What happened next was that I wept. I hung up the phone, stepped into the shower, and fell to pieces. (Then I toweled off and figured out how to become a mother within twenty-four hours.)

I cried because the news was so impossible; so completely overwhelming—that a perfect stranger would decide that I should be the mother of her child. That I was going to be a mother. Or was I already? Impossible. I cried at the realization that I had wanted this—motherhood—with all my heart, but hadn’t understood just how powerfully I wanted it until that very moment. I cried too, because I was petrified.  I was new in town, Matt was overseas, and I was gravely alone.

Because of how quickly it all happened, I was also unprepared. When I tell parents who had nine months to prepare for a baby that we had nothing, I don’t think that they can fully grasp what I mean. It is probably hard to remember how unprepared (and unread) they felt on day two of finding out that they were expecting a baby. As they stand in their thoughtfully decorated nurseries, I think they might also forget what their home looked like when they had nothing more than the hope and the square footage to accommodate a child. (I had about the same amount of time a female fruit fly has to prepare her rotten piece of fruit for offspring.) In addition to seeming impossible that I should be a parent twenty-four hours later, it also seemed a little bit insane.

But I knew one thing: I had to go.

When I headed east over the snowy mountain pass early the next morning, I was driving to meet what Maureen from the agency called “a maybe baby.” Remembering this now—imagining for a moment a life that doesn’t include my daughter—the idea seems more terrifying than it did then. But three years ago, she was a possibility, not yet a landed reality. So much was still uncertain. There was a chance that the Young MC’s birthmother, Lauren, wouldn’t like me. Unlike most of the adoptions that this agency handled, she and I had never met. She liked us on paper, but was that enough? Also, until the Young MC’s birth father relinquished his parental rights, he remained (an unlikely, but nonetheless real) unknown variable. I kept the receipts for the car seat and since neither time nor total trust of my sudden good fortune had permitted me to launder any of the new blankets or pajamas stuffed into the back of the car, my inner pragmatist quietly reminded me, “It can all be returned.” Even as I drove toward my daughter, I steeled my heart for the possibility of heartbreak.

And then I saw them. I say them, not her, because the moment it all made sense isn’t just about my daughter, but also about her other mother. Seeing both of them in that hospital room—the beautiful young woman with the wide, welcoming smile and the impossibly tiny baby nestled in her arms—“maybe” transformed into a five pound, beating heart, soft cheeked reality.

Just last week, I went digging through the hospital records that the nurses gave me that day. I was looking for a piece of information to note in the Young MC’s long-overdue baby book. Thumbing through the pages, my eyes began welling with tears. Seeing the facts of her birth in black and white transported me back to those early hours with my daughter. I remembered poring over these pages in my room at the La Quinta (our home for three days), trying to decipher the doctor’s handwriting and Googling acronyms for clues about my daughter’s first minutes of life. I remember the momentary panic of seeing ominous-sounding words listed after “other complications.” My daughter, so tiny and new, was born into uncertainty. BUFA: Baby Up For Adoption. At 10:08 am, I didn’t even know she existed. Twenty minutes later, I was weeping in the shower. Twenty-six hours later, I was holding her in my arms.

Seeing the intake paperwork for Lauren, knowing her now as I do, imagining what she must have been feeling in that moment, it is impossible not to be struck afresh by her courage on that day, for the nine months before, and for the three years since. The facts tell you nothing of the heart, and her heart is a mighty one. I look at these documents and feel surpassing gratitude—for how far I have come as a mother, for the remarkable woman who was the Young MC’s mother before me, for the way our family has knit itself together, and for the great honor of calling this joyful little child my daughter.

Some days, I feel like I am barely hanging on. Other days, my life feels like an embarrassment of riches. When I think about how my life changed in an instant three years ago, it is impossible not to say: My cup runneth over.

And maybe read this (Memo to the Archbishop of Canterbury: those eyebrows are inspiring. I salute you.)

The time has come for me to reveal my nativity crush. (You remember, that glittery occasion when I decide who of among the characters gathered in Bethlehem has particularly captured my imagination this time.) I’ve given it some thought, but after seeing a stable a few weeks ago, my heart belongs to Mary again this year.

If this trend keeps up, I may need to look into attending a Catholic church.

