New look at an Old Friend

Saturday I was raking a shell path. Picking up old leaves and combing through the nearby grass with my hands to put back the white bits of shell that were so obviously out of place.  I felt a deep satisfaction when I looked back and saw how clean it was.
Today we were working on a old Christmastime friend, The Messiah by Handel.  Just about everyone knows enough of this work to hum along in one place or another.  The catch is that we are using a different edition (Barenreiter) than in the past. So "His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light" was not quite the same.  As with the white shells, the notes that were not right became obviously out of place. So we gathered our metronome and tuning fork and repeated our lines slower and then up to tempo until they were right.  This took determination to not miss anything or accept notes not written. But when the rehearsal was over, like the shell path, I thought back and felt deep satisfaction at how clean we became. Now when I sing this I will not be thinking about notes and rhythm but about the joy the words really contain "his yoke is easy, and his burthen is light".