Two stories make one...

 “So long as the memory of certain beloved friends

lives in  my heart, I shall say that life is good.”

- Helen Keller

It was usually at the end of the day.  Dinner over…homework done…the small routines complete…bed and a good night’s sleep on everyone’s mind. 

On those special nights, the sounds began to gently fill the house.   It started with some sort of chord progression…poking around…looking for the right key – then it would begin.

He couldn’t read a note of music, but he had a gift.  He could reach somewhere deep inside…the place where few ever see the landscape of the soul.  Hunting, pecking the notes, looking for the ‘sweet spot,’  and then…and then, something magical would come. 

Longing…tender…thoughtful…familiar – words fail, for who can describe the beauty that comes from the richly developed hand of the artist when he or she simply gets out of the way and lets the another spirit take control.

Ministry – a guarded profession…

My father was a passionate man.  In his chosen profession it needed to be a controlled passion. Sunday mornings, from the pulpit there was little doubt the things he said were more than just words. 

The struggle of preparation…attention to detail…the uncertainty one feels week after week when they take central stage for those needing to be fed.  The torrents of his spirit would come spilling out like the break in an under built dam desperately trying, yet failing, to contain the water pressure behind it.  There were few who heard him preach who would not remember those soaring moments of freedom, so much more feeding for him than the congregants in those Sunday morning pews.  The people would melt from before his eyes as he was transformed and transported to a different place known only to him and his God.  This, in fact, is what he lived for.

Passionate people, if they find themselves in public professions, often need to be a bit careful.  They wear their feelings and emotions close to the surface.  While all of us admire them, they sometimes can be overwhelming.  For my father, the ministry had been the vehicle to ‘break’ the wild bucking horse that had lacked focus and direction.  My mother, of course, was the other force in his life.  Out his love for her and for Christ – neither of whom could he survive without – he had learned to channel his energy and talents. 

While to many he seemed to be a tower of strength, he was really no different than they.  His congregations would have been surprised to see him grunting and stamping his feet while watching the televised Friday night fights…his vicarious blood lust satisfied by two men beating one another mercilessly.  He seemed to know how to find outlets for the complex and churning waters of his soul.

But then there was the music…the music. During his earlier years, he had been on the radio playing a number of instruments and singing.  It was the piano, however, that was his seductress.  It was the piano that would bring him back again and again.  Somewhat of a showman – I suppose one cannot be a minister without that trait – he enjoyed playing for small church meetings and other gatherings. 

There was his time…

The late evenings, however, were something entirely different.  Here he was not playing for others.  He played for his God…he played for his Christ…he played for the life of his very soul.  Public playing for him was a monologue.  Not so here…his touch to the keyboard was a conversation, a duet with the unseen hand of his Creator. 

As I lay in bed reading waiting to be taken by the gods of sleep, the siren sounds of my father’s hand came reaching deeply into parts of me…freeing parts of me…holding court in parts of me.  Sometimes I would get up and quietly slip behind the door of the piano room just to listen – for this dance was personal, intimate…not to be disturbed.  The sounds, the rhythms, the freedom of shifting keys seemingly with no resolution in sight…only to hear the reflections of what he felt find an unpredicted chord resolution and a soft landing that could have been accomplished by no other hand.  When he finished playing, he would sit for sometime in quiet thought and gratitude for having danced with his Maker.

I had not thought of my father’s playing for many years. 

The turning page…

I have a relatively new friend in Brenham, Texas.  We ‘accidently’ found ourselves sitting on a flight from Houston, Texas to Orlando a little over a year ago.  It was one of those chance meetings that led to a little more…then a little more.  We found ourselves in Dallas earlier this year and spent a little more time.  We had been looking for an opportunity to visit again, and as fate would have it a circumstance arrived.  I was in Austin, Texas last week for a conference just a few miles from his home.  After a long week on the road, and after the meeting, Molly and I headed a few miles east to Brenham.  I was looking forward to seeing Bob, but I was tired.

We arrived in the morning, and as that wonderful Texas hospitality dictates, we were welcomed as members of the family.  After putting our bags away, we settled in for a chat and a great cup of coffee.  As we were about to leave for a sightseeing drive around Brenham, Molly slipped out of the room.  I had seen the piano when we entered the room, and asked who played.  He said he did and wondered if I would like to hear something.  “Yes, I would be delighted.”  Bob reads music and said, “I kind of like this arrangement, and thought I would share it with you.” 

With that, his practiced hand began to play “The Old Rugged Cross.”  The arrangement was not straightforward…the ebb and flow of the music not predictably clear, but when the piece resolved, it came to a soft landing only the arranger could have seen in his mind.  Bob, of course, could not have known the untold number of times I had heard my father play that piece…in those quiet and intimate moments when he thought he was alone in the music room of our home.

That moment, in the home of my new friend Bob, as his gentle fingers played a unique arrangement of an old gospel piece, I closed my eyes and was transported into the presence of my father…to the presence of our common Father and the spirit he found so deeply in his soul – and mine.

It’s nice to be reminded…

For those who do not appreciate the existence of a creative, living, moving and engaging intelligent spirit of the universe, I feel a bit of sadness.  This gentle soul in Brenham, Texas knew nothing of my life or background, but simply felt to share a bit of himself with a newly found friend.  He could have no idea the depth of my spirit this arrangement of an old Gospel Hymn could have touched.  He could have had no idea I had been transported to a time forty years earlier as my father’s gift and our Father’s spirit lifted us both.  He could have had no idea…

Life counts...
The Biblical scripture, dare I say, all spiritual writings teach us that in our weakness we find stability and strength.  They teach us that we only truly can know when we let go.  They teach us that in the quietness of listening we find the majesty of the universal sound and resonance in the spiritual fabric of our collective humanity.

The Old Rugged Cross??  Meaningful to my life??  Of this Bob knew nothing…nor did he need to.  He listened to ‘his heart’ and reached deeply into mine…

“Be still and know that I am God…”

- ted