Mary won my vote again this year for all the same reasons she did last time, but also because of this: she was faithful to God in all of this, and then, when the appointed time came she birthed that tiny, defenseless baby in a barnyard. My soul doth magnify the Lord, indeed.

On a recent visit to a barnyard, once I stopped baaing at the sheep through the fence like an idiot, I realized that those ovine smart enough not to come and visit me were huddled together in a stable. I also realized that a stable is like a lean-to that provides about as much protection from the elements as the awning over a store window. Our lovely, sterile nativity sets are often much more generous with both square footage and actual shelter provided to the Holy Family. A roof over their heads is a fair description, but let’s be real about this: the Prince of Peace was born outdoors. Surrounded by animal shit.

Granted, I have never given birth. But I do know what it is like to have a brand new baby—and she didn’t see the inside of a grocery store for the first three months of her life, much less lay about in the hay next to animal excrement. I cannot imagine the fortitude of spirit it would take to birth a child in such conditions and trust that this was what God intended, or that his intentions for my life were good.

We love to clean up the stable when we tell the story. As I read accounts of the Christmas story to the Young MC, several of them embellish and talk about Mary laying clean hay and clean cloths in the manger, probably because that is what any mother would want to do in such conditions. But this teen mom didn’t have a canister of wipes or baby clothes carefully laundered in hypoallergenic detergent. Jesus was wrapped in strips of cloth, but I imagine those probably came from Mary’s own garments, which were probably filthy from travel. The story of Jesus’s birth is a messy one.

I find this to be an enormous comfort. Knowing that the Savior was born into the mess makes me feel like God in his omnipotence is meeting me halfway. I don’t have to be perfect, as long as I show up. This is such good news, as I am pretty good at showing up and lousy at perfection. Seasonal baking and impressive lighting displays aside, I think this is the heart of the Good News of great joy for all people. Be present in the mess, but be present. Gloria in excelsis deo.

So, from my poorly proofread, in need of a good vacuuming life to yours, I wish you a very Messy Christmas.

Now maybe listen to this:

I know you will now gasp with astonishment when I tell you that I used both sides of the paper.

And now you also know that something must have gone wrong, or else I would be telling you the world’s most pointless story. For your convenience, a list:

1)   I am a wee bit obsessive, so I rewrote the letter a few times.

2)   Which means I read it over and over and over until the words no longer made sense.

3)   I did not, however, ask anyone else to proofread it because, Hell, I used to get paid to do this stuff, how hard is it to proofread two pages?

4)   I was less distracted then. And better rested.

5)   You feel the plot building, right? This is practically a Grisham novel.

6)   (Except for the absence of spies and firearms.)

7)   I got all cocky and thought I’d get something remarkable accomplished on a Thursday by traipsing off to the copy store to have it duplicated.

8)   I bought some Swedish Fish while I was there.

9)   I mention that as a red herring (look at me with the fish jokes!) to throw you off the plot, which you have surely figured out by now.

10) While folding them last night, Matt decided to read the letter for the first time.

11)  And there, in paragraph two, he found the first typo.

12)  I said something like, “Sugarplum Fairies!”

13) So I decided to re-read it myself.

14) And found the second typo.

15) To which I say something like, “SUGARPLUM  FAIRIES!”

16) And then I notice the third.

17) To which I said something like, “FUDGE ME!”

18) To which Matt said something indecent.

19) And then he watched me obsessively edit all 185 copies.

20) Because I just. can’t. let. it. go.

21) Merry Fudging Christmas to me.

Earlier this week, I handed them to the woman behind the counter at the cobbler shop explaining, “It’s nothing major, just the leather pulling away from the sole here,” and I pointed to an area near the instep of one boot. The woman behind the counter made some low disapproving sounds and started yanking along the seam in question, peeling away the sole. Seeing my beloved boot now in two parts, I stifled a yelp.

Satisfied with her assessment, she declared, “Whole sole need re-glue. We take it all off and glue back on.” It felt like (the footwear equivalent of) going the doctor for a minor stomachache and having your appendix removed.

Sometimes, I suppose, you just need that—a stern outsider to point out the ways that something is falling apart. It is hard not to feel shocked or embarrassed when it happens. It is tempting to find a flaw in the logic, too, when it all comes crashing down. For a split second at the cobbler shop, I wondered, “So, was it really that bad, or are you just trying to make this a bigger job?” But seeing that she could actually peel the sole back with her hands made me realize that perhaps she wasn’t just being theatrical. (Though there was a degree of self-satisfied theatrics. Everybody likes to be an expert showing up your ineptness sometime. I have found that cobblers in small shoe repair shops do seem to relish the moment where they tell you that your boots are almost a hopeless case a bit too much.)

