After a peaceful and prayerful weekend at Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga and a quick pilgrimage to Fort Ross, my daughter, Josephine, and I wound our way down Highway 1 into Santa Rosa for the 2025 Music Practicum, the first event of its kind in the DOW, carried out in part thanks to the Thriving Parishes Program under the Lilly Endowment grant. We arrived at St. Seraphim of Sarov Cathedral that sunny Monday afternoon, where we joined 35 other choir directors and singers, along with men attending the Priestly Formation Program and the Diaconal Practicum. All told, there were about 100 of us. We had been promised a full and exhausting week and were excited to get started. Slipped into the front cover of a binder full of music was the program for the week. We were scheduled from 8am to 9pm every day, with only one 30-minute break Thursday afternoon. We were going to be busy.