We are in the midst of a winter clothing drive for the youth in our low-income communities and a school in the city.  A large housing entity held a workplace drive for us, so today I had to brave the crazy city streets to fetch the coats and such.

One of our board members agreed to "volunteer" this morning as my navigator and general encourager against stressful traffic.  She also ended up loading and unloading nearly all the boxes for I was miserably weak.  Wednesday and Thursday I got to teach again at a third elementary school, for which I am most grateful, but which made me even more fatigued.  Then there was the whole problem that while I was told one SUV would easily accommodate the donations.  Let me just say that my car was literally filled from floor to ceiling, window to window on the (rather harrowing) trip back to the office.

When I turned on the car after the board member joined me, I forgot I had my hymn CD on, so Pastor's voice briefly filled the car.  She was, needless to say, a bit surprised at my choice of music...perhaps because it homemade?  I explained to her the gift Pastor has given me in first his hymns and now scripture readings, that I play them so that I can learn them and feel less the interloper at church, that I play them so that I might, too, praise God, that I play them in the evenings when I am too tired to study the Living Word so I can still get fed, that I play them as I go to sleep each night and have had fewer nightmares and am able to sleep uninterrupted longer, that I play them when I am struggling with pain because there is no sweeter consolation than the Gospel.

Hmmm, she replied.

Pastor W has great passion for music, having blogged many a time about the organists who have played at his church, but more so he holds a great reverence for the riches of Lutheran hymnody.  Today, he wrote a beautiful passage about singing praise to God...

Soon years on earth are past...how soon! And yet, beloved, the time we spend expressing the love of God, the time we spend together in singing His glory and chanting His praises, this brings a blessing that lasts forever. Part of the blessing is that such adoration gives us strength to face the dark days of our lives now in the light of the Unending Day of Christ's Kingdom - as we worship before Him the blessed peace of that endless day floods the inner man and calms us and steels our resolve to face the present darkness with the unshakable hope borne of God's promises. And further, the time we spend expressing God's love in praise and adoration, actually trains us, fits us out for our final and our ultimate vocation, a vocation that will never cease: singing praise to the Blessed Trinity! For now, such praise is fragmentary and weak. In the Age to Come, it will be whole and strong, full-throated and unending. 

Have you started praying the Psalter, yet?

O clap your Hands, all peoples;
Shout to God with the voice of joy.
For the Lord Most High is to be feared,
A great king over all the earth,
And nations under our feet,
He chooses our inheritance for us,
The glory of Jacob whom He loves,
Selah.
God has ascended with a shout,
The Lord, with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises;
Sing praises to our King, sing praises,
For God is the King of all the earth;
Sing praises with a skillful psalm.
God reigns over the nations,
God sits on His holy throne.
The princes of the people have assembled themselves
as the people of the God of Abraham,
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
He is highly exalted.

~Psalm 47