How Can I Keep From Singing?

I cannot recall a time in my life when I didn't sing. Doesn't matter if I'm happy or sad or moving half a country away to a new life or cleaning the oven. I sing. That's who I am. And there's always a song that fits every occasion. Ask me - I bet I know a song for almost anything you've got.

Yesterday, I did not sing.

I went so far as to skip one of our last rehearsals for the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans' performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (you may recognize the opening number, O Fortuna, from lots of movies and too many figure skating competitions).

And I never miss rehearsals.

It's not that I couldn't sing yesterday. I physically could, but it would not have been pretty. I probably would have been a liability at that point. No, the point is that I didn't sing.

Didn't even want to.

That is so rare as to be mind-bending to me. I've had bronchitis that didn't keep me down when I should have been. Last minute weddings or funerals? Nothing to it! Your Miss Lynch broke her leg a week before the opening of Grease? Bring it on!

But not yesterday. Why not is a story for another day. I am still living that story and cannot bear to tell it yet...

This morning, I woke up with an old hymn running through my head - quite a blissful way to start a Tuesday. Written by Robert Lowrey, How Can I Keep From Singing was a staple in our church growing up Methodist in Northern New York State (pre-Canada). Our choir here does a sublime arrangement of this tune by Russell Schulz-Widmar... and all modesty aside, we do it extraordinarily well. Sixteen years after my first time singing it with them, I still get goosebumps. It's a most marvelous union of text and harmonies. Goosebumps.

We've performed it twice since returning to our city and our lives, post-evacuation. It means even more to us all now. It has never failed to comfort me. Today was no exception. I woke up to this:

My life flows on in endless song;
Above Earth's lamentations,
I hear the sweet, tho' far-off hymn
That brings a new creation.
All through the tumult and the strife,
I hear the music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul -
How can I keep from singing?

Today, I will sing.

And today, I will shine.

Thank you to all my friends who reminded me to let it out and shine for all I'm worth.