Fall has come to St. Louis, Reader. There's a nip in the air and the leaves are starting to change colors... it's one of my favorite times of year: the time when trail sandal season meets puffy vest season and the two overlap... cold enough to wear a puffy vest but still warm enough to wear sandals. And tonight I have the unequivocal gratitude of a roommate with a tummy full of baked oatmeal. Perfect. I just love the change of seasons, especially fall. If I could paste the findings of a leaf-hunt around the edges of my blog, I would.
The state of affairs these days in my corner of the universe are, in a word, bittersweet. So many wonderful things have happened here recently. For one thing, the acquisition of more students... I have almost a full studio once again. God is so good... when it rains, it pours: what was just a month ago maybe 5 or 6 students has now grown to 9 with the potential for 2 or 3 more. And accompanying for LHS is fantastic... the director there is an absolute gem. I thoroughly enjoy being pushed and sharpened by her musicianship and have marveled time and again at her ability to extend grace on a continual basis... so refreshing! I like to think that I (hopefully) deal with my own students in the same manner... or will someday at least. And the break from school? Some days I just can't see myself going back for at least a few more years. It never ceases to amaze me how much I didn't realize I needed the sabbatical. Six years... and on the seventh she rested, right?
And maybe it's because my friend Edwina's birthday was yesterday, but tonight I miss her dearly. I think about how she sits underneath the same sky roughly 2000 miles to the west of me, struggling with calculus-based microeconomics and grading undergraduate essays. I think about the email she sent telling me how this is the first adult birthday she's experienced... the kind that goes by without a lot of hoopla. I try and think about what I could send her and wish that I could catch falling stars and put hugs and tears and memories in envelopes and that they would arrive intact with the full weight of all their original meaning. I think about five years' worth of conversations and just living life together... saying goodbye is so hard. Dr. Budds always half-jokingly, half-seriously said that, "Life is a series of adjustments." Truer words were indeed never spoken...
And I think about my family and all that we're going through together. It is not a fun time for us these days... I won't say much other than the fact that we need your prayers. Seems like each member is struggling with some form of growing pains in their own way, thus making it ever more difficult to relate to each other in a loving manner. The more I read in James, the more I'm convinced of my own incompetency and folly in relationships... "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry..."
And in the back of my mind, I hear those words again... slow to become angry. A passage from yesterday's sermon emerges:
"The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness...'"
... such a hard thing to live out. And its so overwhelming when you're trying and failing to live it out amidst difficult relationships in your life... and then you realize this has been shown to you daily by a God who's loved you since... well, the beginning of time.
Overhead the stars twinkle. I think about Edwina. I think about my family. The music I'm working on swirls around in my head, mulling over itself again and again: slow, mournful, and unresolved, just like my thoughts...
No comments:
Post a Comment