out of this far country
Out of the far country
To my home
To my home
Out of this far country
This is a far, far country
Not my home
sharon and i are hoping to get a rendition of his ode to la hacienda, the mexican restaurant we visited in nashville. 
maybe after the show.
my morning routine was perhaps a bit different today, but that’s no excuse for forgetting to put on makeup, right? i went to the gym at 6am, and then decided to swing by the grocery store at 7am since we were out of milk and bread. so, yes, my routine was off by 15 minutes or so. but i completely forgot to put makeup on. i even remember thinking that was the next step of the day’s preparation, and then it completely slipped my mind. i remembered on the bus as i was looking at a picture of the oscar nominees for leading actress and realized how different they look in real life vs. on-screen.
in other news, i might be going on a trip again this summer! i need to decide soon, but i’ve been asked to consider going with a team of college and young career age folks from my church.
Last Sunday, I went with my alto buds to hear the Curtis Symphony play at Verizon Hall. The students at Curtis are phenomenal musicians who get a free musical education and go on to play in orchestras around the world. They are from 14 to 26 years old and are just amazing to watch. A few of them go to my church and play fairly frequently there. The musicians hold free recitals several days each week, so for people that live in Center City, there is no excuse to not hear great music.
A few blocks away from Curtis is the Academy of Vocal Arts, a four year training program for opera singers. A number of members of our choir are or have been resident artists there (which, by the way, does not hurt the quality of said choir). They perform operas throughout the year, and I finally went to my first last year, and hope to go to more this year. I’m trying to catch up on my culture!
And the point of this post? Not a clue.
It’s been a while. The snowstorm was delightful. I had a great time introducing michaela and cameron to my snowy Philadelphia streets and season one of arrested development. It was fun to be snowed in with company! The quietness that comes with a heavy snowfall is delightful, and even digging out my car the next day was pretty fun.
There was an incident while I was digging my car out that made me laugh. The street is narrow and one way (as many streets in Philadelphia). It was not impassable, but it was no fun to drive on. a woman who was clearly uncomfortable driving in the snow was traveling at a reasonably slow pace down the street, when an emergency vehicle came down the wrong way on the street (now, there was no need to go the wrong way past a certain point on that street since there is an easy turn to get back to the main road). An impasse. I am aware that emergency vehicles are permitted to go through red lights, etc when their lights are on, but this vehicle’s lights were not flashing nor was there an audible siren.
The driver of the emergency vehicle was the rudest man ever. He not only cursed up a storm at this poor frightened woman (who, I remind you, was driving the correct way down the street where there was no pull off option), but he tried to get bystanders involved at yelling at her too. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful. She would have had to back out about 200ft to get out of the street, while he could have backed up 10 feet and turned to go the proper direction. He argued with her for a full 25 minutes, and then had the audacity to say to a bystander who tried to calm him down that he had a patient in the back so he could get upset. If he were really that concerned with the patient’s welfare, he could have backed out easily.
How often do I do the same thing? So convinced of my own way of thinking, I refuse to make even the smallest correction in my path. I push forward, forcing others out of my way, claiming someone else’s best interest is at stake, when it’s really my own stubbornness, my own interest. I wonder sometimes if I’ve grown at all from the days when my dad used to imitate me by saying, “I’m Chris. I’m right and you’re wrong!†I’m a quiet person. I don’t yell. I rarely appear angry. No one who saw the driver and who knows me would consider us similar. But I know myself. And I’m ever the more grateful for the blood that washes me whiter than the snow.
PS. The front gutter on my house fell off yesterday. Too full of ice, apparently.
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