I LOVE OCTOBER!

Yes, I am THAT person. That person who LOVES OCTOBER...(and that person who has a personal blog...and uses it for all manner of things silly, academic, travel, and to tout the marvels of OCTOBER.) It has to be my favorite month and for a number of reasons. I love when Autumn actually arrives and sets in and while it doesn't come until late October or even November in my home of New Orleans, here atop the beautiful "holy mountain" in Sewanee - it sure is stunning! The smell of leaves, obvious big drops in temperature, and
crisp and fresh air all mark a solid Fall. Sewanee fog is also beautiful...like living in a cloud. New Orleans fog is pretty too. Here are two of my favorite New Orleans October fog photos from the park across from where I used to live on Frenchmen Street. 
(Believe it or not, these are iPhone photos.)

I also love October because of Halloween and I love wearing my silly socks. I've got this Edgar Allen Poe lunchbox that I bought ten years ago in NOLA and it's hilarious so I use it during October and OF COURSE I wear it with my "Poe family" t-shirt :-) I have several Halloween shirts with bats or cats. I am the person that buys the chocolate eyeballs to give to everyone! If you know me and are nearby, you will likely hear just about every Halloween pun that exists :-)

I love pumpkin spice and though it's available in September nowadays, I get it more in October. I also love sugar free instant apple cider, sitting on the porch enjoying cool weather, walks or hikes in the woods, colorful leaves, and college football - 
GO USC GAMECOCKS! 

Sometimes, I get somewhere where there's a nice bonfire or smell wood smoke as I'm walking. The days are getting shorter more rapidly and it always reminds me of the good parts of my childhood when it was exciting to have shorter/darker days, walking to school, Halloween costumes, fall festivals, the SC State Fair (one of my favorite memories), apples, popcorn, and toasted pumpkin seeds. It IS always crunch time academically and a super busy month, but it feels great! 

For me, October always brings to the forefront a juxtaposition of an acute sense of the brevity of life (paralleling seasonal cycles) and the happy urgency of scurrying to finish tasks or the celebratory defiance of evening activities outside under brilliant lights before the coming seasonal cold and slumbersome stillness.

Gratitude

Today was my last Sunday as director of music ministry at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New Orleans. Last night, my beautiful, sweet, caring, fun, and amazing congregation threw me a gigantic going away party and fundraiser. 

It was a 50's themed Grease dinner/dance event, complete with poodle skirts, pony tails, delicious 50's comfort foods, live music, tributes, balloons, letter jackets, and much more! 

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!

Here's a piece of the Second Line I got to lead with my parasol "made of Episcopal colors!"   

(Please excuse the giant gap between the video and this text...something in the embed code I don't understand!) 
As usual, I was a little nervous, but that passed very quickly as people entered, laughter ensued, and hugs were shared. SUCH a wonderful evening! I got to talk to so many folks that I wouldn't have been able to reach otherwise because of everyone's busy schedule. 

I also got to dance and I was serenaded - twice! The first song was "Summer Nights" from Grease with new lyrics written by my dear friend Meg that totally busted me and my stickers, puns, and coffee habits. I laughed SO HARD! Everyone enjoyed that and laughed right along with me! I promise to add the photo of the lyrics tomorrow. (It's in my car down the block and I am being lazy right now.)
*holding spot for the picture / text *
Next, I was given the benediction written by John Rutter sung by three choir members and it was super lovely and heartfelt. I cried. I love them so much.
Several folks spoke and my heart is so full from hearing their kind words. I will miss everyone so very much. 
My organist Liliia, who has taken up painting as a hobby, even painted a portrait of me WITH STARS in the background! 

I know that I will return. I will see them again. It's difficult to leave, but I am SO EXCITED for the journey ahead! I'm deeply grateful for St. Paul's - my choir, Fr. Rob, Bishop Duncan Gray, Fr. Ed, the congregation, the staff, our amazing school, and the beautiful building itself. I thank God EVERY DAY for this place and such genuinely loving people. I have changed in seven years here and I have grown. I have opened. 
In a super cliche of words....
I am extremely grateful!
It's hard for me to accept gifts sometimes. It's also hard sometimes to accept unconditional love. I have trouble during these wonderful times with overthinking and wondering what I can do to say thanks or to give back in response to such wonderful support and love. I will "give back" by studying my rear off (and there's plenty of THAT to work off!), working on a fulltime ministry of BEING - and at that - being a student of theology. This is all a given. It's what I'm going to seminary to do. In addition, I am stepping back and enjoying this love and these fun times. I am accepting this wondrous love. I am simply being grateful. 

