Making music

In the first of my lifetime careers, I made my living by writing. I still make part of my living by writing. Sometimes I allow myself to think I have some talent.
Then I get humble when I recognize real genius, which I experienced today with Handel's Messiah.
Handel composed his choral masterpiece in less than a month. For centuries, musicians and singers around the world have performed it. Today a friend and I participated in a Messiah "sing-along," an annual event in North San Diego County, as it is in many communities around the country. Whenever I have the opportunity to sing it, I do, admittedly relying extensively on the strength of more fully trained altos to create the essence.
As the program began with the first tenor assurance of "Comfort Ye," I felt a sense of peace come over me. It lasted throughout the celebratory "Hallelujah Chorus," which swept me into its joyful Scriptural promise. My friend with whom I shared the experience does not believe the Scriptures. Her spiritual life revolves around pagan beliefs and love of Mother Earth. Still, as a musician herself, she appreciates the music for the sheer emotional magnitude of it and for the fact that it calls to pleasant memory the times she has sung it with her sisters and their late mother.
Hallelujah for this day! Hallelujah for this talent!