In Praise of the Laud

I just finished my annual listen to Respighi's Laud to the Nativity, and I was once again moved by how authentically it retells the story of Christ's birth and conveys the emotions of the people involved. To me, it truly says it all about who he is and why he was born.

I am grateful that I was introduced to it years ago by Sandy Willette, Director of the Southern Maryland Choral Society, when we performed it. And that Mel Unger conducted it early in my days as a member of the Singers' Club of Cleveland (accompanied by some beautiful women's voices). How happy when the unplanned circumstances of our lives intersect to enrich us!

"To a guilty world you have pledged yourself not out of duty, but because such was your pleasure."

In the wake of Interior Secretary Zinke's resignation...

If the Earth were only a

few feet in diameter, floating a few

feet above a field somewhere, people

would come from everywhere to marvel at it.

People would walk around it, marveling at its big

pools of water, its little pools and the water flowing

between the pools. People would marvel at the bumps 

on it, and the holes in it, and they would marvel at the very

thin layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in the

gas. The people would marvel at all the creatures in the water. The

people would declare it precious because it was the only one,

and they should protect it so that it would not be hurt.  The

ball  would  be  the  greatest  wonder  known,  and  people

would come to behold it, to be healed, to gain knowledge,

to know beauty and to wonder how it could be. People

would love it, and defend it with their lives, because

they would somehow know that their lives,

their own roundness, could be nothing

without it. If the Earth were only a 

few feet in diameter.

I found this today while going through some old files. It dates back at least to 2001 for me, but I do not know how old it is or who authored it. It becomes more compelling with each passing day.