Sunday, July 31, 2011

My Symphony

The note has been with me since conception. The best way to describe it would be my connection to God. The note is as pure and clear as an angel’s tear. Long ago the lone tone gave me boundless joy, infinite in its embrace. It was perfect. The first time I lost the note was when I was born but it wasn’t my fault. The turmoil and sudden cold light exploding around me came as a surprise. I suppose it was fear that made me cry and the loss of the note added confusion to the moment. But it returned quickly.

After that, only I could mute it, dampen its flow. And I could add notes to it. The first I added came while I was still an infant without me knowing where or why. The love for my mother formed a note from love and needs filled, yet that note, as beautiful as it was, paled in comparison to the first. I added other notes as I grew through childhood. I added notes of ownership, loud and heavy, notes formed from my feeling for my siblings, most, light and airy and some sharp and a bit jangling. I was building my song, my symphony of my life. In my teens, I added runs built from first loves and rearranged them from lost loves. I built notes from friendships and rivalries. In my late teens I constructed a note that would center the symphony for many years. I added the note of ego. At first it was just a note that filled in the gap of belonging. Soon, it became so loud that it rose over many of the others. Time passed and I began to question everything around me. I found my note, the original one, didn’t fit with all the others I formed, so I put it away, tuned it out, removed it from the center of the symphony.

Through the years, I added more as I continued to uncover truths and stripped away others that didn’t fit into what I tried to build into the greatest song of all time. Unwilling to be hurt, I silenced all the notes of compassion and forgiveness thinking it made my stanzas stronger. I paired the lovely notes of giving with the flats of receiving and the notes of humility faded behind arrogance. The older I got, the grander the symphony became to my ears but the notes I added began to be off key, deeper, unsynchronized, and lacked melody. I had built a cacophony, a jangle, a sour twist of the soul. 

From luck or providence, I don’t know, but the master conductor of all tapped his baton in the form of a life changing event, a devastating blow. The music stopped, the notes disappeared, and the beats fluttered to the ground. I was left with silence, dark, lonely, hopeless. I had a choice. I could rebuild my symphony using only notes of beauty and light. I could collect bars and stanzas from giving, caring, loving, humility. Or I could do what I was always meant to do. I could keep the one note, the tie to God; the sound that surpassed all of my making. It alone, giver of joy without end, simple single sound of purity and boundless love for me, could be mine alone. It would and it does. I realized that I wasn’t meant to build my own symphony. My song would be played by those whose lives I’ve touched. Together they make the music, create my symphony for all to hear. And until the time comes for me to follow my note back to its source, my job on this earth is to play my part in their songs, to play the melody of their lives for them and all to hear. When at last I lay down my instrument, I hope the music of my life rises to heaven before me.

1 comment:

  1. What a lovely essay. I suppose at some point we all must stop playing the cacophony and let God's tone back into our lives. This was bot eye-opening and lovely to read. Congratulations.

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