A parallel universe?

Tonight I actually DID feel like I was in a parallel universe to the one that I normally inhabit.

Four folks actually put on a concert tonight in the cathedral! It was the most amazing concert I've ever been to here in this town... well, ok, it's the ONLY concert I've ever been to in this town! But they were truly amazing. The quartet were singing sacred songs in preparation for Holy Week. It was all a mix of languages - Latin, Slavic, German, English - but the words weren't as important as the sense of the sacred that came out through their voices.

The concert was held in the cathedral, and they had it lit only by candle light. Hearing the voices (unaccompanied) echoing through the church was an experience that made me feel like I had been completely transported out of this town. It was an hour of beauty, of celebrating the sacred, those things that have been set apart from "normal" life. If it weren't so late here, I would compose a nice little sermonette here about how this is how life is supposed to be - finding the sacred, the beautiful, in the midst of the garbage, in the midst of the Shania Twain blaring from the market bars, in the midst of the heat and the dust and the dark. I need more of these moments. And I would love more of the moments to sit and think about it more... but I'm just too tired tonight... and I'm afraid of falling asleep with this borrowed laptop on my lap and waking up to it crashing down to the concrete floor!