divine angst

One of the trying things about being in a church choir is Holy Week. If you don’t know what Holy Week is, it’s the week leading up to Easter. A lot of people don’t know that the three days BEFORE Easter are almost as important, theologically, as Easter Day itself.

So Holy Week starts on Palm Sunday (that was last Sunday), and goes through Easter Day. Really, though, except for Palm Sunday, Holy Week should be called Holy Four Days�Maundy Thursday,^[1] Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and, of course, Easter Day. (Some would say Easter Day shouldn’t even really be included, because the beginning of Easter is really the Easter Vigil, which happens on Saturday night, but now I’m really digressing.)

Because my church has a really strong music program, and Holy Week is the most important time of the year in the Church, well, we do a lot of music over the Holy Four Days.

So tonight, I have my regular Wednesday night rehearsal. Tomorrow night, I have a 6:15 call for the Maundy Thursday service, which begins at 7 and will probably go till 8:15 or 8:30. Friday, I have an 11:15 am call for the Good Friday service (I’ll be late because I won’t be leaving work until 11:30, but oh well, I know the music); it starts at noon and runs a little over 2 hours. And, of course, Sunday I have my regular 8:20 am call for two Sunday services, but we’ll be singing three times as much music as we usually sing on a Sunday.

Whew! I will note that I’m bagging the Easter Vigil service this year, since I really can’t handle four services on four consecutive days�and my voice certainly wouldn’t thank me. Plus, with the house going on the market Monday, I have to have time to do another good cleaning.

I love being my choir, I really do, but I also feel no guilt about saying that I am going to be completely choired�and churched�out come Sunday afternoon, as I cook Easter dinner for seven people.

1. “The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin for ‘command’ (mandatum). It refers to the command given by Jesus at the Last Supper, that his disciples should love one another.” Definitions: Maundy Thursday at ThisIsChurch.com. ↩

Via Sui Generis:

1. Grab the nearest book. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

I’m working on a Physics course today, so you get a sentence from the textbook:

“Mineral deposits, for example, often have a greater density than does surrounding material.”

I guess it’s a good thing that page 123 wasn’t smack in the middle of the chapter’s page of problems. Then there wouldn’t have been ANY sentence. Whew!

I’m a pretty anal person when it comes to being prepared for stuff. I certainly overprepared for our trip to DC last fall, and the smoothness of that trip only reinforced my tendencies.

Well, we have another trip coming up, and this time, I find myself totally unprepared.

I don’t know why I didn’t think that a cruise to the Bahamas would require some sort of proof of citizenship—even going to Mexico, you have to have at least your birth certificate and license. Well, I have a passport, and it’s not expired, but it doesn’t have my married name on it. Shit!

We got our cruise packets last night, see, and I began flipping through them and realized that I either needed to get my passport updated in a jiffy or take half a day off and go over to the state office where I could pick up a copy of my birth certificate. Thank God I live in the state capital!

Thankfully, it seems I can bring my old passport along with a copy of our marriage license/certificate, and that will be just fine. After all, it’s just a cruise to the Bahamas. But the whole snafu reminds me that we don’t have a hotel for the night before we depart (gotta fly in a day early in case there are plane problems), we haven’t figured out our transportation from the airport area to the pier area (apparently it’s about 50 miles), and I don’t have a cocktail dress appropriate for “formal night.” (I wouldn’t worry about it, except this cruise is for a wedding, and “formal night” is, essentially, the reception. I want to look nice for all the family photos we’ll be taking.)

Argh! I probably also ought to make an appointment to get a faux tan, because I am ghostly right now. Add that to my pre-trip list.