I went to rehearsal with La Bella. The people there are people I like. I’ve known some of them for many years. I enjoy singing and I enjoyed rehearsal.

I came home, tidied the place a bit, did some laundry, and spent some time knitting. I am beginning to feel more normal — recharged, if you will.

Here are my favorite songs from this morning’s rehearsal:

This gorgeous motet was composed by Paul Manz. The text, from Revelation, was prepared by his wife at a time when their small son was critically ill. They were waiting (and Advent is all about waiting, so this is a perfect text for Advent), but having trouble being patient.

We humans have trouble with being patient. We have trouble with time. Sometimes we want it to hurry, because we can hardly stand to wait through the intervening moments between where we are and where we want to be. Sometimes we want it to slow because we can’t see how we will fit all the activity into the temporal space available to us. Sometimes we wish it would stand still so we could enjoy a current moment longer, and sometimes we may even wish it could roll back and give us a past moment again.

I have trouble with time. Not perhaps the specific troubles I listed, but certainly troubles with it.

“Thou Shalt Know Him When He Comes” was composed by Mark Sirret, a Canadian composer.

Thou Shalt Know Him

Thou shalt know him when he comes,
Not by any din of drums,
Nor his manners, nor his airs,
Nor by any thing he wears.

Thou shalt know him when he comes,
Not by a crown nor by a gown,
But his coming known shall be,
By the holy harmony
Which his coming makes in thee.
Thou shalt know him when he comes.

The people who waited for the Messiah could not all recognize him when he came, we’re told, because they were expecting the Lord Mighty in Battle, someone to vanquish their oppressors and fix everything. We would like that, too. Perhaps we sometimes feel disappointed in our human leaders because they are not able to provide that for us.

Perhpas we don’t recognize the holy harmony, either. Perhaps we’re too busy thinking about ourselves, or worrying about time, or whining.