I have a feeling that there is more than one area of my life needing a little dose of cobbler shop-style frankness.

While I get that all figured out, at least my boot soles won’t be flopping around like a hobo’s.

Small mercies, right?

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when we met up last Sunday afternoon, but as it has from the beginning, our relationship with the Young MC’s birth mother continues to stun me with moments of quiet grace. As we sat together and ate lunch, Lauren and I reminisced about meeting for the first time in her hospital room: The moment I pulled aside the curtain and saw her smile, I felt an unearthly assurance that this thing we were about to do was going to work. What happened next—entrusting me with her child forever—remains the single most humbling moment of my life. And it bound my heart to hers forever.

So, when she told me a few weeks ago that she was just trying to enjoy the time she has left with her own mother, I knew we needed to go see them. It was one of those moments of clarity where the reasons why were at once complicated, but also so self-evident as to require no explanation.

After a few sweet hours together on Sunday afternoon, it was time to say goodbye, which turned out to be much harder than it sounds. How do you say a last goodbye while shivering in an Applebee’s parking lot? But that is where we were when my daughter and her biological grandmother said their final goodbye. I wish that it weren’t the case, but short of a miracle, this is simply the truth.

In the last few weeks, it has felt like waves of achingly sad news have been breaking over the lives of several friends and family members. Like the ocean, this kind of news seems to roll in sets, too. I keep waiting for a lull between sets to find my feet again, but this particular one feels like it just keeps coming. A surfer’s dream, maybe, but not so good for the heart.

It would be easy to be swallowed up by the sadness if it weren’t for the toddler beside me through all of it. She simply cannot help but be fully present to her surroundings at all times. And she demands that I be present to it, too. Even as I find myself processing the news of loss and sorrow, the irrepressible vital force of the almost-three year old keeps breaking through.

It has always been this way with the Young MC. From the moment she was born, her vitality has always been a small beacon shining in the darkness. On that frigid day in January when I met my daughter for the first time, I was supposed to be attending them memorial service for my friends’ three-year-old son. Instead, thanks to her cinematic-level entry into my life, I was sitting in a hospital room with a beautiful stranger and our impossibly tiny baby girl, struck dumb by what was taking place. At the time, it seemed so unjust that I was experiencing the apex of joy in the face of such sorrow, and yet…at some point, I had to succumb to it. There was joy and it would not be denied.

On Sunday, Lauren gave the Young MC her very first My Little Pony. Doubtless the product of some fantastical breeding experiment, the little pony is, in fact, some kind of Unicorn-Pegasus hybrid. A unisus, perhaps. Or a pegacorn. She has a glitter-encrusted horn and wings of finest vinyl gossamer that light up at the touch of a button. She has a comb and hair clips and a crown and the Young MC loves her as she has never before loved a chunk of molded plastic. Princess Celestia (for that is her given name) also speaks, introducing herself and making enthusiastic suggestions, “Let’s fly away to the castle!” Her repertoire also included a few disconcertingly co-dependent pronouncements: “I love it when you brush my hair!” and “You’re my best friend!” (Somewhere out there a voice actress paid her rent with Princess Celestia’s voice. I sort of love imagining her rehearsing into her toothbrush.)

As we were driving away from our lunch with Lauren and her mom on Sunday, the new pastel-colored pegacorn was getting a thorough vocal workout in the backseat. While the Young MC was entertained and before we ran out of cell phone signal, I decided to call my mother. One of her closest friends was in the hospital and I was hoping to hear that she had improved since we last spoke. From the moment I heard my mom’s voice, I knew that the news was bad. My mother was also in a car, racing to her friend’s bedside. She wasn’t sure whether she would make it in time. Between sobs, my mom explained that her friend’s son had held up the phone so that she could tell my mom, “Goodbye, my friend. I’m going home.” Listening to my mother crying, the tears were welling in my own eyes when Princess Celestia chimed in from the back seat. “I love it when you brush my hair! Let’s fly away to the castle!”

