Passover
Friday, April 14, 2006
Good Friday.
And it had been a pleasant Maundy Thursday evening over chicken and bread loaves, nice crispy vegetables, and other things for the Snicketts (except for Carrie who was at work), Hobcoggins, Plums, and OLeif and Collette. The Lord’s Supper was taken following some singing together, all 180 or so there gathered in the middle-school cafeteria. Followed – an hour or so at The Grind with OLeif, Collette, Joe, Puddle-Jumper, Jo-Jo, Wallace, Rose, Molly, and Samantha Bee.
Friday was warm and late-June-like. It was mostly quiet on the Western front, and Joe and Wally dropped by late in the afternoon to survey for the wheelchair ramp and for a cup of cold water apiece. And there was talk of flying kites the next afternoon after coffee and music that night.
Collette had also heard that Diana had returned for the weekend to go camping with the family. And so she would not see any friends before returning Sunday evening. But she had a mere three weeks remaining in school and would be back a full six and a half weeks before summer.
Collette wrote out Nacchianti and Creole’s baptismal certificates in advance for the following Sunday. Carrie was out hiking that day, and there was generally nothing else new to report. As she left, Bud Cross was outside in the warm hour, eating an orange, taking a break from preparing the ground for seeding and strawing the next day. An orange looked good about then. And as Collette got into the car, she heard the radio singing out Propter magnum gloriam, washing back all the delightful shivers of the old choir years. It was good to think back on it all, wonderful as it was for seven and a half good full years.
“My life goes on in endless song
above earth’s lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.
“Above the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?
“While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness ’round me close,
songs in the night it giveth.
“No storm can shake my inmost calm,
while to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
how can I keep from singing?
“When tyrants tremble in their fear
and hear their death knell ringing,
when friends rejoice both far and near
how can I keep from singing?
“In prison cell and dungeon vile
our thoughts to them are winging,
when friends by shame are undefiled
how can I keep from singing?”
– How Can I Keep from Singing?