The Fishers in La Paz, Bolivia

Today was … character-building.  Most of the school converged on this church building for our Christmas program rehearsal.  Many – not all, but many – things that could go wrong, well, did.

I forgot about a song I was supposed to help the 1st and 2nd graders with.

The archangel Catalina (surely you’ve read about her in Luke!) got mad at her teacher for some, um, creative decisions he decided to surprise her with.

There were major disagreements with the middle school teachers on how their kiddos should come up on the stage.

The middle schoolers made most of our hair turn several shades of gray by burying their faces in the sheet music and frowning through “Deck the Hall” and “Jingle Bell Rock”.

The middle schoolers suddenly became snapping-challenged in the middle of the big number.

My senior pennywhistle player had an existential crisis.

I left the practice thinking pretty much everyone on staff was mad at me.

I mumbled and frowned my way through the rest of the day, managing with much willpower and not a little grace from the Almighty not to take it out on my high school English class.  It was only after discovering that no one indeed was mad at me and everyone was very happy with how the rehearsal went (were they at the same rehearsal?!?!?), that my spirits began to lift and I regained the will to go on.

All that is to say, after the dust clears, I love what I do.  Freaky how that works.