To my surprise again, 70 people showed up in the lobby and I had anticipatioon about what I had gotten myself into. So I collected all of them and we started the trek to the Square. It was a lively group who seemed truly interested to hear the Choir. We had to wait for the doors to open so we were outside in the cold for about 45 minutes. No one complained and I was able to tell them some interesting facts about Temple Square. You know you only have to know one more thing than your learners to be an "expert".....
We had wonderful seats in the Tabernacle and were fortunate to be there when the orchestra was playing. Everyone stayed for an hour and a half and heard the whole rehearsal. It was a wonderful experience with all of our group really enjoying the beautiful music.
I gathered them all up for the trek back to the hotel and waited for some elderly Chinese women who were fearful because it was dark and cold. I helped them to get home.
I was anticipating that the music we heard might be on an upcoming Sunday broadcast of the Spoken Word. Well today it was. It was inspiring to hear the spiritual songs including "Who will buy?" from Oliver. I thought about Mark, Ethan and J Rose who were in the wonderful Oliver show in State College. "Who will buy?" asks important questions about human nature- do we have the ability to trust and give in return?
It was inspirational and comes at a time when inspiration is sorely at a minimum. To be able to lift up your spiritual self, gain renewal and listen to hope is powerful as much as it is breathtaking.
The Lord speaks to us in ways we least expect. Songs can connect us to heaven.
Barb
That's a beautiful story M-Boo! I love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, especially Craig Jessup, though hes not there any more): I love the pieces they sing though. Its funny. A piece I've had little spiritual experiences would have to be the Brahms Requiem, which I first heard performed by Ethan while directed by Craig Jessup(: When I performed it at Interlochen with my Orchestra and the Choir, I didn't play a a lot, so I was really able to reflect on the words. For me, the text is written as if it came as direct revelation from Heavenly Father. One part from the 6th movement is especially beautiful: "Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg. Tod wo ist dein Stachel? Hoelle, wo ist dein Sieg? " which basically translates into " Death is swallowed in the Victory. Death, where is thy Sting? Hell, where is thy Victory?" I love this quote because it has to do so much with what Christ did for us, which is he swallowed up death and hell in suffering for all of our sins, and through this victory, swallowed up Death's sting. This to me almost seems like revelation given to Johannes Brahms by God, and it just makes me think and appreciate so much more what Christ did for us. It was a really strong building block to my testimony(: I'm so glad you were able to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir though M-Boo, and that is so cool that you got so many people to go with you(:
ReplyDeleteDear M-Boo,
ReplyDeleteThat is so awesome!! Thanks for sharing something so beautiful with such a large number of people. You are awesome! Who would have thought your invitation would have such a good response! What great music to be able to hear from the MTC too! I would have loved to hear
"who will buy" sung by the choir!!
This is an INCREDIBLE story. It brought tears to my eyes.
ReplyDeleteThat's so cool! I loved reading that story, M-Boo! The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is so amazing, and it's such a spiritual experience to listen to them. See you in five days!
ReplyDeleteI was taking to one of the faculty on the trek up to Temple Square. He wanted to understand why Mormons do genealogy. He has been trying to find his family who moved from Mo to Colo to Mont in the late 1800's. He knew very little. He wanted to know if I would go with him to the Library and look up some things. I got some basic info from him and told him I would look some things up after we got back to the hotel. I started working on it later and after an hour had about 25 important documents on his family. Like a land deed signed by Ulysses Grant, pictures of his gg-parents. His family was in Weakley Co Tn in 1870 and of course our Glovers and Ezell's were also there at that time. So I pulled the census, found his family and lo and behold our Ezell's were on the same census page. I could not believe it. I called him that night and told him what I had found. He was floored. I emailed the docs to him and all the next day, he was going through them between teaching. I did some more work for him last weekend and found some other wonderful info. He says he is really hooked on genealogy now. Yippee!
ReplyDeleteBarb
Wow! Don't you wish our genealogy would just crawl out of the woodwork like his??? I think I would be hooked on genealogy too if I knew nothing and had you finding all those wonderful "finds" for me too :-)
ReplyDeleteJust goes to show: it really IS a small world. Weakley Co? Who would have imagined?