Things Heard Around the Copier

I spent some time this week doing menial tasks for the choir and chanced upon a few pleasant conversations around the copier upstairs at St. Richards.   If you spend long enough up there the ga-shoon-ga, ga-shoon-ga of the machine gets into your ear and you start humming various things you've heard recently or music you happen to be copying, but all hummed to the relentless rhythm of the machine.

The Banana Melon is a Happy Thing

Among the topics that fluttered in and out of the ga-shoon-ga's, these were the ones that stuck with me:  why no one wants to do fund raising, why it doesn't work, the cost of providing vibrant, interesting programs is exorbitant, many people can't afford to participate in them, the church bus causes as many problems as it solves, Fr. Mike is uncomfortable with all the selling of this and that and the other which is going on around here (me too, and I was doing a lot of it last year), and there are these weird melons growing in our Liturgy Director's neighbor's yard that are the best tasting canteloupe-like things anyone's ever eaten.

The banana melon was the best part of the experience.

So, the new thing this year for the Youth Choir itself will be that when we work, we just work.  No money will change hands.  We will serve the parish without asking for anything in return except prayers.

I knew going into last year that things would get hairy.   So, I have an announcement:  the very last of the Rome-related fundraising activities is for the JUNIOR Youth Choir members and  has intrinsic value to anyone who appreciates fine art.   We will provide the parish dinner which is the setting for their raffle, and we will pray earnestly that it is successful.

Then we will hang up our towels, and work on our singing.  If we bake this fall, it will be for service only.  A Christmas present to the Parish who has loved enough to bear with us through this long long long process.  We are VERY grateful to the people of St. Richard's.  We will share our journey with you, and we will be proud to have you along on our adventures this year.

There will be Newbies and First Years' and Tweeners and Seniors.  There will be All-State auditions and Treble Song and a trip to Rome.  There will be prayer and fellowship, and the beautiful music of the Church, but most of all, there will be the sacrifice at the center of it all, the reason for every thing we do collectively and individually, the source of our inspiration, the challenge which leads us forward:  there will be Him.  Deo Gratias.  Cantate Domino.  Deo Gratias.