Thursday, October 18, 2012

art

Today in second grade we are talking about Bach. How he played the organ, and how he wrote all this beautiful music. We are listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in G Minor. The whole thing.

So all my second graders are busily working on drawing organs, Bach playing the organ, halloween pumpkins sitting on top of organs, etc. I am sitting at my desk watching them work, and listening to Bach.

I get to sit here at listen to Bach. I get to bathe in the art of Bach's work. Bach put his life into creating beautiful music, and I get to enjoy it. I get to appreciate his art. I get to lead second graders in appreciating his art. I get to reveal to them to intricacies of Bach's works, and what a genius he was.

We are appreciating art. Together.

And in them, I see a hopeful glimpse of people who will be art appreciators  for the rest of the lives.
I can only hope.

But today, I get to listen to Bach.
I am so lucky.
K

Saturday, October 13, 2012

rich

I am rich.

I realized this as I was writing thank you cards yesterday. I wrote a thank you card to each person that came to my birthday party. I really had a great time, and wanted to write thank yous to the people that threw the party, and the people that gave me gifts, so I thought, "What's a few more cards?"

As I was sitting there writing, I realized that I am so very rich.

Not in the conventional sense of the word - in fact in THAT sense I am pretty dang poor. As evidenced my my 11 year old beater-car. And several other things I can name that I occasionally am not happy with around my life. But in the "life" sense: I have a great life, and more specifically, I have great people in my life.

Today I went Glow Golfing. Not by myself, but with the 2 nephews. We glow golfed, and then played at the mall "playground", and then went out to lunch. And can I just say that it is amazing that I even got any food down in the midst of helping the little one with his burger, cleaning up the mess, and making repeated trips to the front for mustard and ketchup. But I realized, as I shuffled them off to the car to go home, that they make my life rich.

Last night I went to a hockey game. Now, really, I could care less about this hockey team. But it is the college here in town, they have a fairly good hockey program, and my parents have season tickets. They said they were going to take the boys, and I asked to go along. It was tons of fun - not so much for the hockey, but for having dinner and spending time with the 2 nephews and my parents. Things like this make my life rich.

Yesterday afternoon I met with a girl from Youth Group. She asked if I would "mentor" her. I said yes, but I have to confess that I feel pretty inadequate to be a good mentor. But I DO care about her a ton, and so we get together and talk about things in our life. Sometimes spiritual stuff, sometimes family stuff, sometimes other stuff. But even though I am only a so-so mentor, her friendship makes my life rich.

And I could go on and on. But I am thankful for the depth and richness that my life has because of who He has put in it. I only hope that I can honor that, and make the most of the life that I've been given.
K