Monday, May 27, 2013

Someday...the harmonica player.

Someday I want to have the simple trust of the harmonica player.  I wish I could recall his name, but the truth is, he slipped into our lives one day without an introduction and slipped away just as quickly.

At my 83 year old mom's urging, we had agreed to play a concert for an adult day care program located in the basement of a moss covered local church tucked under a tangle of trees.  As we descended the steps into the musty basement, we were greeted warmly not just by the volunteers, but also by a small group of differently-abled adults who were assisting them in serving meals to several of the seniors also in attendance. 

Since we had anticipated only seniors, we had prepared an hour's worth of oldies but goodies, including the closing sing-a-long "Good Night Irene" in honor of my mom. As we began our set, one of these differently-abled adult helpers pulled out his harmonica.  In a child like voice, he yelled out a request to play along, a request we quickly granted in the casual environment of our basement lunch concert.

He jumped out of his chair and bounded over next to me.  As we led the group in some Pete Seeger song, he began to robustly play along, his harmonica in a completely different key and his skills somewhat less than stellar.  But as the song ended, he looked up at me, his eyes shining, and he announced with a wide, toothless grin, his voice heavy with a lisp, "rock and roll...we did that really good...rock and roll.."

For the rest of our time, he bounced between his role as lead harmonica player in the band and lead dancer for any  unpartnered lunch guest. He worked the room like a seasoned Vegas showman, and when it was all over, he sidled up one last time as we were packing up.

There was a swagger in his step as he took my guitar from my hand.  "I want to carry your guitar," he said, smiling his toothless grin.  "I will help you with the equipment." We walked out a side door and down a small concrete path wide enough for only one person at a time. He led.

"See the gray van towards the end?" I called up to him.  "That's mine."  I expected him to cross the gravel lot and meet me at the van, but he stopped cold at the end of the sidewalk and waited.  When I caught up,  I stepped off the curb, expecting him to follow.  But the only footsteps on the gravel were mine.

A host of thoughts crowded into my mind.  Perhaps he liked my guitar.  How would I let him know that he couldn't take it home?  What if he dropped it?  As I walked back to him, I noticed his face had changed.  It seemed younger, less confident.  I stood next to him awaiting his declaration.  Suddenly I felt his touch.  He had reached down and taken my hand in his.

"I can't cross the street unless  I hold someone's hand," he stated simply. We walked across the lot and loaded the guitar, and then, holding his hand, I walked him back to the safety of the concrete sidewalk. Back on solid ground, he resumed his rock star demeanor and reclaimed his confidence.

"We need to play music again," he called out, " rock and roll..."  As I looked back from the car, he was flashing the universal rock star sign.  

I want to be like him, I thought, full of life and confidence, able to dance and sing unconcerned about my lack of coordination or my inability to carry a tune.  I want to launch  into good deeds with strangers and help carry the burdens of others.  But more than anything, when I face any obstacle, any fear, I want to simply reach out and take the hand of a fellow human being and trust with all my heart that I will be kept safe from the dangers that lurk beyond the safety of the well kept path.

The harmonica player gets it.  Someday, I hope to follow in his steps.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Someday I hope to be able to listen to my garden better.

Someday I hope to be able to listen to my garden better. You see, we have a somewhat problematic relationship.  For I think in some far reaches of my brain, I view the garden through the same lens that I few myself:  I do not see what it was intended to be, and so I see only the flaws.
It is an easy trap to fall into in our current media saturated world.  None of us are thin enough, smart enough, glib enough, or possess enough of any other shallow attribute that passes for character in the world these days.  And so the weeds of inattention overtake the ground, choking out all that is intended to be there.
Having spent the last six days in the company of 60 eleven year olds and a crowd of people for my mom's 93rd birthday, I awoke on this, the Sabbath, with a heart unable to partake of conversation with another living soul. So against the tide of my own inner Legalist, I took the day to rest and renew in the company of what was created by the Giver of Life and all things good.
That journey took me to the North Creek boardwalk, uninhabited in the morning breezes.  At the end of the pond trail, I stood in the middle of a symphony of frogs, meadowlarks, red ring blackbirds and a lone duck on the small pond.  Gentle currents pulled underwater grasses like tendrils of hair weaving through the cat tails, and the ragged silhouette of tree tops scratched the canvas of the sky.  This was the worship music my soul craved, and this was a cathedral no man could imagine nor build.
 
As I neared home, the tangled mess of the garden around the pond called to me.  But once seated with unused new tools and facing the tumult ahead, my heart grew weary.  "How do you eat an elephant," popped  into my mind along with the immediate answer...."One bite at a time."  And so it began.
Part way through the discouragement that choked me like the ivy clinging to rock and wood and stone, robins began to cheer me on.  Rich, raw dirt smells filled the air; the soft breeze ran through the small pile of collected debris.  And then it hit me: The Creator declared it good. The Creator blessed the earth with these birds that sing, these plants that grow in such infinite variety so as to defy chance, this sun that arises each day at His command. 

Though this same Creator gave us the creativity to imagine roads, and medical miracles, and skyscrapers, He does not look down on our man-made structures and declare these works of ours to be "good"...it is only what He has crafted through His loving, merciful hands…which includes our often tangled, weed choked selves.
 
No wonder I find myself so often distant from this Grace instead of drawn to it.  I spend my days in the evidences of the work of the hands of mankind, with its tyranny of rush and worry.  My eyes are saturated with the images emanating from LCD screens and computer monitors.  My ears hear only the ringing of phones and beepers and cries for more and more of the little self I have left at the end of each day.

But someday, I will learn to better heed the voice of the garden, for there are lessons to be learned there: The weeds are more numerous and deeply rooted when not sought after daily and removed; the old debris of previous seasons muddies the water when not washed away.

But more than anything, without spending time in this garden's presence or beside a rippling stream, or gazing down a glacier covered mountainside, I would miss the handiwork of the Creator --- the symphony of praises from His orchestra, the moss covered rocks which, if I were to remain silent, would still cry out His name.

I would miss this Sabbath, created by Him, necessary for life itself, to pause and sing my own grateful praise.