I have spent a great deal of time this summer playing music. Although interrupted by a couple family emergencies, I have had at least 14 musical performances this summer along with lots of hours of practice. Today ends a week at "trumpet camp" at Shell Lake, WI, Arts Center. My trumpet ability, my insights into music, my joy at being a musician has never been greater. Retirement has given me the time and energy to do that.
Handel was correct when he said that it is more than entertaining. It is also to help people become better. Yes, that can often be done through entertaining, no question about that. (See any U2 concert.)
Music is a healing force. It can take us to deep and transforming places. It is the language of life translated into sounds beyond words. I give thanks for this summer of music and growth and transformation for myself. It will not end with the changing of the season. There is always a new season to explore.
Those three words in the title describe two books I recently read. Rachel Joyce started an amazing storyline in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. In it she tells of Harold who received a letter from an old friend, Queenie Hennessy, that informs him she is dying and in hospice care. He decides to walk the length of England to see her and, in so doing, help her to live longer. As any regulars here know, I am a sucker for the idea of "pilgrimage," so I jumper right on it when a friend highly recommended I read it.
He was right. It is quite a commentary on all kinds of things of every day life- work, relationships, renewal, retirement, hope, dying, fame in 380+ pages. There were a number of places where Joyce could have taken an easier, more Hollywood-type approach, but she didn't. She kept the story moving at a pace that matched Harold's journey and his wife's musings. We hear much about Harold's past and see how his becoming mindful of his journey changes just about everything.
I loved the flow of the book and the way the characters kept interacting through Joyce's narrative. It's kind of like life- which I know is a pilgrimage of daily discovery. It was a bestseller and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
The second book is Joyce's parallel story of Queenie Hennessy as she relates her story while Harold is making his pilgrimage, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy. It is a deeper telling of the events from Harold's life from a person involved in them in ways Harold never knew. Queenie starts writing this letter after she informs Harold of her terminal illness. She describes life in the hospice, how they respond to Harold's pilgrimage and their own mortality that you can never escape in a hospice. In the midst of that Queenie also tells her back story of her time working with Harold and the 20-years since she last saw him.
Harold's pilgrimage is a physical one, transforming his inner life and world-view. Queenie's is internal, remembering and reacting, finding new ways of bringing life to a closure. Her's is truly a love song about finding and losing love while internalizing it, building it in different ways, and finally giving it a voice.
Since we already know one side of most of the events Queenie relates, it is intriguing
to put the two together for a larger and more profound picture. It reminded me that we don't often know either how much impact we have on others, or how they are interacting with our lives. While that sounds trite and cliched, Joyce is an accomplished storyteller who keeps us wondering, "What next?" even as we know the end.
That is what this pilgrimage of life is like, though. We all know the end. It is the ultimate equality And yet, it is how we walk that pilgrimage, how we respond to our events that makes each life unique. Hope, transformation, grace- they are all just around the corner at each moment.
When I stop long enough to listen to words of new songs in church, I am usually surprised. While too much of the contemporary worship music field is made up of sappy songs that don't get to the heart of what it means to be a Christian, there are enough that do to make it worth my while to listen.
This happened at the Maundy Thursday service of footwashing and Eucharist. It is one of those discipling songs like "I, the Lord of Sea and Sky" or "Eagle's Wings." It is a hymn of calling, being summoned by God to do the work of being a Christian. It is The Summons, written by John Bell, a Church of Scotland minister and member of the Iona Community.
It grabbed me from the fourth line of the first verse and then settled-in to do a great job of renewing God's call. In the first four verses, lines two and four repeat. Each verse starts with the call of what we could do
"If I [God] but call your name"
then another action step followed by
"And never be the same."
That's the line- right there-
And never be the same.
That's not what we count on when we think about hearing the call, of course. Nothing big, earth shattering. In the modern Christian thinking that "never be the same" is usually translated into some prosperity gospel promise or the wonder of being free from sin.
But that is not what the Gospel call is all about. That whole thing about never being the same comes when we see that who and what we are can be so different when we hear the God of creation call our name through the Son. We are to go and be and make disciples- showing love, sharing The Name and let God's life grow in us.
1. Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?
When we do leave our selves behind and start serving others, like caring for the cruel and kind, we will never be the same- and never look at the world in the same way. Every person I ever went on a mission trip with said that. It is a mark of the Spirit on us.
2. Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer pray’r
In you and you in me?
Being a "secret disciple" the humility of being used for healing and hope, even to kissing the leper and supporting them, will not leave you unchanged- nor will it meet the standards of society either.
3. Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the pris’ners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in me?
There is a child of God hidden within us- as well as the things we do not like about ourselves. When God calls our name, will we never be the same and instead reshape the world. It's not about you or me- it's about the work in the world.
4. Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?
The the fifth verse is me talking. If I have been listening to the words I have been singing, it is now my turn. As in here I am Lord, I'm ready. I am willing to never be the same again.
5. Lord, your summons echoes true
When you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
And never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
In you and you in me.
It is then that I am able and willing to see even more in the Eucharist. It is then that I take the bread and cup and pray that
Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. -- C. T. Studd
~~~ Disclaimer
Nothing said here should be understood or construed to be the opinion of anyone but me. My friends, my employer, any organizations I belong to, my church- all are innocent of these thoughts. They are mine.
