I have had enough kind complaints to make me realize that I've neglected this blog.
So what's going on with me?
My days are still surrounded by the project that has kept me busy most of the past two years. If you'd like to see some bite sized pieces you can check out
My Vienna Blog
I still sing in the University of Vienna choir. The holidays concert season will be filled with songs from Latin America (yes, I'm getting explanations of how to pronounce Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole from an Indian man in Austrian German. My head hurts, too.) We're also singing some songs that our conductor wrote himself including a setting of the Prayer from Francis of Assisi,
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
It's a rather strange setting of the lyrics so the meaning of the text is somewhat obscured, but even so the students are rather stumped by the words. I pray that this prayer that I will pray and sing with my fellow singers will somehow open the door to their hearts of a divine master that can do these things and how that can free them. I hope for conversations of why this poem is meaningful to me as it connects with truth from the scriptures and in my life as a servant of that kind master.
Romans 6:2-7
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
