willing to wander

"Walking with someone through grief,

or through the process of reconciliation,

requires patience, presence,and 

a willingness to wander..."

-Rachel Held Evans
  
 "Thus when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, 

if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. 

Because where your feet take you, that is who you are."

 - Frederick Buechner

I was reading some Rachel Held Evans this week, as I reflected on the passing year. This phrase seemed to jump off the page at me: willingness to wander. She spoke of it in the context of helping someone seek healing. We are quick to attempt to fix, find a cure, solve the problem. But healing doesn't work this way. It isn't linear. It isn't predictable. There is no formula.  To walk with someone on the path of healing is to walk without a map, without a plan, without an agenda.

But I think this principle of wandering extends beyond the path for healing.  Because to be in relationship with people is to be willing to wander.

Am I willing to wander with my students?
It may be that I have played a song 100 times, coached it with master teachers, soaked in the poetry....but will I be open to a different interpretation? Will I be ready to play it the way that they need to sing it?
Am I willing to hear their questions and resist the urge to give them a ready-made, pre-cut answer? Am I willing to take their challenges to heart? Am I willing to change my mind?
Am I willing to learn from them?

Am I willing to wander with others I hold dear?
Am I willing to watch them go down a path that by all my estimations is wrong...dangerous...not what I would have chosen? Am I willing to stay with them in it...simply to be with them?

Am I willing to wander with myself?
Am I willing to let the journey take me where it will? Am I willing to walk down a path, and resist the desire to apologize for it or seek to explain it to anyone else...or even to myself?
Am I willing to listen, really listen to the voice of my soul?
Am I willing to move in a non-linear pattern....even if it means moving in a circle?
Am I willing to wander into places I do not expect anything Divine to dwell?
Am I willing to seek the light, wherever it may be found?

One of the rules of my weekly Sabbath is the practice of spontaneity. There are of course, restrictions about what I avoid on that day - things related to schedules and work and technology being at the top of the list. But the main purpose of the day is to listen to my soul, to do the things that will bring me life in that moment. And most often, this involves listening to my feet. Often I find myself setting out on a walk, with no agenda, no destination, no ETA. And I quickly find that creating space for spontaneity - for wandering - can lead to space for surprises too. And where there is room for surprise, there is room for wonder. "Attention," says Mary Oliver, "is the beginning of devotion."

In reflecting on this idea of wandering, I am reminded of the famous words of Tolkein, Not all who wander are lost. And, while I appreciate the sentiment, I might be so bold as to add: Some are, but there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes 'living the questions', to borrow a phrase from Rilke, means wandering for awhile.

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future,  you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer."

 - Rainier Maria Rilke

yes

My phone rang this morning.
And I didn't want to answer it.

I was 1.5 hours into a 7-hour practice day. I have several binders of music to learn. And with 10 practice days left before it all has to be performable, things are just a wee bit stressful.

But, then again, I survived 75 voice finals last week...without the aid of coffee, wine, or really, any amount of practicing...and with the help of 2 bottles of cough syrup, 2 cartons of grapefruit juice and and far too many cough drops.   So, anything is possible, right?

Still, I didn't want to answer the phone.

Somebody probably needs an accompanist, and I don't want it to be me.  I was up late last night, and I've been playing a lot lately, and I'm still trying to get healthy, and I'm attempting to be ready to move out of my apartment next week, and I have to bake a birthday cake for a friend, and I would just like to be home for an evening....and.....a million other things...

So, obviously, I answered the phone.

It was a voice teacher friend of mine. Her student had won a special award at the music festival that took place here this week (Thomas Hampson established the award in honor of his former teacher). And, he had been selected to perform at the honors concert.  Tonight.  And, his accompanist was unavailable.

Usually, I say no to these things.
I don't like doing things last minute.
I have enough music on my plate right now.

But it was a piece I knew and could probably play in my sleep.
And I live five minutes from the theater.
And I do happen to be free this evening.
And, most of all, this kid deserves to sing.  He deserves the chance to tell his story.  He deserves to be celebrated.  He deserves the chance to share his gift.

So, obviously, I said yes.
And, obviously, I'm glad I did.

Because I got to empower someone tonight.  I got to give him the gift of possibility.  And he took it and ran with it.

Sure, if I hadn't said yes, someone else might have played.  So maybe he still would have gotten a chance to sing and tell his story and share his gift and be celebrated.

But I got to be a part of the story-telling.
I got to be a part of the celebration.
I got to enable him to shine.
I got to help him share his gift.
I got to receive some of the blessing.


My phone rang this morning.
And I'm glad it did.

thin places

"...music is about as physical as it gets:

your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath.

We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix,

it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way."

- Anne Lamott

I make music. For a living.
Sometimes I forget how great that is.

Because, truth be told, there's a lot that's not so great about it.

