Thursday, December 24, 2009

A Different Christmas Eve

Tonight Aaron and I spent the evening doing what many people do on a Christmas Eve evening: feasting on good food, wine, and conversation, but it was also a little different--just a little--but special in its just-a-little way.

We had Stan and Lynn over for dinner tonight. I had never met them before this evening, but Aaron met them at the community club house during its Tuesday night Celtic music jam session a few weeks ago. Aaron's been keen to play his mandolin with other musicians, so this was the perfect opportunity. Lynn and Stan head up the group of players and have been doing it for the past decade here in Pine Mountain Club. Anyway, Aaron invited them over for dinner and a mini recording session so he could learn the pieces and play with them on Tuesdays. I took a couple pictures of the session, because when are you ever gonna get a hammer-dulcimer/mandolin Irish concert in your own home on a Christmas Eve (much less any other day of the year)? And, yes, she did let me play the dulcimer; and, yes, I did play Frère Jacques. Badly.




No, I'm not done blogging yet. After all, what would a Christmas Eve post be without a heart-strung anecdote?

Lynn, I'm discovering, is probably an amazing woman. We were on the subject of family, and we got to talking about kids (she raised 6) and her mother, whom she took care of in her home for the last five years of her life. She had no medical knowledge, she said, just common sense. But she told me that she got more out of that experience than she put into it, let alone all other life experiences. She learned how to age gracefully like her mother did, and to cherish each moment, because it goes so fast. I think she gets it more than a lot of people, having looked into the eyes of her mother every day, and seeing herself reflected in those dying, knowing, graceful eyes. May we all have the opportunity to be served by our servanthood.


"...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Matthew 20:26-28

Merry Christmas

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