November is all about counting blessings and some
of my greatest blessings I call sister.
I have so many love and laughter-filled memories with my sisters. We are tied together with heartstrings.
When I left for college, Jen, the youngest, was
pushing seven years old. We are
separated by a decade, but we’ve never seemed to notice much. We savor time
spent in nature’s realm. Together
we have hiked the Nā Pali coastline, crawled up Misery Ridge and taken long
walks down Dillon Beach. We’ve
explored Aubrey Butte back in the day when roads were scarce and wildlife
plentiful. We’ve wandered through
mountains, rivers and waterfalls.
Tennis is our game of choice.
And the holidays — we have shared so many Easter, Thanksgiving and
Christmas memories together with family and friends.
One experience that will always shine is the night
we attended a concert at the river’s edge in Drake Park about 15 years
ago. The Sunriver Music Festival
gave a performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 - From the New World. The orchestra was amazing, the music
sublime.
This symphony has always enchanted me. There is a yearning in the melody that
has held my heart captive from the moment I first heard it. For this arrangement I have taken one
of Jen’s favorite hymns, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and meshed
it with this gem Dvořák has given us.
It’s taken me a few years off and on to complete it, but I think I’m
about ready to put down my eraser and pencil and call it good. I wrote it for piano four hands and two
violins, with Justin and Emma in mind.
*
Come, thou Fount of every blessing;
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call
for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung
by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount; I'm fixed upon it:
Mount of thy redeeming love.
O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, as a fetter, bind
my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
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