"Faith of Our Fathers"

My friend, Maria, and I have this thing going where we're still very attached to the Catholic hymns of our youth. We've each not-really-on-purpose 'stolen' hymnals from relative's funerals to help remember *all* the songs we loved. This doesn't exactly sync with my present spirituality, but we're choosing to ignore that. This is a great song for me, very grand and powerful. My favorite Catholic song, though, is still 'Be Not Afraid'. It still makes me cry every time. Sometimes I think it's the emotional power created that's more important than the philosophy expressed, perhaps in anything.

Tonight Maria was over and we worked on a couple of the songs that my husband wrote for us to sing. He'd really like Emma Kirkby and Custer LaRue to be singing these, but he has to make do with the two of us for the moment. The three songs that he's written for us are all based on Tolkien texts, and each is beautiful. The 'Elbereth Gilthoniel' is the last one that we need to learn, it's both the shortest and the hardest, as well as being the most absolutely ethereal and shivery. There's something about controlled dissonance in song that makes me exquisitely happy.

We also tried to finish off some of the liquor left over from the Epiphany party. I'm sleepy.