A Beautiful Sunrise Leads Us To Another Day

Music is powerful. Period. After spending several evenings banging on the pinaner at Mom & Dad's, I find myself humming, whistling (if I could really whistle), and otherwise belting out hymns and choir medleys. (The belting out has primarily been in the privacy of the car... luckily, for those of you around me today!)

After that one evening (when I first pulled out the hymnal & medley book to mess around on the piano), I found myself unwittingly singing little snippets of songs as I was watching TV, typing e-mails, creating PowerPoint presentations for my boss, etc. Forty percent of the executives' direct reports agree that there is the right amount of open and honest communication between executive team members. I'm bound for that city, God's holy white city, oh yes I am. Fifty-three percent of the execs' direct reports disagree that the execs communicate with employees about what is going on at the company (outside of regular business areas). When you feel a little prayer wheel turning, know a little fire is burning, find a little talk with Jesus makes it right. Seven percent strongly disagree and thirty percent merely disagree that the exec team is held accountable for their commitment to employees. I heard about a mansion He has built for me in glory; I heard about the streets of gold, beyond the crystal sea. Hmm... so, even though those results might not sound all that great... mixed in with the feel-good lyrics of those good-old-days medleys (and other fave hymns), they sound positively glowing!

Speaking of good-old-days medleys and other fave hymns... Mom & I used to love to do those medleys. She & I sang a little (or a lot, depending on if you're Mom or me) on Friday night. We were partially deciding on whether to cook in or eat out, partially enjoying the piano/medleys. Mom (as the choir director) and I (as the pianist) used to always call up the most-fun medleys on a weekly basis... so we had a good time remembering and enjoying those tunes this weekend. But with Mom, she was always easy to please. She enjoys listening to me play (as pitiful as I am even when I struggle through a flat- or sharp-laden piece with a difficulty rating of about 1.2 million) and tells me so. I think Dad would rather the piano have a mute button! :)

Anyway, fave hymns... I always have fun looking through the hymnal and thinking back to which choir director or other church-member-of-importance requested which hymns from week to week. I think it amused Mom to hear me call out... "this was the one Dianne always wanted to sing"... "this one's Haley's fave"... or "Preacher Burchette loved this one". I guess I logged all those faves/old stand-bys during those play-every-Sunday high-school years. That was fun. I miss those days. Anyway, just for those of you who were there & care (and for posterity's sake)... with page numbers... just because I CAN: Dianne always picked "Set My Soul Afire" (402); Bunk's fave was "Love Lifted Me"; Haley always liked it when we sang "My Lord is Near Me All the Time" (209?); Dad's hands-down fave was always "Victory in Jesus" (375); Preacher B loved "He is So Precious to Me" (403?). And my faves? Well, my stand-bys were consistently "Standing on the Promises" (336) and "Heavenly Sunlight" (425 -- perhaps the beginnings of my fascination with sunshine?!).

Great... now having talked about it all again (after having finally gotten them all out of my head during my 6-hour drive with my favorite Gospel & Religious albums -- SCC's Heaven in the Real World (all-time fave) and Signs of Life (with a few other songs from his other albums mixed in), Audio Adrenaline's Bloom, and Jars of Clay's Much Afraid), I'm once again back to:

I'm bound for that city, God's holy white city... oh, yes I am
I'll never turn back to this world anymore (anymore)
No matter how rough may be the way
No matter how oft I stop to pray
I'm bound for that city on the evergreen shore

How does a song get so stuck-in-your-head that you can't think around it? Amazing... truly amazing.

M&D - Miss you. Love you. Thanks for putting up with me and putting me up. *hugs*

Finally, what's a blog post these days without a few snapshots. From the trip today (beautiful driving day!), a couple from yesterday (Papa poison-oak-doesn't-affect-me Puffy Eyes himself), and the these-were-our-Christmas-toys view of the TV room (where Coop & Kona have evidently enjoyed most of their destuffing activities this weekend):