You know what? It makes it easier to see God this way.
God is love...
I see God in the people of St. Paul's and in their ministries. I see it in the ways that they interact with me and with others. I'm seeing and experiencing God in the outpouring of thanks and love.
Expressing gratitude helps us benefit from the world and people around us. By getting out of ourselves, we become blessed. It also helps me to think that one doesn't create gratitude, but one sort of...."channels" it. How do we know the depths of gratitude? I think we must become aware of its source which for me, is God. Practicing gratitude allows us to connect with God through the humility it brings, followed by God's grace. How's that for a cool circle / trinity of motion?! 
Mind.blown.
Gratitude also reveals how much we need God, love, and each other.

So, THANK YOU my dearest St. Paul's and friends!!!! I love you all! I will savor the love, kind words, songs, cards, gifts, and laughter.  Thank you SO MUCH for my very first study Bible and the GORGEOUS St. Paul's cross! Thank you for also letting me keep my office laptop as I am in need of a computer that isn't thirteen years old with 100 MB left on it (yikes!) 
You are not only in my heart, but you own a piece of it :-) 
"God be with you til we meet again..."

(I'll be returning to New Orleans for holidays after semester exams and Sewanee's Lessons & Carols and I'll be spending a couple of weeks in the Crescent City. It will be in a different capacity, but I will be helping out at St. Paul's as needed. I know I'll probably be doing some singing. In the community, I'll be conducting a New Orleans Civic Symphony concert and the fabulous St. Paul's Lessons & Carols!)

God of Rain and Sun

God of rain and sun, of cold and warmth, of grey days and brightness,

We are here amidst the puddles. Open our hearts to see beyond the dull and damp and keep us refreshed and willing to serve. Help us practice gratitude for your showers of blessings upon us.

#prayer #Episcopal #rain

FINALLY, the Hysterectomy

So, I FINALLY did it, after three docs (beginning when I turned 32) told me I'd probably need a hysterectomy. The only reasons I waited were because of costs and not being really sure that was the answer. As it turns out, I now wish I'd done it YEARS ago!

I returned from our diocesan pilgrimage to the Holy Land last Wednesday afternoon/evening. Last Thursday held a half day or pre-ops and errands and then Friday morning, I was at the hospital at 5:00 AM. One of the pre-ops was actually a surprise and I only found out about it because I returned a call (again) from one office saying that I had just had my pre-op and they were like "no, you have one here too". I was thinking "where exactly is here?" and the rest is history. Seriously, communication is KEY, people. get with it. Both docs and places seemed oddly surprised that I actually had a list of questions to ask. DUH.
For me, if you don't have questions, you're missing out on opportunities - not only to find out what the heck is going on with your own health, but to learn.

It was FREEZING cold there at the hospital and soon after I showed up, about 5 other women did as well, with their families. I was the first one to go in, with these words " Alright ladies, let's get this party started, I'll see y'all on the flip side", hahaha. For the last two years, I have basically been ready to throw my uterus as far away as humanly possible. Seriously, I went into my gynecologist in January and said "I'm done. And by done, I mean D-O-N-E, DONE. I'm not leaving here without a shot or a pill or WHATEVER needs to be done AND a date for surgery because....I'm DONE." She heard me and gave me something...I think it was dimethylprogesterone. It's a hormone that gave me nonstop headaches and by week two numbness in my arms which was causing massive anxiety and I thought I was going to stroke out. So, I stopped that and suffered until my surgery. I had/have three cysts on one ovary, one on the other, a big fibroid, and some little nabothian cysts. I almost forgot to mention the endometriosis which was growing in thickness and probably pathology. As a result of this, my fallopian tubes had to be removed as well and I'm not sure what they did to one of my ovaries, but I'll find out tomorrow at my follow-up. I do remember hearing (while I was still coming out from anesthesia) that something was on it and something about pathology.

