With the change of seasons this year comes a change of season in my house. I have been able to get out most mornings for a walk or a run and to be alone in my head, while my eldest is at home working on his home-schooling and his brother and sister are at school.
September in the Rockies can be spectacular. As we steel ourselves for the long winter to come, the stunning beauty of the way the light and cloud play on the mountains is that much more breathtaking and a good reminder of how blessed we are to live in a place of such magnificence.
This morning as I walked I had much on my mind. This season of transition has me thinking big thoughts but I shall narrow it down to two themes: Music in the morning, and the gift of simplicity.
The first: I am faced with the reality that my sculptable time is during the daytime. I have a huge desire to sing in community more and more. These two realities are not that compatible. Most people who sing as part of a choir, chorus, group, band, Whistling Duck Music gathering etc… do so in the evenings for fairly obvious reasons.
But what about the morning music? How can I sing in community in the mornings? Who sings in the morning? (shower singers – loud and proud) It’s kind of a tricky subject – but mornings like this one today deserve song. And so sometimes I walk in my glorious solitude, and think about the fellowship of song.
The second: One of the songs that occasionally jumps into my head is the old Shaker dancing tune, “Simple Gifts”
Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.
In this season of transition, I found it fitting to focus on that first line – ‘Tis a gift to be simple – and the idea that though we turn and turn, we will come ’round right. This possibly refers to the dance itself, however it is true of life, and life at a time of confusion and change.
And so this is my morning song today, and my focus. That these days of turning are part of the dance, and we will come ’round right – simply put.
Until next time.
