I was a choir nerd for four years of high school, and I looked forward to the annual spring trip to “Musicale” where all the regional Christian high schools sent their choirs for adjudication and a mass choir performance with the same five songs we’d all learned through the year. I really had no idea what was going on the first year I went, but I followed my classmates up on stage and sang along to whatever song we’d picked for our performance not really caring about the end result. I was in it for the experience. Aside from the near death experience from a cross contamination close call where nuts might have found their way into my food, I loved every bit of the festival with my friends and looked forward to it every year after.
Today my choir friends loaded me and my mobility aids up to adventure at the local rose garden for a choir festival that boasted over 500 singers from 18 various local choirs. I was dubious this place could hold that many people, but Ettenbühl is holding out on the people who just come for tea. If you pay the extra fee to visit, their gardens are massive. It actually reminds me a lot of the International Rose Test Garden in Portland except the view is of rolling German fields instead of Portland with Mount Hood in the background. I find these strange comparison in my life here in Germany with obvious limitations. When I think back to all the fun I had at Musicale or the Rose Garden (either of the famous two in Portland), I was running around on two feet and able to communicate rather effectively in my mother tongue, but the fun I had today was being completely in the hands of my German speaking friends who wheeled me through gravel and grass to various meeting and eating points. At a couple points, I was left alone to trust that someone would come back for me so that I wouldn’t be stranded in a foreign village almost a dozen kilometers away from home.
I’ve learned a lot about trust in the last couple years that I couldn’t have experientially understood without the constant vulnerability I face. I’m still hopeful that I can recover my complete and total independence, but I want to forever remember the lesson of joy in surrender to the care of others. I’m working through pieces of that lesson as I wait to hear back from a couple potential places for my totalization year. I heard a couple more “not here” responses, but there’s a very exciting maybe I’d appreciate prayers about.
In the meantime, I’m recovering from a small cold that my generous children shared with me last week, and I’m hoping to get into the routine of walking with Hunter and Cindy in the mornings longer and longer distances. I hope to report new records for you next week along with more information about my totalization possibilities.
