Singing Us Home
I bought tulip bulbs a little late, lured by the bright colored box on a dreary, rainy day wandering through the hardware store. I planted them with hope in my heart that they would be as bright and cheery as the box depicted. I was not disappointed. I planted twelve bulbs of promise and twelve blooms of spectacular beauty emerged. The petals of these tulips were so red, so pure they almost burned the eye. You had to look away and view them from the corner of your eye, so stunning were these blooms. These particular flowers grew to great heights on sturdy stems, the cup of each flower, tight at first, slowly opened over the weeks to reveal a bright surprising yellow hugging a fistful of elegant long seeds. The tulips held on faithfully through Sunday to celebrate Easter and Passover. Today I find the petals strewn about the patio abandoned like a lovers clothes upon the floor nothing but the naked green stems and bending leaves remain. Their passage complete, their florid journey over sung to sleep by the spring wind and April rain.
The group that was gathered here at The Bishop’s Ranch this week made the tulips passing more poignant. Threshold choir members from all over the country came together here. Threshold choirs are small groups of women who gather together to sing at the bedsides of folks who are dying. One of their songbooks that I perused this week was called Singing Us Home, and that’s what they do they. With beautiful harmonies and gentle moving lyrics they sing a soul on its way… they sing them home. The women come together at the Ranch to share, support, nurture, renew and take what they have learned to their sister singers back home. They are one of the most gratifying groups that we get to host here. To a person they are gracious and grateful; imagine a whole dining hall full such spirit! They sang songs at the meals, songs of such beauty I found myself teary at least once a day. They must be a wonder, a comfort, a blessing at the bedside of the dying, gently singing the soul home like the spring breeze lightly releasing the last of the tulip petals for a final dance across the yard.
Here is a link to the Threshold Choir website: http://www.thresholdchoir.org/
A fellow art traveler and blog reader shared this link with me to a most amazing two minute time lapse movie of flowers blooming if it doesn’t make you smile today nothing will. Here it is: http://player.vimeo.com/video/27920977?title=0&%3bbyline=0&%3bportrait=0href=