Piano Lessons (Part 1)
A child climbs precariously onto the piano bench, her feet flailing in her Sunday dress as she pulls herself up. Once perched, her eyes open as wide as the 88 ivory opportunities before her. Without hesitation, she lifts her hands and brings them crashing down on the Steinway. It’s pure sound chaos and there’s no order or rhythm or sense to it, whatsoever, but you only need look at her face to see that she’s playing a symphony in her mind. It’s certainly not the tender tones of “It Is Well” that swelled into the congregation that morning during the offertory. The few faces left conversing throughout the sanctuary are initially surprised but fade back into their conversations as the young lady carries on.
It’s unpleasant at first, but eventually you just don’t hear it anymore. Even if it’s there it’s just there. The symphony in her head is noise that you learn to ignore. You go back to your conversation just as one great work of art sits and plays at another great work of art.
It’s still a Steinway, even when a 5-year old is playing it. It’s still a beautiful piece of musical engineering, even if its tiny occupant is untrained or even tone-deaf. It’s still a remarkable creation with unlimited potential, waiting for the right hands and the right moments and the right bit of inspiration to create something beautiful… and I’m talking about the little girl as much as I’m talking about the piano.
This is a glimpse of us. (It’s a glimpse of every one of us.) A beautiful life in front of us that we know so little about but that holds so much potential. It can play a thousand, thousand, thousand songs and that’s only today. Tomorrow, it can play a thousand, thousand, thousand more, if we are only as courageous as the girl to climb up.
It’s a glimpse of us as we sit before ivory opportunities that can be anything from a chaotic mess to Chopin’s genius, and sometimes both at once. If only we can see the sanctuary as a place fit for whatever we have to offer and if only we can see that every great offering comes solely from surrender. The faces and conversations don’t affect her. If only we can see the piano as a place of opportunity and exploration.
If only we can hear the beautiful music around us and try, with whatever we have, to give ourselves over to it and contribute in some, small, perhaps maddening seemingly tone-deaf way, to join the chorus of life and lives around us. If only…
If only we can grow into that instrument, into the lives that are before us the way that little girl will. If only we give our arms a chance to grow longer and our fingers a chance to learn those keys. If only we can learn to read the notes, to hear the songs, to listen to what comes next and play into it. If only we can feel time instead of checking it. If only…
If only we can patiently await the symphony, or the hymn, that only we can play.
May you listen to the songs, hymns and symphonies around you. May what you hear fill you and inspire you. May you wait patiently, climb up courageously, and sit at the keys and opportunities of your life right now and hold your ready hands up. May you find your notes and the song that is being written in, through and with you by the greatest Composer the universe will ever know. And may He, God, I mean, keep you there, keep you courageous, keep you listening, and guide your playing.
2 Comments
Beautiful thoughts, Chris. I love the way you’ve captured the moment, and portrayed a different way to view the “distraction”. I hear you.
Every time i read your stuff my mind goes on a beautiful journey. Thank you for applying the gift God has given you!