Zachary and the Banjo!

Zachary has been talking for a while about wanting to learn to play the banjo. So, yesterday Paul and Zac went to a music store and got him a nice (used) banjo! He already knows how to play "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" on it. Very, very slowly, but he can play it. And it sounds like how a banjo ought to sound! I think the banjo is a good first instrument because you can get pretty good sounds out of it right away. The strings are already tuned to a cord, unlike a guitar, and Paul says it's strung more loosely than a guitar, so it doesn't hurt the fingers as much. Unlike a violin, which I started playing when I was only a year older than Zac.....though I already had taken piano lessons, I'm sure that my first tones to come out of that violin weren't anything to write home about!

Speaking of guitar, Paul decided to really splurge and also bought himself a new guitar. I've been telling him for years that he could if he wanted to--even offered to get him one for his birthday. He loves his new guitar, and what's great is that they can both play together!

Paul just saw the "really splurge" that I'd written and wants to point out that he did trade in his old guitar, for $50. That was 1/4 the cost of the new one. (I guess he's still trying to justify his expenditure....I told him it was fine with me!)

This morning we did something different at church. Usually, partly because of the size of the church building (very small), the Sunday School meets during the Divine Liturgy and the kids only come into church when it's time for communion. This morning we had a youth liturgy in a part of the hall that can be closed off from the main part. It went really nicely, and the kids really felt connected. I could tell just from how they were acting in churhch that they really dug it! We got all of the kids involved in some way. The high schoolers served as alter servers (yes, even the girls! Yay!), the middle schoolers carried candles in the great entrance, and the younger kids held candles for the reading of the gospel. Paul engaged them in the sermon, asking for how they thought people felt in the gospel story (the boy who Jesus raised from the dead) and how we can make a difference in people's lives--from first seeing their pain, and then having compassion on them, like Jesus did. Even though we can't raise anyone from the dead, we can still have a tremendous impact on others if we're in tune to them. Even the smallest children could tell how a mother would feel if her only son died, and how she'd feel if he suddenly was raised back to life.

It was a wonderful morning, and we're hoping to do this about once a month.