I curl up on the couch in the evenings and read Pan’s Labyrinth, an entrancing novel of love and hate.

Last night I came upon a passage that brought me back to a moment earlier in my day.

Ofelia is a young girl.  Mercedes is a middle-aged woman.  They love each other.

“Do you know a lullaby?” Ofelia murmured.

Did she?  Yes …

“Only one.  But I don’t remember the words.”

“I don’t care.  I still want to hear it.”  Ofelia looked up at her pleadingly.

So Mercedes closed her eyes and while she was gently rocking another woman’s child in her arms, she began to hum the lullaby her mother had once sung to her and her brother.  The wordless tune filled both her and the girl with the sweetness of love, like the first song ever sung on earth to the first child born.  It sang of love and the pain it brings.  And of the strength, even in the profoundest darkness.

So sweetly written, Cornelia Funke.

***

And earlier …

I love sitting in Sint-Salvatorkerk, the Ukrainian church in Gent.  I was there yesterday morning.

Katarina welcomes people to her church.  Most times, as I sit in meditation, I hear her singing … an echo in the sanctuary.  It makes me smile.

Yesterday she walked up to me as I was getting ready to leave.  We hugged.  There’s a connection, so beyond her minimal English and my minimal Dutch.

I said “Wij zingen?”  A request that we sing together.  And so from her mouth came the first words of “Ave Maria”.  They rose to the blue ceiling.

I didn’t know the lyrics and the melody was iffy in my mind …

But so what?

I sang

We sang

And there was beauty in the world