The Girlfriends Christmas Brunch

On Saturday I went to our church's Girlfriends Christmas brunch. (Here's a pic of me in front of my newly decorated tree. This is how the hair normally looks after I have done it! :) It was good as it was last year - I got to meet some new people. I actually gave a ride to a lady, H, that is friends with K and Ar, who I knew a little bit before, and she was at the party K had last Monday. It was nice to get to know her a little bit better. I sat with her and our interim lead pastor's wife and her sisters and two other ladies. Cathy (Jeff's wife) and her sisters Rose and Laura sing together and they sang two songs - a cappella - that they harmonize so nicely together on that it made me want to cry. They sang "Mary, Did you Know?" and the lyrics to the song hit me again this year. It's always different once you have a child how these things connect with you. Here's the lyrics and then I will tell you what struck me.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Oh Mary did you know

The blind will see, the deaf will hear,  the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I am.

So this line "And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God" always gets me, because I am a baby kisser. I cannot help but kiss the face of any baby that I am holding. At times, I have to catch myself when I do not know the people whose baby I am holding that well. There is something about those precious soft little faces that smell so nice that I cannot resist. But I think about my own little man and how much I love to kiss him that I wonder what Mary thought. Did all the thoughts in this song run through her head at one point or another, or would it have been too overwhelming for her to be coignizant of it constantly, so she forgot more often than not? When she kissed his little face, did she think about the fact that not 9 months before, the person who was her song was in heaven, in the presence of God the Father and she was in fact kissing God? He was lying there as a helpless little baby in her arms. The One who knit her together, was now someone who had grow and developed in her womb. So awing and weird and a little incomprehensible at the same time.
At the brunch I gave away a Tupperware door prize, so now ladies in the church know who I am and that I sell Tupperware. Funny thing is that I won a door prize too! From Scrapbooker's Paradise - paper and a pen and glitter and brads and some blank cards and envelopes and bling to put on cards and rub on words and a scrapbooking magazine. It was better than mine, let me tell you! So I did pretty good, if I do say so myself.
And the last thing about the brunch that I loved was that I got a hug. I know it's a small thing, but I miss all the hugs I used to get when we lived in Brandon. Since then I really don't hug a lot of people. A and K occasionally, my family every time I see them (which is good!) and DH and R constantly. But not people at church. I felt included - because Cathy was giving hugs to everyone at the table and then gave me one too. It was good.
I am so thankful for the church that God has given to us to be our home and that I am feeling a part of things, just because I am me, not because I am a pastor's wife. It's good, very good. We are blessed!

Blinded by the Light - Part 2

Apparently I am not the only person who had trouble with the words of this song.

If you are having trouble viewing it, watch it here on YouTube.

Memories of "Solomon Grundy" (Blinded by the Light)

It is interesting how often I find myself singing away to a song and all of a sudden thinking, "What!?! That can't be the lyrics, that makes no sense at all!" And then I try to figure out what exactly they are saying and if I can't I have to come home and look up the lyrics online. Like that one time when I couldn't understand the Solomon Grundy song.
Tonight I was coming home from a quick errand to the grocery store and the song "Blinded by the Light" was on. And I am thinking to myself, "What the heck are these people singing, because the second line that I'm singing is - wrapped up like a duschen like a river in the night - which makes no sense." (Yes, I know that there is no such word as a "duschen" which makes my point that it couldn't be the words!) So the first thing I did when I got home was come to the laptop and look up the words to the song. DH came up from downstairs just then and asked what I was doing and I told him I was looking up lyrics to a song that started "Blinded by the light..." He exclaimed that that was the song - the one that gets stuck in your head that you can never figure out what the second line is. See, it's not just me.
I did find them, right away. Oh, the band who sings it and made it popular is Manfred Mann's Earth Band, though it was Bruce Springsteen who wrote it and recorded it originally (read all about it at Wikipedia). Wow, he was not only amazing with words, but the guy who sings it did an amazing feat getting the tongue twisting rhymes out! No wonder I have never been able to figure out what is being said and sing along! Have a read for yourself:

Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night(3x)
Madman drummers bummers,
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin,
the calliope crashed to the ground
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...
Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
runner in the night (4 xs)
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong,
play the song with the funky break"
And go-cart Mozart was checkin' out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside
And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride
Asked me if I needed a ride
But she was...
Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night,
Blinded by the light,
she got down but she never got tired
She's gonna make it through the night
She's gonna make it through the night
But mama, that's where the fun is
But mama, that's where the fun is
Mama always told me not to look into the eye's of the sun
But mama, that's where the fun is
Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says, "Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in it's funny bone,
that's where they expect it least"
And some new-mown chaperone was standin' in the corner,
watching the young girls dance
And some fresh-sown moonstone was messin' with his frozen zone, reminding him of romance
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...
Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night (9 xs)
Blinded by the light
Madman drummers bummers, Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin,
the calliope crashed to the ground
Now Scott with a slingshot finially found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
And some bloodshot forget-me-not said daddy's within earshot save the buckshot, turn up the band
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong"

Here is the video from YouTube in case you'd like to watch it.

So there you have it. Sorry to pass on my stuck song to you. I know the first two lines will be going through my head for the next few days.

Solomon Grundy

Do you ever get a song in your head, that you know the lyrics, or think you know the lyrics to, and all of sudden think about them and wonder how come that doesn't make sense to you?

On Thursday I heard the song by Crash Test Dummies called Superman's Song, which I really like because of the minor key and the somewhat sad, sorrowful sound to it with an amazing upright bass. Anyway, I always sing the lyrics that I know along with them, and this time when I got to the chorus I was wondering "What doesn't Superman make any money saving the world from... Sorrow and, what the world is grundy?" And it has been in my head off and on ever since. (I seem to often have this problem!)

So yesterday I asked DH about it and apparently there is a DC Comic character named Solomon Grundy. He was named after the Solomon Grundy of a nursery rhyme, and interestingly enough "grundy grundy" is the American Midwest slang for "wedgie". You can find out so much from the web, especially Wikipedia.

Oh, the education you receive from a song stuck in your head!