'Tis the season for rehearsing (fa la la la la, la la la la)

Friends (many of whom are musical),

By now most of you are surely in "Pre-Advent" mode at your churches and in your choirs. This is not unlike the five minutes before airtime that Dan and Casey on Sports Night experience. There's an air of expectation, of excitement in the time leading up to the long anticipated event, be it airtime for a fictional sports program or the birth of The Lord our Savior Jesus Christ. Exciting. Very exciting.

For those of you who are involved in the secular Advent season, you will know it by its tell-tale signs: Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving; Santas in malls; Bill O'Reilly complaining about the war on the war on the war on Christmas.

Those of you who are musical and are involved in the music-making that pervades the season (Bach's Christmas Oratorio, the Christmas section of Handel's Messiah, countless Lessons and Carols services), you will know the season by its plethora of rehearsals and performances.

I hope they don't go like this:



BMN