happy new year

I just came in from a late night gospel singing/service at a little UMC in town. We've been going to hear the sing for several years on the night of Dec. 31. Organized by a friend who is a retired Methodist minister, but seems to stay a whole lot busier than most of the preachers I know who are full-time employed. Sadly, we have not, to the best of my memory, ever actually stayed till midnight. But I was there until the stroke of twelve tonight/this morning - well past the time when I usually turn into a pumpkin - as my average bedtime is around ten p.m.

If I'd had a bit more stamina, I would still be there, eating biscuits with all the other bleary-eyed congregants. Part of the deal is if you can hold your head up in the sanctuary from when they start at 9, until the singing of Amazing Grace at the stroke of 12, you get to go down to the fellowship hall for a big plow-hand breakfast. I'd been thinking about a nice, hot buttered biscuit all afternoon, but know it was getting dangerously close to my bed time before I even left the house to go into town for the singing.

And thinking about what I would want to be doing on New Year's Day: when I remember my mom always warning you should be careful about what you choose to do, as you would likely be doing that same task all year long. I don't know if she meant don't start something you can't finish in one day, or don't get stuck with doing something you find onerous. But I'm pretty sure she never did anything she found tedious or distasteful. Never any laundry: washing, or hanging out, or ironing. Or housework like vacuuming, or mopping, or scrubbing. Or (back during the era of wearing home-made clothing) any cutting out or sewing. So maybe it was just a cautionary tale? To say if you get started on something you can't complete before bed time, there is a possibility you will find yourself either running behind or chasing your tail all year long?

Thus far all I have come up with is the possibility of having a movie marathon: remembering one day several years ago, when I paid to get into something at the multi-plex and went from one to another. Seeing three different movies. And probably feeling like I had been in there a week by the time I left. Do you every walk out of the theater so immersed in the story line you feel like you've been time traveling, or visiting another planet? I occasionally have gotten so wrapped up in the plot, reality is not always close at hand, and landing back in the theater, and walking into the parking lot, returning to real life with a resounding thud, is sort of distressing - when fantasy has been so fascinating.