I KNEW that leg warmers would eventually come back! Actually these puppies were put on my calves to keep me from getting clots in my legs. Filled with air tubes, each leg alternated with a rolling pressure and it was like a massage. They felt kind of weird, but also kind of cool. 
I woke up and had a bit of doubly / hazy vision, but it wasn't too bad. I had negged for NO narcotic pain meds as they mess with my breathing and I like to breathe. Breathing is good.
So, they gave me Tylenol3 (Codeine) at some point and something else which they shot into my IV. They shot it so quickly that within 4 seconds, I had double vision again and felt weird. After that passed, I declined all medicine and was fine. Since last Friday, I've only had a bit of general discomfort and soreness and a bit of actually soft pain when I've coughed or sneezed. In fact, the worst pain I've felt at all was from the IV sites and the gas pain that was expected (they fill your abdomen with CO2 when you have abdominal surgery). 
THAT HURT. 

I'm afraid I was a wee bit annoying when I got in my room and on my phone
Out of surgery (the procedure went very well), resting, and dining on gourmet ice chips and a bowl of the blackest soup I've ever seen. And there's a lemon thing that looks promising. Thanks Fr. Rob for coming by! In addition to anointing, he was an expert witness so I could get my stuff back. The poor officer! I told him I had $20 in my bag I case I needed to pay off a nurse to bring me a soup I could identify.

Be jealous -"House Made" Lemon Juice! I'm assuming the Sodium Benzoate and Bisulfate are also homegrown... ;-) ~ at Touro's House of Fine Lemony Dining.

Spent one night in the hospital and from what my surgeon had said the day before, many do not, but he likes his patients to stay a night. The worst part about that was asking each nurse to please take out the unused IV on my right hand because it hurt and not having that done until RIGHT before I was discharged. Ridiculous. You know what else was ridiculous? Hospital waste. 

It's a thing.

I did not realize until when I had gone to the bathroom by myself a couple of times that EACH time I had asked for water/ice refills (6-7 times), the nurses had brought me a new container and thrown the old one away. No one had touched in the inside of any containers and it was just for pouring water. I get it that catheters cannot be reused, but what about those fancy leg warmers that only touched my compression-stockinged legs? Tossed in the trash. When I was about to walk out, one of the nurses told me to take the bin of stuff that had been on my desk near my IV. It had been out of reach the whole time and was covered by a garbage bag and no one had mentioned it to me. Inside: Kleenex (which I had badly needed), toothpaste & brush, lotion, dry foam cleanser, and more. Again, communication would be nice, people.

So, where are we?

Right, I'm DONE and in recovery. My actual procedure was the robotically assisted laparoscopic hysterectomy. My recovery period looks something like this:

- Boring....just kidding...or maybe I'm not

- 1-week no driving, but my doc called me yesterday and said driving would be fine for small distances. Of course, one block could kill me in New Orleans with all of these potholes and road issues.

- 4-6 days rough times

- 2 weeks to start feeling "back to normal"

- 6 weeks no lifting anything larger than a gallon jug of milk, swimming, or sexual activity

- avoid bending, pushing, pulling and things like jumping and working out (I avoid working out already). I'm wondering how to stick to that when I have to push/pull myself up

- avoid stairs if possible (yeah, right) or take them slowly, one at a time.

So far, so good! Wish me luck and if you found this and have questions, feel free to email me. If you're in line for a hysterectomy, good luck and godspeed!

5 1/2 Reasons Why I've Lived on "The Border of the Quarter"

Tons of people ask me about my apartment. Mostly, they want to know why I live in (almost) the French Quarter and why I put up with no parking and no washer/dryer and the lack of w/d connections. So, I've been thinking about that lately as I prepare to move to Tennessee and attend the Sewanee School of Theology for my MDiv (as a postulant for priesthood in the Episcopal Church!!!!!) When I moved from Milledgeville, GA to take the position of Director of Choral Activities at The University of New Orleans, I was looking for an apartment during the immediate recovery from the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. 

At least 80% of the housing in the whole area had been destroyed completely or enough to where it was not fit to live in. I remember it took me three different trips down here to explore housing options and check out apartment possibilities. On the third trek, my friend Kate came with me and we both called every number we saw outside of houses offering space and investigated every ad in the paper and online. It was extremely DIFFICULT to find something (AND that accepted pets). The apartment I finally took was in Metairie, tiny, and VERY expensive ($750 per month - compared to what I was paying in Georgia). My job was a one-year visiting position so I figured that after a fun year of FINALLY finishing my doctorate, I'd probably be leaving for another job somewhere. As it turned out, I "woke up" in the spring, a freshly-minted doctorate holder, and realized "Whoa, I live in New Orleans!!!". By then, the university offered me another year and so I found myself wanting to really live in New Orleans proper. I found a terrific apartment on Esplanade Avenue, the border of the Quarter, technically The Marigny neighborhood, and lived there for five years. Then, I moved again, but stayed in the same basic neighborhood. 
There are tons of reasons why I love living in this area, but here are the five that stick out the most to me!

