This morning I was telling Rebecca about the Pentecost celebration at church, and she said, “I expected to read about it on your blog.” Well, I told her, I hadn’t been able to think of anything to say, and I didn’t have a picture. So here is last year’s picture. As Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, the Cathedral is usually done up in a fairly flashy and spectacular way, and the music is generally weird and wonderful. This year, the décor was fairly subdued, considering, but the music was over the top! There are many who look forward the Pentecost service and its music with as much anticipation as they do the Christmas Midnight Mass music. And rightly so. The first year I was in the choir I could not believe it. At the outset, we sang an aleatory canon – one in which everyone basically “did their own thing,” within certain parameters. Then it all gradually came together in perfect unison - much like the apostles themselves, waiting, terrified in the locked upper room. I was amazed and elated. Afterward, when Rebecca and I were tittering in delight, our director thought we were laughing disrespectfully. We said no, we were laughing because it was so wonderful, thus mollifying him. And so it was this year. (Not the mollification, but the wonderful and weirdness of the music.) The mighty rushing wind swooped about us, birds tweeted, beauty was everywhere. Only this time, the aleatoary business went on throughout the whole Mass. The service, starting with the super bizarre, ended with the super traditional “Come Holy Ghost!” The musical gamut, so to speak.

Happily for me, the boys had a lot more work to do than the girls, as their part was longer and much more difficult. So for the four-hundred, seventy five millionth time in my life, I thanked God that I was not a boy. And, of course, that I was able to participate in such wonderful music!