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It was nearing midnight when Grace’s day finally ended and she returned to her tent. The temperature had begun to cool in late afternoon, during a second, longer stop at the bookstore. When, after breaking her impromptu, daylong fast at supper, she went at seven p.m. to join a chanting session in the sanctuary, but then decided to sit at the meditation pond before moving on, she regretted not having carried a sweater. Not so resistant, she heard the bountiful melodies that infused the chanting and gave her heart rest. This third path Sophie had prepared into spiritual awareness Grace chose to delay journeying on, perhaps for a future visit, another year. I’ve gone as far as I should for now, she thought. Instead, wanting above all, including above all her surviving bewilderment, to channel her deep emotions, she joined a gospel singing session that had first caught her eye earlier that week. She considered how gospel singing and Hindu chanting might not be too different, but, this evening, she wanted to know what the words she sang meant. She greatly enjoyed the comedy of being grouped with fifteen other awkward altos amid groups of tenors and sopranos; she loved how after an hour they could sing of god in a way that wouldn’t bother the Almighty’s ears, and how after two hours the newly formed community could nearly bust out the windows on the place. They all left after ten p.m. with sweat on their necks. Outside, under heady stars, the air felt almost icy.
