Lift Up Your Hearts!

Although it's still warm in Florida, the first snow has fallen for much of our family, so I'd better post this before no one is thinking of autumn fun anymore.  I don't know if this sign was intentional or not, but when our friend RDH posted it on Facebook, I had to share it further.  I'm pretty sure it was not an attempt to give bilingual directions to the crop.

Last year for Veterans Day I posted the honor roll of all those—thus far documented—in our direct lineage who have served in the military, from the Pequot War to World War II.  (We don't go any further than that directly, though I'll tip my hat as well to some current family who married in.) Today I invite you to remember your favorite veterans and enjoy some selections from our church service yesterday, November 10, 2013.  In the Episcopal Church, at least in my experience, no secular occasion (e.g Mothers Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day) is ever the focus of the service, but we do allow ourselves a little time to remember what the rest of the country is celebrating.  After having the veterans of various branches of the service stand, we sang the part everyone knows of God Bless America, which I don't need to include here.  Below are the anthems we sang.

A Prayer for Our Time (Joseph and Pamela Martin, Harold Flammer A7600).  It took me a while to warm up to this anthem, written in response to the events of September 11, 2001, because my favorite of that genre has always been our own Robert Kerr's Prayer for Peace.  But it has definitely grown on me, and singing it yesterday was spectacular.  It's been a long time since I've been in a choir where the singing gave me goose bumps!  It's not that our choir is so spectacular, but it's good enough that sometimes everything comes together just right.  (Again, remember, that the videos below are not us.)

Happy 20th anniversary to two of our favorite people!  Belated, that is; I blinked and the week was gone.

Our family is infinitely better off because of your wise decision those many years ago.

Our anthem for today, November 3, 2013:  assisting our cherub choir with The First Song of Isaiah (Jack Noble White, Belwin CMR 2247).  (This video is not us.)

Despite the indisputable cuteness of the kids, the most amusing part of the service was one of the hymns:  Praise to God, Immortal Praise.  No, there's nothing funny about the hymn itself, but the bulletin contained a rather unfortunate typo, leaving the title short one "t."

We have a bunch of folks from the Caribbean in our church, including several friends from choir.  Every year they put on a Caribbean Festival, and it is tonight.  Porter is still there, earning his Honorary Jamaican badge for another year:  set up, tear down, and manning the drinks table in between.  The food and the company are always great, and the music would be too (I love steel drums) if the volume weren't so painfully loud.  I only lasted two hours, and gave my earplugs to Porter when I left.

We were driven out of our previous church by music so loud I had to wear earplugs during both choir rehearsal and Sunday services.  Let's just say that our former music director would have loved the volume tonight.  But here it's only one night a year, and I enjoy the food and fun.  I would have enjoyed the conversation if I could have heard the person next to me....