Midweek is my peak work time in terms of planning and preparation. Normally Tuesday is the most intense with having to get the Order of Service (which here they call a ‘worship aid’) planned and completed.

Tuesday this week was Veterans Day which meant a national holiday but since I still had deadlines I went in. The bonus was that there were no meetings as there was no one else about! So in addition to producing a final draft worship aid I was able to produce instrumental parts for our growing bunch of instrumentalists. My first ‘meeting’ was with our excellent flautist who wished to look at schedules and what my intentions may be,. She came armed with fine coffee which went down well. The printing of the worship aid was put on hold until the details regarding the RCIA Rite of Acceptance could be confirmed.

Late in the afternoon I had a wedding meeting (with the parents of the groom!) The couple had pre-selected titles that I had never heard before but google came to the rescue and the sheet music was located.

In the evening I went to play for a funeral at a local crematorium. The family were a lovely bunch and with the deacon, had planned a great celebration including video and not a few eulogies. “There are two occasions,” said the Deacon, “on which you need God – now and at the hour of our death”. Food for thought.

Wednesday began with the School Mass. There had been no rehearsal yesterday so the children were great in that they picked up the new material enthusiastically.

After that we had our monthly liturgy meeting. It is an occasion on which we evaluate and plan ahead. I wanted to explore my hopes for singing/instrumental groups at all masses. Particularly at the 930am I wanted to try out a family choir idea so that children and parents could sit together around the piano and learn the songs in 30 mins before mass. We had tried this at Stamford Hill (UK) and it worked famously well in its loose, low commitment and ad hoc manner.

During the afternoon the detail of the RCIA rite got confirmed and I was able to produce the order of service. Choir practice was in the evening and we held it in the mezzanine behind the church which was being used. we had four new members join tonight so we began to sound more like a choir in what was a good space for rehearsal.

After a good day I stopped by for a beer at my local before watching another film courtesy of Netflix.

Thursday was almost a day off. I went to the beach for a couple of hours, did some paperwork, went into Verizon to hand in my old I-phone (for $200) and ended up getting another ‘free’ tablet. Because I am a non-citizen and currently without Social security Number I had to pay a deposit of $400 for the free tablet. I think it’s to prevent tourists coming over and getting the freebies! Currently Apple has $1200 of my deposits which I will get returned in about a year!

I did about 3.5 hours work on school masses for December and got some other forward planning done. Even though it was 9pm when I got home I felt rested!