46 years ago right now

The Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University is something of a wondrous place. It is a combination of simplicity and complicated beauty and was a joy to attend.  My freshman year there was a struggle and I was a pill at best but mostly I was over matched. I got the wind better in my sails the following year before I went on to Michigan State and Columbia but that was then and tonight is vivid.

Every evening at sunset we celebrated Vespers.  On special days, like Thanksgiving Eve, we got some special music together and really did it right or as close to right as we could.

Vespers at a Lutheran University that keeps the Spirit is entirely contemplative.  We were told, rightly or not, that Vespers, the evening service was a time to reflect on how one spent the day and to reaffirm the faith for the time until Laudes (sunrise). 

We had recently performed Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and did so that night 46 years ago. 630pm Central - right about now.  We just did the last movement and in that cold yet wonderfully warm light in that Chapel, with winter on the onset outside - dark northern Indiana, Robert Frost silent, and in preparation for a 5 hour drive home, cramped in the back seat of a VW bug, WLS from Chicago until we got to WJR range in Detroit and then up and in the middle of the night to Bay City, a fire still but in embers, father asleep on the sofa "resting his eyes", the Chapel now half a dozen hours away, Stravinsky still in my ears...the Chapel, Vespers, fellowship and good will.

Happy Thanksgiving.