And there it is. In the depth of soul-crushing sorrow—undeniable life. I turned around and looked at the Young MC, in the gleeful oblivion of a new toy. There simply isn’t a way to reconcile her joy (and honestly, the joy of simply being around someone so full of life) with the incredible sadness of loss—for my mom, for her friend’s children, for the loss that is on the horizon for Lauren. Her joy exists. The sadness exists. The dissonant interval between these notes will not resolve. It just…won’t. Ever. No matter how hard I try.

But sometimes, in a moment of mercy, the joy will be louder.

Now let’s fly away to the castle.

*Lauren isn’t her name—and if you know me, you know that. But for her privacy, that’s what I’m calling her here.

To: Truly Not Very Old Body

From: Sarah

Subject: Decay

Dearest Corporeal Form,

It has come to my attention that you may not be aware of the following: I have every intention of growing rather old and remaining mobile for all of my advanced years. It should be observed that the onset of said advanced years is not scheduled for at least another three decades. Please pace your descent into decrepitude accordingly.

That is all.

Sarah

Chief Corporeal Resident

If you know me well, it should come as no surprise that I am once again recovering from a routine household injury. I am nothing if not consistent in my ability to seek out ways to wound myself while performing routine activities including, but not limited to: cooking, descending staircases, and breathing. Two weeks ago I stepped on a pair of shoes that were (unbeknownst to me) at the foot of a dark staircase. Roughly one week ago, I began walking without a limp again; and two weeks post-injury, the colorful rainbow of blacks, blues, greens, and yellows is slowly ebbing from the skin of my foot. I have sprained this same ankle multiple times, but this was the first time I could HEAR the crunch of my tarsal bones rolling against one another. From an injury research standpoint: fascinating. From a dwelling-in-this-body standpoint: holy bleeping hell! For a week of limping, I sort of wished that I had earned that pain not on a trip to the laundry room, but in a more dignified pursuit like trail running, playing basketball, or uh, miniature golf. (True story, circa 1991.)

To add to the indignity of the injured ankle, yesterday my thoracic spine decided that functioning properly wasn’t nearly as fun as radiating continuous searing pain, so I spent the afternoon trying not to move any body part between my neck and my hips. I also spent this time wondering if I had suddenly become AARP-eligible overnight.

As I am still a few years shy of retirement age, it has occurred to me that it might be time to change my policy of benign neglect and start being a little kinder to my body. Unfortunately, I think that might require becoming the indentured servant of a massage therapist.

I laugh, of course, because having a body that works is something I’ve largely taken for granted. Whenever my mobility is limited by short-term (usually self-inflicted) injuries, I find myself immediately impatient and frustrated by what I suddenly cannot do. In those moments, I start to understand my dad so much better. His whole life has been a struggle against his body. At first, the limitations originated with the dearth of effective treatments for hemophilia; and later, because of the damage done in those early years. Tenacity, denial, and grit have gotten him to his ripe old age, but none of those are a substitute for a gloriously functional, pain-free body. If you have one of those, it is unlikely that your dreams are structured around available medical care. If you don’t, the scope of your dreams tends to be severely limited. Several years ago, when surveying possible retirement locales, my father’s hematologist told him that he should plan to live within driving distance of one of three hospitals—three, in the entire United States. (He also told my dad never to move to Florida. I agree, but for different reasons.)

As a child, I always loved looking through the stacks of my father’s National Geographic magazines that sagged the shelves of the living room bookcase. Turning the pages felt like taking a trip to some impossibly far away place. I have never asked, but it recently occurred to me my dad might have subscribed for all of these years in part because he knew that he was unlikely to see most of these places in person. When he spoke wistfully of wishing to visit Macchu Pichu when I was younger, it never occurred to me that his body was the major reason why that would never happen.

Whenever my mind wanders down this path, it is always a bittersweet confirmation that I’ve made the right choice to be the endpoint for the defective gene pool my dad and I share. Three years ago, pre-parenthood, I had an awkward conversation with a mother of several children with hemophilia. I’d been cornered by a well-meaning relative of a friend who took it upon herself to solve all of my childless problems by forcing me to talk to this woman. I had long ago decided to adopt rather than play genetic roulette, but this mother seemed determined to talk me out of my choice. I understood her position: medical care is better today than it was when my father was a child, her kids had a great life, and she was fine.

