In July 2009, I attended my first Celtic harp training workshop, sparking my love affair with playing Celtic music. A few days after the workshop, I was asked to give a 45-minute presentation of Irish harp music to interested participants an upcoming, rather large Irish Festival. Love is blind. I said yes.

For the next month I practiced the three pieces we had worked on at the workshop. By the time I realized that loving this music did not automatically mean I was able to play it, all the promotional material for the festival had been printed. Since I am not one to back out of a commitment, I forged ahead.

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The day of the festival came, a beautiful, sunny August day, bringing crowds to celebrate Irish food, crafts, wares, and music. By this time I knew that I had bitten off more than I could chew.

I bravely carried my little Irish harp to the front of the audience and began to watch the clock. One minute had passed.

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I asked how many in the audience had been to Ireland. Every single hand went up. My heart sank a little deeper. I shared the story of the Irish harp I had brought. Five minutes passed.

I played the one tune I felt moderately capable of performing before an Irish crowd. Three minutes passed.

I talked about how Irish music often uses a drone bass, and inwardly rejoiced when one individual consented to come up and play a drone bass while I improvised above. Five minutes passed.

All this time, my overarching inner thought was, “I cannot possibly fill 45 minutes.” Then came divine intervention. The sky darkened, the wind picked up, big drops of rain began to fall, and thunder rumbled overhead. In one minute my audience was gone, seeking safe shelter. The storm lasted—you guessed it—31 minutes. •

—Sister Mary Margaret Delaski, Lowell, Mich.