Nothing But Fancy

This morning for Children’s Sabbath Sunday we sang the song, “Prayer of the Children” by Kert Bestor.  We began rehearsing it weeks ago.   Much like all the songs we begin in Church Choir, I expect the theology to be simple and self-centered and music to be generic.  But this time we sang the first lines:

Can you hear the prayer of the children
on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?

Yes, I yelled from deep within my being and kept singing…

Empty eyes with no more tears to cry
turning heavenward toward the light.
Crying,” Jesus, help me
to see the morning light of one more day,
but if I should die before I wake,
I pray my soul to take.”

I can hear them, I have thought about their prayers, cried about their prayers, and prayed their prayers with and for them.

Can you feel the hearts of the children
aching for home, for something of their very own.

If there were one kind of poverty that I would eradicate, it would be cultural poverty.  There are countless people who feel they do not have a place that is home or where people know their name.  I want to listen their story and appreciate their music, dance, and creative arts- to give them a name as an instrument of God.

I have never been able to get through the whole song without that feeling in my nose and tears falling down my face.  Even this morning when we sang:

Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
blood of the innocent on their hands.
Crying,” Jesus, help me
to feel the sun again upon my face?

For when darkness clears, I know you’re near,
bringing peace again.”

tears flowed down my face and somehow — I have to believe — I will help bring peace to all God’s children and end social poverty.

You can listen to the song on YouTube here.

It is not common for a movie to resonate deeply in me or to capture my thoughts.  However, it is common for a melody, riff, harmony, instrument sound, or anything musically related to completely take me over and wrap me with it’s presence and passion.

The Soloist is a true-story movie about Nathanial Ayers, who understands more deeply that I ever could, how music can reconcile.  If you know me, you know I have a promise for my future that it will involve music and reconciliation… music as a means of reconciliation in all domains of life and health… to each other, to the earth, to our selves, and to God.

While watching this movie I felt God whisper to me… look it’s possible.

This “platonic love story between two very different human beings,” as director Joe Write says when he speaks about this film during an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered, was founded and based upon music — two people find each other and themselves through music and love.

While FSU College of Music is no Juilliard in comparison to intensity or location, I understand the dichotomy of a formal musical education and love for music.  The process of picking apart music to understand tonal harmony, preparing endless hours for juries, and sitting in classes to “train my ear,” made me wonder if someone could truly love music while also trying to dissect it, figure it out, apply pressure, and produce perfection.

The same tension arose during my internship at a Word Entertainment.  Could I wrap in plastic the same four chords over and over and sell it to teenagers and mid-aged women at the same time that I profess my love for music… and much more worship music?  Can I pitch, market, and price a passion that my inner being knows is rarely experienced much less captured on tape?

Mr. Ayer’s story puts to words and image tension I have felt my whole life.  In NPR’s The Real Story Behind ‘The Soloist’, Steve Lopez accounts when they both were invited to view the filming of the scene where they went to the symphony rehearsal for the first time.  Mr. Ayers decides that instead of watching the movie stars and orchestra, he would rather sit outside the Disney Concert Hall and play his cello.  Obviously, Mr. Ayers could not be torn from his music.

This past Thursday I experienced reconciliation in my own life through a group of friends playing music together.  This gathering, known as the “Sound Experiment,” consists mostly of percussion… a few kits, lots of auxiliary and world musical percussion instruments as well as some melodic instruments.  It was initiated out of a desire for genuine worship.  Let me know if you would like to join us… I’m excited to see where it goes.

I’m sure Mr. Lopez or Mr. Ayers never thought their music and reconciliation story would be a book then movie that touches and changes countless lives.  In the interview Mr. Lopez says that Mr. Ayers would like to one day help people with music, as a music therapist.

If you have a story of music and reconciliation… I would love to hear it.