[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

The Singing Lesson

I drove home along the parkway, keeping the river company. It's a 
mystery, this river; it's both formidable -- with five Great Lakes 
behind it, how could it be otherwise? -- but also intricate, 
intimate, mysterious as it laps away at its smooth soft-gold marshes 
and hundreds of islands and islets.

I vocalized for a bit as I drove, as my singing teacher Marie wants 
me to do, making extremely silly noises (something I can only do 
unselfconsciously while I'm driving) and then singing the piece we 
were working on on Wednesday, one of Aaron Copland's better bits. 
After getting me to start thinking like a musician ("*why* that 
double forte?"), Marie told me to sing the piece straight through and 
then say the first thing that came into my head.

So I sang it, and said "Mudge."

Marie looked a little startled, which was perfectly understandable. 
So I gave her the briefest explanation possible: that I belonged to 
an international Anglican e-community, and that long long ago we'd 
had a sort of joint electronic vision of a picnic by the River, with 
much love and sweet silliness (we were good at that) and grace 
abounding. One member of that community was a man we all loved very 
dearly. And  just about a year ago, he dropped dead at the age of only 60.

His name was Andrew, but he claimed to be a curmudgeon, so we 
nicknamed him the Mudge.

It's hard to explain this to people who haven't experienced it, that 
you could learn to see into another person's soul via modem, but I 
have  sisters and brothers out there whom I've never met. Others, 
when we do meet, turn directly into the best relatives a person could 
have (hi Ginga! hi Capers!)

I had, in fact, met the Mudge, if only briefly, but that wouldn't 
have mattered. What mattered was the sense of connection, reaching 
from northern Florida to the rainy Northwest to Ontario, where I am, 
to South Africa and England and ... and ... and ... What mattered was 
that we were, and still are, a company of saints. Crabby, 
disputatious saints, I'd agree, but saints nonetheless.

We knew, when he died, that we'd merely transferred a member to the 
other company, the one on the other side of the River. The one where 
the picnic by the silver water was already under way, with other 
beloveds from our community. They are waiting to welcome us home.

So remembering the Mudge and heeding Marie's lesson, I sang softly to 
myself as I drove alongside this great river, hearing Copland's 
spare, prickly, beautiful piano accompaniment in my head:

Shall we gather at the river
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God.

Mudge, we miss you. Give my love to the Muttster and Mary Jane and 
Carol and....

In memoriam
Andrew Auld
born into larger life 27 March 2008



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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in 
no other way. -- Mark Twain