1. Close, but not too close...

Photo by Caroline Carson. 

According to the Myers-Briggs, I'm a borderline introvert/extrovert and as many times as I've taken it, that's been the case. I love to be on my terms when it comes to entering the action or not. I'm there, but I'm not there (just like the woman above, she is outside the scene behind her, yet she IS part of the scene.) I like hearing the nightly brass bands down the street. I live on Frenchmen Street so that's just about every night. Drum circles at 3:00 AM, I don't love that so much. Hearing parades begin to pass by....well, I can choose whether or not to run outside and watch it on our front porch or to simply know it's happening and continue reading my book. Usually, I choose to run out and wave and watch until everything passes by! People, I love them, but it's nice to be able to choose how much of your dosage of tourists to administer :-)  If I feel like walking to where the action is, it's super easy. New Orleans makes it easy and the French Quarter especially. One block can be crazy active and loud while the next block can be quiet and serene.

2. The Art

Photo by Caroline Carson

I love art and have always been surrounded by it. My walls in home and offices are covered with artwork. My father was an excellent painter and a graphic artist as well as a superb photographer. My brother is a fantastic artist as well and I have some of both their pieces on my walls! I LOVE photography and even though I don't know very much about it, I know I have a decent eye. I feel closer to my father when traveling and taking pictures. On the scale of fantasticness, the palette that the French Quarter provides is beyond description. Everywhere you go, you see visual art and artists: performance art, the architecture, sketches, painters, crafts, scuptures, etc. 

3. The Music

iPhone photo by Caroline Carson

I'm a musician so this one for me is obvious. I don't go out to jazz clubs often, but I truly appreciate living here when I want to do that - or to take visiting friends out. I've been known to show up at Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse, Snug Harbor, or The Spotted Cat. 
St. Louis Cathedral also hosts plenty of classical concerts as do some of the smaller churches every now and then. Festivals are all over my area all the time. I like hearing live music wherever I am in the Quarter. Being on the edge of the Quarter, one can also hear all sorts of morning birds. I get to hear the steam calliope on the Steamboat Natchez play when the wind is just right, church bells from several places on Sunday mornings, and fog horns from large ships in the middle of a Fall night. I do enjoy a good thunderstorm too - and all areas of New Orleans are great for that. ALL of it is the music of life.

4. The Crazy

Photo by Caroline Carson

Hmmm....this sort of goes without explanation, but where else can you ride home and see a skeleton on a bike with a cat and a boombox in its basket? Perhaps a mime and a statue man having tea on a streetcorner? What about dogs dressed up in costumes for the Mystic Krewe of Barkus parade? People with amazing and in-your-face personality who could care less what you think of it! Folks of similar reputation as Ruthie the Duck Lady. Almost daily on my street, I see a man dressed in tux and tails with top hat and glasses with 3-d crazy eyes. He doesn't ever speak, but he'll nod sometimes. In April I saw a man wearing a bumblebee outfit riding a bike and singing at the top of his lungs. I would have taken a photo, but I was driving and he vanished around the corner. It didn't really faze me. I just assumed it for was for some New Orleans Allergy Festival. Hey, that COULD ACTUALLY BE A THING HERE! Just think of the Benadryl-flavored snoballs, the pollen-fried chicken... I digress.
Bumblebee Man was completely and happily in his own world.
Every. day.
Really though, the people that live here are just people. Also, they'll speak to you. Just about everyone says hello, smiles, or nods in greeting. They also dance....a lot. :-)

