For many, unfortunately, there is a heaviness about Sundays beyond the practical, half-finished task list. They actually dread the days ahead; they count the hours. How many times on Monday mornings have I shared the elevator with a co-worker who, with shoulders drawn and eyes to the ground mumbles, "only four days to Friday!" My response is always, "Oh, please don't wish your life away." Sometimes I even say it out loud.

The power of music to mix people, events and emotions into a glorious and sometimes disturbing wash of human history is phenomenal. I don't let myself go there often enough. Last night Johann Sebastian Bach's beautiful St. John's Passion was performed in a local church. The singers - younger by decades than the audience - gave extraordinary and nuanced performances of a piece chronicling the circumstances surrounding Christ's crucifixion. I sat in the moment transfixed, but came away with questions (as usual) about God, and thoughts about the remarkable arc of art and history that brought us to that church and that particular experience.