Since I've been back, there has been so much to catch up on, but my consuming concern has been lining up readers and coming up with creative ideas for staging the readings for our Easter Vigil! I'm in charge of the Passion reading for Palm Sunday, as well. I started before we left, but now the heat is on. And with a small church, so many decisions are like a chain of dominos, each one contingent upon the one before it. (If this person can't do this, then I'll ask this other person...so I can't ask them to do that yet, until I know if this person can help out here because I might need this other person more there.)
After a flurry of emails last week, all the readers are decided...and now it's time to coordinate rehearsals. In a couple of the readings, we are using quite a few children, and trying to find a time when no one has ballet, soccer, AWANA, drama, Scouts, martial arts, piano, drums, guitar...is proving to be difficult!
I've run into the same thing with adults, trying to get seven readers together for the Passion reading...but we're finally settled on that. A good thing, with Palm Sunday now looming!
Now that I have the readers decided, I can start arranging the readings. This is the part I enjoy the most. I choose a version of the Scripture reading, then divide up the lines and assign parts to the readers. I think about the pitch and timbre of each voice, as well as the reader's personality and expression, and I work with those in mind as I also try to divide the parts up pretty equally in a Reader's Theater format.
Others are straight readings, but with accompaniment such as music, percussion, dance, ASL or mime. I've put other adults in charge of some of the readings, but I'll be rehearsing the ones that have many adults and kids in them.
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With all that on my mind all last week, it was so nice to take a Sabbath rest and spend Sunday with one of my very best friends.
A couple months after I met K, we were both pregnant with our now 18-year-old daughters. That's how long we've known each other! She is personally responsible for introducing me to the notion of homeschooling. She was the first homeschool mom I ever met, and I instantly recognized a kindred spirit. We both love literature and reading, and her grace-filled way of education, filled with living books, appealed strongly to me. I have picked her brain so often, and over the years she has recommended so many wonderful books, not just for my kids, but for me.
She lives back in Illinois, and her husband serves at our church once or twice a month, either as a musician or as a priest. K can't always come when he does, and if it's been a couple months, it can take us awhile just to go through the list of our 11 children total and update each other on all their doings and related decisions and concerns.
I so appreciate K's perspective, because she's always been just a little further down the parenting road. Her youngest is 15, the same age as my third, and her oldest must be 27. She's done teenagers and little kids simultaneously, like I'm doing, and she's still got teens, like me, and she has older kids in college, and out, and married, and single, and she's now a grandmother...so I've always seen my future in her life. She's made mistakes and she's done many, many things right, and I've learned sooooo much from her and been so encouraged by her, always, over the years.
When we lived close, we used to homeschool together, go on family vacations together, and see each other regularly at church and other times during the week. Their family was always our "go to" family if we wanted to do something spontaneously, especially since Blondechick and B15 are such good friends with their daughters who are the same age.
In fact, here's what K and I were listening to when the photo was taken:
Her birthday is the same as Blondechick's. And K's is the same as Bantam6's. Papa Rooster shares a birthday with one of their other daughters, and K's granddaughter was born on my birthday.
This morning I woke up so grateful for yesterday, and full of thanks for K.
2 comments:
Wow!! And here I've been thinking how all grown up your kids have been looking. My goodness. It has been a few years since we've been in Illinois. I remember that face from Noah's Ark days!
Aside: As I was reading this post, my daughter heard me exclaim over the changes. She popped over to ask what was so exciting. I pointed to the photo and said, "This girl. She looks so old." Rosi looked and turned back to me, "No she doesn't."
So I had to explain that I first knew her when she was about Rosi's age. "Oh," Rosi replied. "I thought you meant old like Titi and Wowo (her grandparents)."
Oh, Amy, that's funny. C is all grown up, but she's not THAT old!! ;)
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