Weekend Update

Our conference holds the Adult Choir Workshop annually, usually the last Friday and Saturday in January. We went primarily because it was in San Antonio, but also because we just love going. It's a time to read fresh music and learn from a nationally known choral expert (usually). This year's workshop clinician was Dr. Eric Nelson from the Candler School of Theology Music Department at Emory University in Atlanta. He is one funny guy!

We sang a song that he arranged called "It Is Well With My Soul." It was absolutely beautiful and I'm hoping that the seven of us who went to the workshop can convince our own choir director that we need to sing it for our congregation. We only worked on three pieces, normally we'd read about six, but those three were wonderful selections and we sang them for our closing communion service on Saturday. It was very powerful. On Friday, there was a hymn festival service reviewing the music of Charles Wesley, the most prolific hymn writer in history. The man who edited the United Methodist Hymnal (the last two editions) was on hand to lead the service, Rev. Carlton R. "Sam" Young. It was quite enlightening as we learned that Wesley wrote over 6500 hymns, but he only set about 300 of them to music. And many of the lyrics that Wesley wrote have been adapted to various styles of music world-wide. Last year was the 300th anniversary of Charles Wesley's birth, so there are still celebrations like this going on.

Of course, then there was the Ring Ceremony that I wrote about earlier, but Sunday turned out to be a reinvigorating day. We went to church early, sang and played instruments, then went to Walgreen's to get DH some medicines that he forgot to take before leaving home. Then we sang and played again for the second service. DH had bought tickets for the Boy Scouts' BBQ fundraiser, but the only thing was that this troop was from Castroville, about 20 miles from where we were. We recruited DS#1 to wake up at 11:00 to go get lunch and since afternoon rehearsal was canceled, we had him bring it home. That was some of the best BBQ chicken I believe I've ever had. DH isn't a huge fan of chicken, but it was so good he ate the whole thing!

Because we had gone to bed so late, slept so poorly, and woke up so early that morning, I was very sleepy after lunch and took a 2-1/2 hour nap. That was really refreshing. I went to bed last night and slept so well that when I rode the bus to work this morning, I wasn't even the least bit tired. It started out as a great morning. I hope it continues throughout the day!

Hope you have a great one!