a strange weekend...

this has been a weekend of bizarre experiences - with a common thread of music.

friday morning
-i played piano for the funeral of a man i didn't know. he was great with kids, and he died of a heroine overdose. the two songs they had sung during the service were "amazing grace" and "i did it my way". as i improvised exit music after the service, i found myself subconsciously combining the themes of the two songs in harmony.
a life and death of juxtaposition...

friday evening
-grace's hispanic sister church, comunidad cristiana, is hosting a cinco de mayo celebration (on may 4th, of course) and i am playing flute with their worship team. i had my first practice with the group on friday night. i am the only non-spanish speaker, and one of the two fluent english speakers in a group of about 12. needless to say, practice was entirely in spanish, with very occasional rough translation for the clueless blonde flute player.
but we all speak music.
and more importantly, we all speak worship.
stereotypes and language barriers dissipate when believers from different nationalities, cultures, backgrounds, and even languages come together to worship our lord ... a foretaste of things to come.

saturday morning
i had the pleasure of providing piano accompaniment for my young friend daniel vestal's trumpet performance debut. we played "no. 3 ballad of the yellow sun".
after we finished i decided to listen to the performance of several other middle schoolers.

and that was when it happened - the strangest thing of all.

i ran into my wonderful piano teacher, who taught me from age 6-14. she is probably 85ish, and i have not seen her in at least 3 years. she was accompanying one student that day ... the daughter of the lady who stopped to help me when i was hit by a car.
i have always wondered about this woman - she stopped, held me as i lay gasping on the asphalt (providing the perfect motherly presence right when i needed it), and disappeared into anonymity - until saturday.
so on saturday, i reconnected with my wonderful teacher, and my anonymous lifesaver.

i'm still recovering from my weekend.