Folk Choir Day 11: Sabbatical and Mouse Ears

Pity the poor people who boarded Disney's monorail on Sunday morning, January 12th. All those tourists, comfy with their strollers and backpacks, soon found themselves surrounded by fifty deranged college students, belting out an improvised medley of Disney faves – everything from "Under the Sea" to "Let It Go!" And there was no escaping their effervescence.... at least until they got to the Magic Kingdom. But by then, the choir was just getting warmed up.

The Folk Choir had worked very, very hard over the past ten days: five masses (three on Epiphany, two on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord), an ecumenical Vespers service, six concerts, and three diocesan music workshops; all of these took place in this short expanse of time. And so on the eleventh day they rested.

Not.




Rather, these crazies assaulted the Magic Kingdom as if the Apocalypse was upon them. I only heard the rumors (I took the ticket to Epcot, where life might be a bit quieter) ... rumors of Space Mountain four times in one hour, choir members' water bottles somehow making up for the fact that Splash Mountain was closed, impromptu bursts of sacred song filtering out from Cinderella's Castle, screams of delight when Tinker Bell appeared at the end of the day, sprinkling some kind of star dust on enchanted choir members below. (The consensus of these aspiring university students: "I want that job.")

But it is any surprise that young men and women who so delight in song and celebration will simply jump into the frivolity of the "Happiest Place on Earth?" They can barely contain themselves when we blow up the rafters with "Come to the Living Stone" and "Come and See." Now, they were at a place where they had license to celebrate.




Which they did. All day long.

As the monorails were pulsing their passengers back to their carriages before the clock struck midnight, the four adults in the choir watched with glee as this pack of mouse-ear-crazed musicians bounced back into the parking lot. They had been going at it for more than ten hours. They probably could've gone another ten. And they'd earned every precious minute of it.

When the whole concept of "sabbatical" was created, I wonder if God had in mind a glorified swamp in Florida that was presided over by a rodent. Probably not. But the Creator's sense of humor is pretty endless, so at the very least, he must've laughed himself silly looking down upon these singers that love him so much.

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