Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house as fair as you're able,
Trim the hearth, and set the table.
People, look east, and sing today:
Love, the Guest, is on the way.
Stars, keep the watch, when night is dim.
One more light the bowl shall brim.
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as the sun and moon together.
People, look east, and sing today:
Love, the Star, is on the way.
Angels, announce, with shouts of mirth
Him Who brings new life to earth.
Set ev'ry peak and valley humming
With the word, "The Lord is coming!"
People, look east, and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
Back in my Anglican days I was in a church choir. I probably didn't really deserve to be in this choir but the director thought I really added something. I really can't sing all that well but maybe I've got one of those nice blendy choir voices? In any case, it was sure a lot of fun. My last Lessons and Carols service included the above piece. I absolutely loved it and was glad that we used it as the post-communion piece one Sunday AND that my conducting class for my music degree used it as one of our study pieces. Between church choir and conducting class I sang that piece well over a hundred times in the space of about four weeks and I never tired of it. Oddly, I've never really heard it since, but I've been thinking all the last week about the spirit of preparation embodied in this hymn. Two of my favorite bloggers have referenced it recently, so I guess it isn't entirely unknown (check back tomorrow for said bloggers in the Loveliness Fair).
Every year I want to make Lent a time of intense spring cleaning and the week between Christ the King and Advent a smaller fall cleaning. I have thus far utterly failed but I'm not giving up! Just because normal household upkeep defies my on a daily basis is no reason not to attempt huge projects. Part of my recent blog resurrection was the hope that I could use this forum as a self-motivational tool, so here it goes.
Tomorrow's goals: the back room. We call it the study though not much of that sort of thing goes on back there. It's also the laundry room and contains our chest freezer. It's a wreck and there aren't that many ways I can fix it but here is my to-do list:Laundry, laundry, and more laundry. The hanging everything to dry method is okay but slower and I need to rethink my laundry routine. For tomorrow, everything is going straight to the dryer so that I can get back on top of the laundry mountain and get everything put away. I also need to do other work in there which would be impossible with a full clothesline.
Inventory the chest freezer. Which is full. At least it's nice and cold back there (no heat here, yet, at 63 degrees).
Sweep the floors.
Water the plant.
Fill up the few empty bookshelves with some of the double-stacked books from the front room.
If you really care about my housekeeping, check back tomorrow night for a report and for Tuesday's ambitious goals.
2 comments:
Heh -- well, I'm a former Anglican, too. Maybe that's why I've sung that carol hundreds of times . . . but I've always loved it. For some reason this year it's really been stuck in my head, as a theme, or at least, I've adopted it as such!
Can't wait to see the Fair when it's up.
I care about your housekeeping.
here is why:
you are creative with it (though you claim to lack consistency...hmmm....actually)
you claim to lack consistency (relatable, not intimidating)
you see it as 'vocation'..a gift to God and your family which I think makes so much sense and is so beautiful and I have a lot to learn from that
I feel like, even though we are several states apart we are in this together and I like being in this together
it's motivating. I should clean out my closets but really want to put that off sooooo badly.
so, keep me posted.
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