I. You know you’ve read a good book when you’ve marked so many poignant sections that if feels like it will take a painfully long time to copy them all down.

“Gilead” has won wide acclaim, and it’s worthy of it – at the very least, as a collection of sometimes-random stories.

This morning I have been trying to think about heaven, but without much success. I don’t know why I should expect to have any idea of heaven. I could never have imagined this world if I hadn’t spent almost eight decades walking around in it. People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that’s true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives. That’s clearer to me every day.

I can’t believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life.

You must not judge what I know by what I find words for.

How can capital-T Truth not be communicable?

I don’t know exactly what covetise is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else’s virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.

II. Does anybody remember the name of the Ewazen piece in memory of Sept. 11? It’s beautiful – just listening to it now. Seems like the word “heroes” was in their somewhere.

Confession: Some of my favorite lines are brass lines. There’s the intro solo trumpet (Sarah? Maybe Tim?), and the low brass solo in the middle’s my very favorite (it sounds like a baritone, but maybe it’s Pete) even though it’s about two measures long. I never minded when we had to repeat that section. And the running French Horn lines were lovely, too – VZ, I feel for you guys. It sounds rough. Malinda, do you feel trombones get overlooked a lot? If you’re listening to our recording, I’m the clarinet that keeps squeaking. It was a bad night. There’s one part we rehearsed over and over at the beginning to get the legato or whatever just right.

Next up on the CD is one of Monica’s many solo pieces. Did you hear she got married this last weekend? I guess it was unbearably hot outside.

Now the band/choir combined concert! Can you imagine the fun? :)