I got it. I really did. I didn’t want to tell her, though, what I knew: That my dad’s life was marked by the limits on his dreams; That the undercurrent of worry for him WAS borne by the whole family, whether we were aware of it or not; That being seventy and facing the inevitable physical decline was bad enough, but the added complications of blood that doesn’t clot just made everything…well, more complicated. In the end, because I knew she had a lifetime of worrying and advocating for her children ahead of her, I couldn’t say that my dad’s condition sometimes made him wish he’d never been born. I also couldn’t say to her that I was afraid that knowingly choosing that for my kid would eat me alive. Her choices were hers and I had no interest in judging them. At the same time, I really, really wanted people to stop trying to talk me out of my own choice to refrain from procreating.

One person to whom I never had to explain this choice was my dad. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this until right now, but it only just occurred to me that he and I are members of an exclusive club of two. Because of the way sex-linked traits work, my brother and mother will always be excluded from our magical little Punnett Square club, where his wonky gene passes on to me and makes me a totally kick-ass hybrid. (Kick-ass except for the part where I pass that crap on and perpetuate the problem.) Certainly, my mother and brother are affected by it, but they’re not living it. I am a carrier for the trait, which means that my dad and I are the only ones in our family who share that little piece of DNA—the lowercase “x” I drew during a high school biology lesson that suddenly came to represent my families, both present and future. Many years after that little game of genetic tic-tac-toe when I decided that my womb was closed for business, my father totally understood.
And because he is a pragmatist—probably by necessity, come to think of it—he also understood when I chose (by necessity) not to be sentimental about the decision. It is a strange little connection we have, and sometimes I wonder if we would understand each other so well if it didn’t exist.

So take that, body that seems to be aging before its time. I see your swollen ankle and frozen shoulders and raise you perspective and appreciation of familial bonds! Now give me back my normally healthy self and nobody gets hurt.

Oh who am I kidding? I’m probably going to find a way to fall out of this chair and impale myself on a ballpoint pen in a minute.

As I was singing part of it, the Young MC asked, “What you singing?” so I played it for her.

And now, for you.

It makes so much sense to me these days why, when wandering the streets of Paris with my friend one Sunday fourteen years ago, she saw a Ben Harper poster through the window of an empty office and came to a dead stand-still to stare adoringly for a little while.

As my parents get older, I find myself thinking about the last words a lot. When debating the merits of open-heart surgery vs. a slowly enlarging aortic root becomes part of dinnertime conversation, you realize that you might not have as much time as you hope.

You just never know when those last words will happen–you hope you’ll have the chance to say the things that need to be said, but more often than not, life doesn’t offer up that peaceful bedside chat that you know will be the last one.

I only really knew one of my grandparents. One grandfather died before my parents were married; the other passed away when I was a toddler. By the time I was old enough to recognize my Granny, dementia had taken away her ability to recognize me. But I had maternal grandmother, whom I called Mamgu, until 1998 and she was sharp as a tack until the end. The last time I talked to Mamgu was on her 89^th birthday. A week later, she went to sleep in her little three quarter-size bed and did not wake up again. When we all gathered in Wales for my grandmother’s funeral, my mother handed me an ancient matchbox filled with Spanish coins that she had found on Mamgu’s kitchen windowsill. After returning from her honeymoon in Majorca in 1965, my mother had given my grandmother a handful of Spanish coins, presumably as a little treasure from a far-off place. Thirty-five years later, it would seem Mamgu unearthed them from a forgotten drawer and put them on a windowsill where she could see them whenever she did the dishes. Perhaps a coincidence, but among my last words to my grandmother were that Matt might get stationed in Spain and I could be living much closer to her within the year.

When Matt was flying a lot, I used to think about last words often. (He used to tell me that the planes were so old that the wings will someday just fold up like an adjustable bed. Comforting.) Over the years, there have been plenty of phone calls from a distant country that went awry—fatigue and distance wearing on us both, that weird delay on the line that makes you not want to speak because you can’t think when the last word you spoke is still echoing in your ear, a misunderstood comment—and I would hang up the phone, thinking, “Dear God, please do not let my last words be those.” There is this movie that every critic panned and I secretly like called Catch and Release. (I make no excuses for my enjoyment of this movie. I see all of its flaws and like it anyway, so there.) The movie opens with a voiceover of a girl after her fiancé dies in an accident on his bachelor party weekend. She laments the fact that their last conversation was an argument about seating arrangements, wherein she said, “No more nookie until you figure out where to put your mother’s bridge club,” instead of “have fun; be nice to the strippers.” For some reason that line always gave me a chuckle, perhaps because I have had my fair share of conversations that didn’t end as beautifully as I had hoped. It struck a nerve because I am so aware of how easy it is to be so hung up on the temporary frustrations that I forget the bigger picture.

