Tag Archives: Flu

Leading God’s Choir

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Some elementary classmates considered choir cruel and unusual punishment. Not me. Although stuck in the back row because of my height, I didn’t permit boys’ cooties to lessen my joy in music. I grew up singing.

As an adult, I directed my church choir. We developed spiritual closeness and musical mental telepathy … that didn’t transfer to sitting/standing together. I’ve never seen another choir do the wave every Sunday. Still, we sang with gladness and authenticity.

After moving, my husband and I joined a large church with a bigger choir and classically trained director. How I missed old friends! But now I didn’t direct while belting out alto and/or tenor to compensate for members lost to the flu du jour. I sang my natural soprano!

Image by CCXpistiavos from Pixabay.

However, our director discovered my past. Would I substitute for him? I attempted the game all God’s people, beginning with Moses, play: Ask Somebody Else.

Other directors weren’t available.

The director believed in miracles. He also promised his compassionate pianist would cover my back.

O-kay.

What to wear? Often, seams split and zippers opened as I conducted. In the past, arm motion sent shoulder pads traveling. Once, I appeared to grow a bust on my back.

Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay.

Wardrobe decided, I caught cold. While I directed, would God send an angel to wipe my nose?

What if singers didn’t show? Without them, I was only a crazy woman waving her arms.

They came, though. A row of Bach’s descendants gave me the eye.

We practiced well, but questions erupted about missing music, standing up, sitting down …

“Only God is infinite.” I answered. “Ask Him!”

When I stepped up to direct, congregational eyebrows rose. But it wasn’t about me. Or anyone else.

We worshipped an audience of One: Jesus. All who lifted heartfelt praises to Christ belonged.

In His choir, nobody has cooties.

Those singers were so patient with me.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you deal with feelings of inadequacy?

Has Murphy Visited Your House?

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“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

This maxim originated in 1949 with Air Force Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr., who ran a bungled aerospace experiment. Perhaps his holiday gathering didn’t resemble a Hallmark movie’s, either.

Few do. Anyone celebrating Christmas wrestles with Murphy’s Law.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.
  • If you’ve decorated, young children/grandchildren will un-decorate.
  • If you hide medicines from them, you’ll have hidden them even better from yourself.
  • If you’ve moved plants and breakables to your bedroom, they’ll remain safe — until you and your spouse rise for nocturnal bathroom visits.
  • If light strings work, five minutes later, they’ll short-circuit your entire block’s electrical grid. Repairmen will come “after the holidays.”

Murphy’s Law also wreaks havoc with holiday feasts. Along with meeting fat-free, gluten-free, vegetarian and pescatarian (fish only) requirements as well as free-range partridges that have roosted in pear trees, hosts face numerous other challenges.

Image by Oscar Portan from Pixabay.
  • If everyone shares dinner responsibilities, COVID-19, flu, road construction, blizzards and/or meteorite showers will necessitate a host’s wild dash for a turkey that can thaw and cook in 15 minutes.
  • If you make real giblet gravy, older diners recall Grandma’s tasted better. Younger ones request gravy-in-a-jar.
  • If you overload grandchildren with sugar, parents will disappear for a week.

Then, there is the weather.

  • If half your family votes for snowmen, and the other half for clear roads, you’ll receive a compromise politely called wintry mix. Less politely: slop.
  • If eight grandsons visit, it will slop all day. Every day.
Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.

Murphy’s Law loves to tinker with generational differences.

Image by mpmd2009 from Pixabay.
  • If the eight grandsons play Monopoly, keep ice bags handy.
  • If you own five identical, yellow toy cars from Cheerios® boxes, all your future NASCAR drivers will claim the same one.
  • Mary, Jesus’ mother, might have welcomed a little drummer boy, but most moms of infants — and cranky, old adults — don’t.
  • Though … if grandparents turn up “Jeopardy!” volume to seismic levels, they still insist children are too loud.
  • If no one brings up politics or COVID, the don’t let-your-kids-tell-my-kids-there-isn’t-a-Santa discussion keeps communication flowing.

With Murphy’s Law on the loose, grinches could present an excellent case to ban holiday get-togethers.

But grinches don’t understand that Family Law trumps Murphy’s. It declares love is worth risks. Worth gravy, Santa and Cheerios® car clashes. Worth learning to pronounce “pescatarian.”

After Christmas 2020, who would have it any other way?

We celebrated a merry, outdoors Christmas, but we’re glad we can hug this year!

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How does Murphy’s Law affect your Christmas?

Winter River Walk

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During a bout of winter flu, I became one with my family room sofa. Hubby couldn’t tell the difference between us — except that the sofa looked livelier.

Between his patients and me, my doctor husband had been doing care 24/7. When I eventually felt better, he couldn’t wait to get out of the house. “Would you like to take a walk?”

“Sure,” I said. So what, if my brain waves were still AWOL? Enough of the four walls, even if The Weather Channel declared that it was 25 degrees, but felt like -25.

My only exercise had consisted of visits to the fridge (“Stuff a fever, stuff a cold”), so I needed benches where I could rest atrophied limbs. Hubby didn’t want to drive far. Where to go for the nature walk we craved?

We ended up at a nearby town park. Bundled like Nanook and Nanette of the North, we strolled across a pedestrian bridge that spanned icy, silver-blue water. The river flowed, mirroring black-limbed trees, some still draped with fall’s russet finery. Snow patches sparkled in the sunlight. A deep quiet had settled over much of its hibernating shores.

Those whose winter vistas include oceans and beaches might consider the river view akin to an arctic Hades. But on this chilly, sunshiny day, the sharp air tasted like heaven.

Despite possessing wings, clumps of geese and ducks had not succumbed to the siren call of the balmy South.

Perhaps feathered relatives, perching on beach pier posts, shook their heads about their kin’s staying in Indiana.

“Must have made a wrong turn,” one goose told its mate. “Your family never could find their way out of a chicken coop.”

However, the river ducks and geese acted as if they liked it, despite swimming against the current. I had never seen waterfowl swim sideways before.

Maybe they couldn’t find their way out of a chicken coop.

They all quacked and honked at us: “You own a warm house with central heat and a fireplace, yet you’re freezing to death out here. And you think we’re stupid?”

They had a point. Above feathered rants and raves, I heard the family room sofa calling me, and Hubby agreed our winter river walk should end.

I returned to the sofa a little longer. The river community also will remain largely subdued. But an undercurrent of life, stronger than the river’s, flows through the dormant shores. And through me.

Who knows? Maybe even my brain waves will return.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Can you remember a favorite river walk?