arcade fire and the weekend

Still sort of recovering from leading the retreat over the weekend, with a bunch (47) of Confirmation kids from a Polish parish. It always takes me at least two days afterwards to get right again, for whatever reason. I think being extroverted for that long is what does it.

I think the retreat went pretty well, from talking to my staff and seeing the kids. We had the kids interact with some intermediate and independent care residents at a hospice-type site, as a service project. It was great; they got play to bingo together, laugh, and talk (usually really loud, because many of them were hard of hearing). The point wasn't just to have fun, but to see that everyone, even people that many would consider at worst valueless, are beautiful and true treasures from God. It tied in nicely with the theme of the Magi coming to seek Jesus, that these elderly folks were simply Magi who were that much further on the journey than the kids were. The Magi brought their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and the kids, as modern-day Magi (as it were) bring the gift of their lives to Christ. So it follows, that if the gft of their lives holds value, then so does that of everyone else, including the residents. Anyway, the Pope develops that theme much better, it's worth reading in his words rather than mine.

That was all day Saturday. I was driving home from Adoration on Sunday night, and my iPod shuffled to the Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)." I hadn't heard the song in a while, but it fit, perfectly what I'd seen. It was as if the residents I'd seen the day before were singing the song, especially with lyrics like:

Then, we tried to name our babies
But we forgot all the names that,

The names we used to know

But sometimes,

We remember our bedrooms and our parent's bedrooms and the bedrooms of our friends

Then we think of our parents...Well, whatever happened to
them?!

You change all the lead sleeping in my head to gold

As the day grows dim, I hear you sing a golden hymn

It's the song I've been trying to sing...

Then I thought about "Funeral," which the Arcade Fire recorded in the midst of losing members of their families, and I thought back to the residents, with their dwindling abilities, and it all tied together in my head. What I love about "Funeral" is that it acknowledges the sadness of losing someone, but the lingering remembrance isn't a sad one; it's rather hopeful in making the best of it. So. We may all "forget the names we used to know" but at least we had the moment that we did. It wasn't all for nothing.

Needless to say, the Arcade Fire has been in heavy rotation since then.