5. Feels sort of like Europe and reminds me of my beloved Charleston 

So, this one is a big one. The French Quarter is not the pure essence of New Orleans, but in my opinion, it sure does capture a huge percentage of that.
Cobbled or old brick walkways, small and colorful cottages, the market, the history, the restaurants, the pedestrian nature of the whole area - these things not only remind me of my beloved Charleston, SC., but they remind me of walking in Europe. I am mostly pedestrian when I visit other places and especially when I travel overseas. There is a very European feel to the French Quarter, and not just French and Spanish quality. One can hear any number of languages walking into the Quarter, tourists are everywhere, music is calling you from a seemingly infinite number of places, as are the street performers. There's always food or art being sold all around the area and there's a general air of excited energy. 
I love, love, LOVE the riverfront and watching boats and ships pass along. Sometimes, I've gone to pick up some cafe & beignets on a weekend morning or a daquiri on a weekday evening and just sat on a bench at the river. In addition to my little picnic days or walks in City Park (which I ADORE!), I will also occasionally sit in Woldenburg Park and eat a half sandwich and read a bit.

5 1/2. THE FOG

Photo by Caroline Carson. Christmas morning fog on Esplanade Avenue, 2007.

HA! I'm halfway kidding.....the fog is everywhere in the city, but I have enjoyed photographing it in my neighborhood.

Fog in Washington Square Park. Photo by Caroline Carson

Frenchmen Street Fog at Washington Square Park. Photo by Caroline Carson

So, I'll miss my border-of-the-Quarter residence when I'm gone, but I hope to return many times and maybe even live nearby again!

An Episcopal Service of Tenebrae, 2016

I LOVE the service of Tenebrae and this is the third year we have held it at St. Paul's Episcopal in New Orleans! We used to be the only ones who did it in our area, but now there are more....YAY!! 

It is so lovely and is a highlight of Holy Week. The 40 pages of mostly plainsong includes wrenching passion from the psalms and poignant readings. It is also quite special to have a service of prayer and meditation under cover of darkness. It can be stunning. Last year, I wrote a post about Tenebrae itself. HERE, you can read that. For this post, I simply wanted to share some photos I took last night and say that if you can attend this service next year, DO IT! 

The Origins of Tenebrae
The liturgy offered this night is the full, ancient form of Tenebrae. Tenebrae is a Latin word signifying “darkness,” “shadows,” and “obscurity.” It is a word that pointedly calls our attention to the scriptural accounts of our Lord’s crucifixion: The name of this service is taken from the opening words of the fifth responsory: “Tenebrae factae sunt”—“darkness came over the whole land” (Mark 15:33; also, Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44).

It is a moving descent into the darkest days of the church year as we descend into darkness and await the ascension into light at The Great Vigil of Easter. The Medieval offices of Matins and Lauds which were combined to create Tenebrae were the usual morning offices recited by the monastic communities ministering in the Roman basilicas and collegiate churches of Europe. At Matins the morning is greeted with prayer even before the sun rises and they developed out of the nocturnal times of prayer and watchfulness (vigiliae) that were common in the early church. Matins traditionally included three distinct sections called Nocturns (meaning “divisions of the night”). The office of Lauds, which in Tenebrae follows the Third Nocturn of Matins, is the traditional morning prayer of the church in the western world. The word “laud” means “to sing or speak the praises of” and originally implied a formal act of worship.

The union of the two liturgies produced a ritual greater than the sum of its parts. Through their correlation with the systematic extinguishing of candles unique to Tenebrae, those who originated the ceremony gave a new and greater interpretive task to the psalms and canticles. As noted, in their new liturgical context these poignant scriptural laments serve as commentary upon the darkness that gradually enshrouds the church and ominously envelops Jesus’ life during Holy Week.

This Tree

This tree stopped me yesterday on my way home from St. Paul's. I drove past it and then had to turn around and drive back back a few blocks, park, get out of the car, and just enjoy its beauty. We don't have what I would call a real Autumn or Winter here in New Orleans and I personally don't see too many deciduous trees around these parts so I had to stop and appreciate it. It's found on Esplanade Avenue, quite near the CC's Coffee House.

Jan. 22 Midnight Moon

Last night / this morning around midnight, the beautiful moon peeked through a windy sky full of cloud cover. These are three of my photos from my Canon Powershot 50x zoom :-)
I love that little camera! These I've posted here are copied from my FB post so quality isn't as fabulous as the raw file on my laptop at home, but still looks decent enough.

EPIPHANY 2016 Fun

Because Wednesdays are my most busy days and also because I forgot, TODAY I'm sharing here some of my very favorite Epiphany cartoons and memes :-)
     
                     
and because it's Carnival in New Orleans and everywhere that holds it dear....

