Dancing With My Soul

I’m sitting here at my computer, struggling with mastering myself to stay focused on the work I have outlined for myself today, but filled with thought.

Playing on my CD are a couple of my favorite Christmas CDs. Not the Jingle Bells variety, but the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Sing, Choirs of Angels and Jenny Oaks Baker’s O Holy Night.

And I feel the music dancing with my soul, weaving in and out and drawing out tender feelings.

Music is my loved thread at Christmastime. For over 25 years, I have sung with my church stake choir for Christmas. It is made up of singers from a number of congregations across the south side of Atlanta. Oh, how I love it! It is my gift to myself, from year to year. It is a gift of my soul…a gift to myself to participate and a gift to those who will come and listen.

Because it is so joyful to me, I often long to share it with others, many of whom do not take the time to come. Through the practices and the fireside presentation, year after year I long for some of my most beloved to be able to feel what I feel through the music. It is a song of my testimony of the reality of Jesus Christ, the joy He brings to the world and to each individual who will seek Him. Indeed, the joy and peace He brings to me personally.

Even as a young pre-teen, I had opportunities to sing in choirs – at church and at school. Some of my most fond Christmas memories include caroling with family members, year after year. It was out gift to our neighbors and friends. I am descended, in part, from singing Welchmen, and most members of my family are gifted with different degrees of vocal talent.

My fond wish – that the spiritual music of Christmas will aid in bringing that gift of the Spirit to others.

A new creation

Finally I've done it. Taken steps to create a blog. It's been on my mind for some time. The title has been selected for a couple of years...finally becoming a reality.

I remember an English professor I had at BYU. I think it may have been my technical writing course. He aspired to be a writer and he said that to become a writer, one must (of course) write. Write about things around you. The simple. The mundane. The skills grow as you actively do the writing. His media of choice at the time was his notebook -- his "Navel-linting" notebook. You know -- you lay there and find a piece of lint in your navel, so you write about it. How he would have loved blogging!

Often the things I wish most that I would write are things that are dear to my heart -- hence the title of the blog. Things that I wish I would put into words to share, but generally don't.

So...here's to a new beginning...a new personal adventure...for anyone who cares to come along.