Back here I talked about sometimes “I love you” becomes robotic and feels like it loses meaning, but this—the awful regret of the words said in its place—is ultimately why I still say it, even when the love isn’t bursting through. Because if I mean it at all, I need to say it. Just in case I don’t get to say it again.

Tragically, my fall wardrobe is not very, very good, but that is another matter entirely.

2. I like to think of the chair in which I am currently sitting as my “writing chair.” Most of my good writing happens when I sit here. Unfortunately, I appear to be locked in a heated custody battle with the dog who has, of late, requisitioned it at every available opportunity. This would be the self-same dog who is technically not allowed on ANY furniture. The same dog who has three—yes, three—dog beds on the assorted stories of this house. And yet, she nonchalantly parks herself on my chair daily, as though the poor moppet has nowhere else to go. What is worse, she no longer has any shame about it. When I catch her in the act, she barely lifts her head in acknowledgement of my very obvious disapproval. I would be willing to share if she weren’t so determined to reupholster the damn thing in a black fur motif. As it is, every time I sit down, I have to consider whether or not my clothing is capable of camouflaging the inevitable layer of fur clinging to my backside, or if a wardrobe change will be required before leaving the house, lest I appear to be attired almost exclusively in black dog hair.

3. When I first bought the new Bon Iver album a few months ago, I experienced a disconcertingly visceral reaction to it. Whenever I listened, I found my eyes welling with tears. A few months on, and that still hasn’t worn off. I’m not sure what is happening to me. It isn’t the lyrics, as there are numerous songs on the album where the music and tone of Justin Vernon’s voice blend (perhaps intentionally) in a way that makes it hard for me to understand what he is saying. So there is something in the music itself that makes me all weepy. I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly is doing this to me. My last foray into music theory was over a decade ago, so any ability to identify keys and chord progressions has gone wherever my ability to translate ancient Greek went to die. (RIP, long-lost talents. I hardly knew ye.) But the fact that I can’t figure it out is driving me batty. If you know the secret musical trigger for instant crying, I swear will bake you something delicious to thank you for solving the mystery.

4. Alas, I can’t blame Justin Vernon entirely for my emotional vulnerability of late, though that would be much easier. The last few months have been a little hard. As I have mentioned before, nobody in our house is sleeping well and that is taking its toll. I am not a basket case, but I am basket case-adjacent. My emotions are so raw that even the most minor of provocations draws them to the surface. We’ve been here for six months, but I am still largely community-less and a touch lonely. Six months without community and being a touch lonely when utterly sleep deprived is…well…less than ideal.

Part of the family zombie-effect is related to the Young MC developing (what appears to be) a semi-paralyzing fear that Matt and/or I will be leaving her. I hadn’t realized until know how emotionally crushing it is to be carrying the weight of someone else’s fears. It is exhausting work. It is also one of the most frustrating aspects of parenting to date: I can comfort, I can explain, I can make promises; but facing down her fear is my daughter’s work alone. No amount of hoping can expedite it, either. So we wait. I know that one of these nights (dear sweet Lord, please let it be in the year 2011), bedtime will not involve two hours of her checking to make sure we haven’t left before finally falling asleep in her own bed. One of these nights, she will not wake up screaming hysterically several hours later. One of these nights, everyone in the family will spend the entire night sleeping in their own bed. Except the dog: She’ll be down here, sleeping in my damn chair.

Paired with a seriously bad attitude and short fuse, my major complaint about this fatigue is how it has stripped me of the ability to formulate and/or complete a single coherent thought. Every time I sit down to write, nothing that makes any sense comes out. It’s particularly exasperating when the need for an outlet is so great, but the ability to organize my thoughts is so minimal.

In these moments, I am especially grateful for music. I recently heard the passage in the Book of Romans again about the “spirit interceding with groaning too deep for words,” and couldn’t help but think that perhaps the Holy Spirit’s groans were musical ones.

Until I get some more rest, I have Ben Harper to sound like I feel:

Amen.