When we were much younger and more energetic, my husband and I would wake before dawn. I'd make coffee, and he would pop on the album Songs of the Father. We's sit together on the dining room floor, mugs in hand, and pray in Easter morning. I'll never forget the sense of peace that would fill the room, and how it made you feel like a sponge, absorbing every bit of it. It was changing us. We could feel it.
This is how we did Easter morning for a few years while the kids were babies. And then like most things, life changes, and our little pre-dawn ritual fell away.
This morning I remembered that we had a box of albums from long ago stashed away in our garage. I asked Mike if he thought there was any chance that we still had the one we used to play on Easter morning twenty-some years ago. Sure enough, we did! We've been playing it all morning for our youngest daughter to hear.
It all came flooding back--memories of our budding faith. It all came back, except the peace. That has never left.
Listening to the album, I wondered if my daughter would cringe at the kind of folksy, kum-by-ya sound of the recording that emanated from the record player. So different from the slick, high-tech recording of today. "Praise be to God for His blessings and His gifts, and the table that He sets with His hands". "Oh, I like that," she said, humming along. Times change, yet the truth and power of the words still carry through, still carry us.
"You have made us for Yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless still,
Until they rest in You, O Lord,
Until they rest in You."
St. Augustine
