This is true about me: I am a planner. I love music. I love quiet. I love nature. I don’t like parties and big groups of people. I am a devoted mother and wife. I am a hard worker. I don’t like attention or celebrations about me. I practice taking in compliments. I love contemplating life’s difficult and unanswerable questions.
This is also true about me: I trust that moving towards shaky areas in our life, which introduce us to what’s uncomfortable, are the ways that we grow as human beings.
My children have this look on their face when certain songs play at our house. Sometimes they peek at me to see how long it will take for me to cry at church when the choir starts. Music has this penetrating way into my heart that is unexplainable. Certain songs just break it open like hard ice cracking. While it is painful, there is relief when the tears start and the protection that I carry around from being human just dissolves.
When I was in my early 20s, I travelled to Africa. In my idealistic youth, I collected and distributed over 50,000 pairs of shoes to children who were without footwear and susceptible to contracting diseases through their feet. When I stayed in the villages on a church floor under a mosquito net, I would wake to a group of schoolgirls singing. If I close my eyes now, 15 years later, I can still picture them as I peered through the window.
In Africa, I witnessed how they used song as a way to live and celebrate in everyday life. For 2 years I’ve been carrying a business card from a gospel choir I love. It’s been on my mind that when I turn 40 and the Beverly Yoga Center turns 10-years-old I want to celebrate with this choir!
And as much as putting myself out there to celebrate the joy and hardships of 40 years of life, 10 years as a small business owner, 11 years as a mother, 13 years in a marriage, I feel the shakiness to celebrate, which ALWAYS tells me that I am on the right track to some gift unfolding.
On Saturday, February 20th at 7:00 p.m. the Harmony, Hope and Healing ensemble will come to the Beverly Yoga Center.
Harmony, Hope and Healing is an organization which provides therapeutic music programs to homeless and underserved women, children and men who are struggling to overcome poverty. The choir that sings is comprised of men and women who are being served by the organization’s various programs.
As part of a deeper intention for myself, my family, the Beverly Yoga Center and stepping into 40, I hope to continue to support HHH’s mission to ease the suffering of many who are impacted by life’s unanswerable questions.
I hope you will save the date and celebrate with me. For more information about Harmony, Hope and Healing please visit their website at http://www.harmonyhopeandhealing.org.
