One of the effects of the coronavirus crisis is that Penny and I are singing together. Our new daily schedule involves the two of us being alone together in the kitchen for breakfast most mornings, and we have discovered that we both like worship music. So every morning, she makes avocado toast, I put together a bowl of berries, yogurt, and granola, and we sing.
I think it was this gift of singing praises with my daughter that helped me see that in the Bible readings that tell the story of Holy Week, after the Last Supper, the disciples and Jesus sing a hymn together. After dinner, before Jesus goes into a wrestling match of prayer, they sing.
In celebration and in mourning, in love and loss, in faith and in fear, singing can take us out of ourselves, connect us to each other, and connect us to a truth beyond our own understanding.
I am not grateful for many aspects of the coronavirus shelter-in-place situation. But I am incredibly grateful for the daily gift of singing with my daughter. Who would have thought that singing and the coronavirus would go together in a sentence?!
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Want to read more? Here are some suggestions:
- COVID-19, Holy Week, and Preparing for Suffering with Love {Ep 104}
- Penny’s Gift of Encouragement is a Gift to Me
- Penny’s Prayer During COVID-19 Crisis
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This Post Has 2 Comments
Just now reading your article in CT about the ministry of the disabled. Thank you for it and your efforts to incorporate and unify people with and without disability, esp. Within the church. I think about this more and more as my mom, diagnosed with PSP-a neurodegenerative disease- begins her path downwards. People don’t know how to talk to her now that she’s different and has verbal toggle and physical ailments. “She’s still in there!” I often want to shout. I have noticed how little the church steps into this people demographic and with people with disabilities. We need help. Deb…I love the name Penny.
Oh thanks so much Deb. I loved working on that article because it helped affirm that our personal experience is so wide–that if we can believe that God continues to be at work faithfully in every human being, we will be able to receive the gifts they offer (and offer the gifts they need). Have you heard of John Swinton? He wrote a book about working with patients with dementia called Becoming a Friend of Time that I really appreciated.