Thoughts for a Wednesday Morning

Thank you for the prayers yesterday. Sam was back home last night because he was doing so well. His right arm is in a cast — there goes the penmanship practice this summer — and the pins and rod have been removed from his left leg (no cast; no splint, only bandages). One big step forward and a little step back. Hope that this is the end of his broken bone saga. It is going to be a long summer for the poor little guy. 

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After posting Lakes of Canada for Canada Day, I had a couple of emails with questions. Perhaps I should have stuck with O Canada after all. ;>

No, The Innocence Mission is not a Canadian group. They actually hale from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. (I always thought that they were Canadian myself.)

In an attempt to answer what the lyrics mean, I've selected the following quote, which really says it much better than I could. (However, let me just say that I feel a sense of joy whenever I hear the song. Probably because I connect it so closely with "the lake" and perhaps because the imagery is so easily identifiable with me. I've walked in that circle of flashlight and I also like to think that, though I am shy, I can be known.)

...'Lakes of Canada' creates an environment both terrifying and familiar using sensory language: incandescent bulbs and rowboats are made palpable by careful rhythms, unobtrusive rhyme schemes, and specificity of language. What is so remarkable about Karen Peris' lyrics are the economy of words, concrete nouns-fish, flashlight, laughing man-which come to life with melodies that dance around the scale like sea creatures. Panic and joy, a terrible sense of awe, the dark indentations of memory all come together at once, accompanied by the joyful strum of an acoustic guitar. This is a song in which everyday objects begin to have tremendous meaning." Sufjan Stevens
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Now I'll wish my own countrymen a very joyous 4th of July! 

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