"I was wondering if Patrick would sing a verse of "Away in a Manger" during the service on Christmas Eve," the church youth director asked in a message left on our answering machine.
My wife, Catherine, and I struggled to contain our excitement. Our son"s first solo.
Catherine delicately broached the possibility, reminding Patrick how beautifully he sang, telling him how much fun it would be. Patrick himself seemed less convinced and frowned. "You know, Mom," he said, "sometimes when I have to do something important, I get kind of scared."
Grownups feel that way too, he was assured, but the decision was left to him. His deliberations took only a few minutes.
"Okay," Patrick said. "I"ll do it."
From the time he was an infant, Patrick has enjoyed an unusual passion for music. By age four he could pound out several bars of Wagner"s Ride of the Valkyries on the piano.
For the next week Patrick practiced his stanza several times with his mother. A rehearsal at the church went well. Still, I could only envision myself at age five, singing into a microphone before hundreds of people. When Christmas Eve arrived, my expectations were limited.
英语阅读：LoveYourLife
However mean your life is, meet it and live it，do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends, Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.