The girls have contributed to the celebrations in this town. In the space of fifteen days they sang in four Tableaux performances, held the strings for marionettes, swept over to the church service half a mile away to play the interlude, and on Christmas eve rang hand bells for yet three more. 

There was an event they were not part of, though they have been in the past. Lessons and Carols lilts between music and scripture, and this year the people providing music spanned eighty years. A silver haired man whose mind is wobbly with age was part of the bass section. Children who don't usually sit through an hour of worship held up their scrubbed faces. Two young girls had golden locks that swished to their waists. There were three generations within one family, husbands and wives, siblings, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, and two sets of twins. Everyone wore black with accents of red. Scarves, ties, flowers burst from the dark clothes like the message of Christmas itself. It charmed me even before they took their first deep breath. One of the songs was composed by a woman on another continent, and yet technology made it possible for her to listen as her sister and nephew helped set it free.  

I wonder what it is like to be the conductor. Probably he knows every note, and may in fact secretly wish that he could produce them all. Yet in generosity he offers some to the altos and others to the sopranos, yet more to the violin. I once read that birds can in fact warble two notes at a time, though I have never asked a lark if this is true. Certainly my chickens never did.  

What is it like for God, who could no doubt handle all of our myriad concerns without any assistance from us? Surely things would go better that way. And yet. Something I cannot name happens when we are part of the choir, looking up as if we will be led.