How you know when you're doing the right thing

So, since I last wrote, we've been doing a lot more chant in our music program. In fact, we have done the seasonally appropriate Kyrie settings for Lent and Easter.

A couple of weeks ago, a sixty-something lady came up to me after Mass with a copy of the music handout. We had done several Fauxlk pieces that day such as One Bread, One Body or similar (all those pieces run together after a while). The lady explained that she was from Somewhere Up North (don't remember exactly where), and she was coming to thank me for doing "traditional music."

Thank you, I said, it's always good to hear that our work is appreciated.

Fortunately another thing I have learned is to give the vaguest possible thanks for a compliment. You never know what somebody's about. I soon heard more than I wanted.

We used to have a great choir at St. N., she went on, but then they got a new director and we started getting all of this kind of [expletive]. I played my poker face, and she jabbed a bony, nicotine-stained finger at the Kyrie Lux et Origo on the bulletin.

I smiled and let her go her way. But all the time I was thinking:

Get used to it.

More later on why I have not posted in, oh, a year or so. Suffice it to say, as Florence King might say, a lot has happened.