#AdventWord #INVITE - Angelic Giggles :-)

Today's #AdventWord is #INVITE - December 16, 2015
I invite you to giggle! Check out the expression on this paper plate angel hanging on our Advent/Christmas tree at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New Orleans! SO HILARIOUS!

#Episcopal #Anglican #SSJE #EDOLA AdventWord was created by SSJE (The Society of St. John the Evangelist) and is the Anglican Communion's Global Advent Calendar. I'm using it as a daily meditation, prayer, photo post, and a way to connect in spirit to millions during this season of light and hope. You can join me in creating your own. Just take a picture and post it with the day's AdventWord tags! Click HERE for their website and for their daily AdventWords.

Chicken Pesto Broccoli Deliciousness!!! Pure YUM!!!

Ohhhhh.....MMMMMMmmmmmm! 
I CANNOT believe how fantastic this meal turned out!! Chicken pesto turned into chicken/pesto/broccoli/ DELICIOUSNESS.
Here is how I made it, a spin off of several you'll find on the internets.

Ingredients:
- chicken tenders, on the thin side is nice
- two packets of Knorr pesto sauce mix (has always been my fav)
- package of skim Mozzarella grated cheese
- Olive oil 
- cooking spray
- broccoli
- pine nuts
- spices I used were: salt, ground oregano, garlic powder

What to do:
- pre-heat over to 365 degrees F (just in case you think in Kelvin or other..)
- mix pesto packets in bowl with one cup water and 1/3 cup olive oil
- add pine nuts (as much as you like, I liked a LOT) and stir
- spray glass baking dish
- pour 1/4 bowl of your pesto mixture in glass dish
- lay the chicken strips on top of that
- dash with garlic powder
- dash with ground oregano
- pour the rest of your pesto mixture on top of the chicken. Some of it slid off so I scooped up some pine nuts to make sure they rested on top
- dash with salt
- COVER with aluminum foil

Bake
- Bake at 375 F for 25 min
- remove from oven and turn over the chicken strips which are not quite done
- re-scoop pine nuts so some are on top
- add one handful of finely chopped broccoli 
- bake 5-10 more minutes

Continuing:
- Remove from oven, remove foil
- add the rest of your broccoli now (I like crispy - or at least non-mushy broccoli)
- add your Mozzarella cheese. Add lots. Oh heck, live dangerously, add the whole package
- stir a tad and then drizzle a few spoonfuls of pesto sauce on the top
- broil for 3 minutes, watching it so it bubbles and boils and browns, BUT doesn't BURN.

THEN...
- remove from oven
- bask in the glory that is chicken pesto broccoli deliciousness
- take pictures and post all over social media
- EAT, don't forget to eat.
:-)

                   

Choir of St. Paul's Episcopal, New Orleans Sings for St. Bernard Project Event: Nun's Build

My wonderful, sweet choir at St. Paul's Episcopal did SUCH A FANTASTIC JOB last night singing at a St. Bernard Project community event held at the Knights of Columbus Hall. The event was a thank you dinner for Nun's Build for their week of disaster recovery construction work in New Orleans. Nuns Build is comprised of dedicated sisters and non-Nun friends from across the US. I'm so proud of this wonderful, dedicated, and super-talented choir! GREAT WORK, ALL! Thanks to a former choir member, working for the St. Bernard Project, for inviting us!

We sang: I'm Gonna Rise by Paul Marsena, Away in a Manger (both the William Kirkpatrick and Norman traditional tunes), and Andrae Crouch's Soon and Very Soon - all some of our "lighter" repertoire :-)

i thank You God for most this amazing day

I THANK YOU GOD FOR MOST THIS AMAZING

Photo I took in 2013 at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

     
                                          i thank You God for most this amazing

                                          day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

                                          and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

                                          which is natural which is infinite which is yes

                                          (i who have died am alive again today,

                                          and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

                                          day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

                                          great happening illimitably earth)

                                          how should tasting touching hearing seeing

                                          breathing any–lifted from the no

                                          of all nothing–human merely being

                                          doubt unimaginable You?

                                          (now the ears of my ears awake and

                                           now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-- e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
#poetry #gratitude #thanks #Nature #nola #Episcopal

Poem found at: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/10/26

And here is a GORGEOUS choral composition written by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) sung by The Stanford Chamber Chorale and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, under the direction of Stephen Layton. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMbSY7b0fuM