i love a parade

I discovered quite by accident that my mother loved parades.  It was back when our daughter was quite small.  Mom was visiting, and we decided to go to Disneyland for Mother’s Day.  (It used to be a great day to visit the Magic Kingdom, as most mothers don’t put Disneyland high on their list for their special day.)  There were three different parades proceeding down Main Street, and my mother was in heaven.  We watched them all.

To me parades meant crowds and I don’t love crowds. (Even before crowds meant COVID.) Disney parades meant lining up for a half hour or so before, then listening to canned music stuck on repeat like an earworm.  Ergo, parades are not my thing.  I’ve lived in the Pasadena area for almost thirty years, and until this week I had never viewed the Rose Parade live.  I’d watched it from the comfort of my own home in my pajamas, if I watched it at all.  One year we had such terrible winds on New Year’s morning that huge trees were toppling all over the place.  We lost power for three days, and NO ONE was watching the parade in my neighborhood!  In our yard we lost a covered walkway to a huge, multi-trunked eucalyptus that came down right after my husband and I, out examining damage, had just walked away.  God sighting!  Breezeways can be built back better, but that tree could have crushed the life out of us. 

The church we attend has its office on the sixth floor of a building on the parade route, Pasadena’s Colorado Blvd.  Each year they open the office for viewing.  I’ve never wanted to get up early on a cold New Year’s morning and try to find parking to take it in.  But this year Meredith was attending with her two older boys.  Very few people would be there.  Her husband Ben suggested that I tag along.  

The floats were beautiful, but television actually captures more of the detail than I could see from my perch above the city.  What astounded me was the bands.  The sound of trumpets and tubas resonated up from street level and enveloped me.  My heart fell in sync with the throbbing of the drumbeats.  Could this be what Psalm 150 meant when it said, “Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet…praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.”?  Might heaven be like this? 

If so, I can learn to love a parade.  Praise the Lord!

Love, Liz 

Photo by Meredith Barnes