We all have them.  Moments which find us at less than our finest. Pent up frustration demands release. All too often it is found through hurtful words, uttered too quickly, too loudly, to harshly.  I know this.  I regret this.  So I stand in the kitchen, broom poised for action in one hand, directing clean-up and feeling that tension.  I am determined not to vent it here in front of many sets of eyes learning how to be family.  Barbara Patterson counsels wisely:

  " Everything we do in the presence of the child goes in deeply." 

Then I remember to sing.  Singing is praying twice and we could use twice as many prayers this day.  I remember the Waldorf and Montessori transition verses and how melody eases us back into form, calls us down from the frantic pitch that threatens to overtake us.  And so it does.  

"Do you know the song I learned in children's choir?" asks Kieran

"No, but you could sing it for us and then we will know," I say.

He sings.  I smile.  

"Do you know this hymn?" I ask one and all.  They don't.  So I sing, poorly but sincerely.  I feel my heart settling into a steadier rhythm.  The floor clears.  My head clears.  

I wish I had remembered earlier.  I wish I had checked those words that came too soon, too raw to one I love, much older but no less dear, and no less in need of loving kindness from me.  Next time…  Thank you God for next times. Forgive me for presuming there will always be more.  Next time I hope to remember sooner.  

For now, we sing.  

"…singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;  always giving thanks for all things…." Eph 5: 19-20