Inspiring Quote for May 12th, 2014: Attitude

   “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

― Khalil Gibran

Inspiring Quote for May 11th, 2014

   “If you have a mom, there is nowhere you are likely to go where a prayer has not already been.”

― Robert Brault

Inspiring Quote for May 8th, 2014: Humility

 “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”

― Saint Augustine

Inspiring Quote for April 27th, 2014: Fatherhood

   “Real fatherhood means love and commitment and sacrifice and a willingness to share responsibility and not walking away from one's children.”

― William Bennett

Inspiring Quote for April 25th, 2014

Leave No Man Behind...

   “Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

― Heraclitus

Inspiring Quote for April 21st, 2014

   “I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.”

― Abraham Lincoln

Inspiring Quote for April 20th, 2014

   “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

― Epicurus

Inspiring Quote for April 14th, 2014

   “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.”

― Theodore Roosevelt

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself

I found this list to be quite fascinating... http://healthybodynow.net/stop-hurting-yourself/

Palm Sunday

Today's a very busy day. I get the privilege of chanting the Passion twice. I'm on route to the first one now. The first one is out in DC; the second one is in Charles Town, WV. Following the second chanting, I'll be attending the rest of Mass. Immediately after that, I go back out to DC for choir rehearsal. I will be home sometime between 6–8 p.m. today

Don't worry, I have my coffee with me. :-)

Inspiring Quote for April 12th, 2014

   “To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.”

― Gilbert K. Chesterton

Inspiring Quote for April 9th, 2014

   “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

― Epictetus

A quick thought for Great Lent

Behold the bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching; and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless.

Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given over to death, and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom.

But rouse yourself, crying: "Holy! Holy! Holy! art Thou, O our God. Through the Theotokos have mercy on us!"

Inspiring Quote for March 9th, 2014

    “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Inspiring Quote for March 3rd, 2014

    “Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.”

― Hannah More

Inspiring Quote for March 1st, 2014

    “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”

― Mother Teresa

Follow up to Spem in Alium

There are a couple videos from the performances of Spem in Alium from yesterday.  One of them is posted on Fr. Z's blog:

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/02/washington-dc-thomas-tallis-spem-in-alium-for-40-voices/

This is a short video which includes snippets from all three performances.

Here is a video of the third and final performance of the day.

http://youtu.be/tHubWduXFHw

The choir who put this on is Chorus Sine Nomine (http://www.facebook.com/thechorussinenomine), but the people who showed up to sing this massive work represented groups such as Collegium Cantorum, the Suspicious Cheese Lords, Illuminare, Chantry, and others, and various parish choir and cathedral choir directors and members.

It was a phenomenal experience, and I hope to sing it again!  There are 7 more baritone lines to learn, as well as 8 bass lines, and 8 tenor lines.  I might have to learn them just for the heck of it.  :)

Life goal accomplished today

Today was a memorable day, and it will go down in history as one of my favorites.  I accomplished a life goal today.  Under the direction of David L. from St. John the Beloved Catholic Church, I and nearly 100 people sang the motet Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis.  The motet is a masterwork, which displays the genius of the man, and provides no small challenge to even professional musicians to pull off well.  It is written for 40 individual voices, divided into 8 choirs of soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass.  My line was choir 5, baritone: out of 40 voices, I was voice 24.

All I can say is wow!  It was an absolute blast!

Inspiring Quote for February 18th, 2014

    “Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.”

― Les Brown

MP3 collection fail

I just made the worst discovery I had never hoped to make. I have lost my entire collection of King's Singers MP3's that I had ripped from my albums. Drat...