There are moments, days, weeks...seasons....when I question what I do. Why don't I just go get an office job that wouldn't demand so much of me...that I wouldn't care so much about...that would actually give me a decent salary, and dare-I-say-it....benefits?

My hours are long...and irregular. It's not uncommon for me to work 12-15 hours a day, 6 days a week. I often wonder what it would be like to work 8-5 and actually leave my work at work and have...a weekend. When I don't have a gig, I have rehearsal for a gig...or I should probably be practicing for said gig.

My work is never done. At this moment in time, I am responsible for roughly 400 pages of music. So really, when I say I make music for a living, what I mean is, I juggle music for a living. I live from one performance to another. I've barely got time to celebrate one recital, before I'm prepping for the next one.

I am constantly being critiqued...by my colleagues, employers...and myself. I struggle to remind myself that while my daily performance is important - and while I should absolutely strive to bring my best to everything I do...my worth is not found in how many right notes I play, or how dazzling my technique is. I struggle to remember that I am more than a musician.

It is not easy to be a musician in today's world. Musicians (and artists of all kinds) are forced to burn the candle at both ends. We juggle full schedules of rehearsals, lessons, performances. And when we're not practicing, rehearsing, performing or teaching - we become advocates...trying to convince our society - and sometimes even ourselves - that what we do matters...that it is necessary.

I make music. For a living.

Sometimes I forget how great that is.

Even as I sit here, I have begun and erased at least 2 dozen sentences, as I attempt to express my wonder, my joy - my sheer delight in the fact that someone actually pays me to do what I love. I honestly don't even know where to start.

I get paid to interact with poetry and melody. 

     To absorb it - let it affect me, change me, become part of me.
I get paid to create. 

     To paint with colors of sound.
I get paid to collaborate. 

     To journey with another - and cultivate something new together
I get paid to tell stories. 

     To give voice to another's, to reveal my own.
I get paid to express. 

     To speak hope, joy, freedom, comfort, truth.

The Celtic mystics use the term "thin place" to refer to a sacred space - one where the veil between the material world and the eternal world is thin. 

Poet Sharlande Sledge describes them this way:

"Thin places," the Celts call this space,

Both seen and unseen,

Where the door between the world 

And the next is cracked open for a moment

And the light is not all on the other side.

God shaped space. Holy.

I think I am beginning to realize that my work is one giant "thin place."

I spend my days on the edge of the divine. Of course, we're always on the edge; the divine is always present - all around us, within us.

But somehow, when there is poetry, when there is music - when they swirl and resonate together - when we add the tenderness of our hearts to the mix - the veil becomes so thin, you forget it's even there.

and the light spills out from the other side. 

I make music.  For a living.

Sometimes I forget how great that is.

the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom

"At the end of the day, people won't remember what you said or did;

they will remember how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

I love the rhythm of the seasons.  I love to watch the transformation of the world around me, as the long days become long nights, and the bare branches sprout blossoms once more.  I love that when everything is still and cold and frozen - this is the time we choose to call the "new year."  Of course, in other parts of the world, the new year is ushered in by sunlight and warmth.  But, no matter.  I love that here, in the dead of winter, when all around us is snowy darkness, we turn our face into the icy wind and look forward with expectation into what is to come.

Sometimes I think about how overwhelming life would be if we didn't keep time - if we didn't count the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades.  I can hardly fathom what it would mean to have the moments stretch on and on, without any sort of definition.

No, we are created for rhythm.  Of this I am sure.  We need structure - we need definition.  We need to be able to categorize and compartmentalize things.  We need to be able to leave things behind: "2013 was a hard one - I'm glad it's done."  We need to be able to look ahead: "2014 will be better, I can already tell."


In the last few years, it has become my New Year's tradition to pause for a few hours and reflect on the year.  Sometimes I read through my journal (provided it was a good year for journaling).  Sometimes I re-trace the journey month-by-month.  Sometimes, I just sit, mesmerized by the tree lights or the flickering candles, savoring the sweet stillness.   And I am always surprised at how powerful it can be to take the time and space to actively remember.

365 days ago, I was preparing to tackle my final semester at Peabody, having no idea that 12-mos. later, I would have completed my first semester as a music theory professor.

I am amazed at how much can be crammed into a single year....at how much has changed...and at how much is exactly the same.  I think back on what has transpired - the milestone events - large and small - the ones that happened on a stage, the ones that happened in a practice room, and the ones that happened in my living room.  

I stumbled upon this Maya Angelou quote, as I was flipping through my journal this evening. From what I can gather (I am not always the most detailed in my journaling), it was Denyce Graves who quoted it, when I was playing for one of her students' lessons one afternoon. She framed it within the context of singing - within the world of theater....which makes total sense. We don't necessarily remember how an actor moved his hands or even with what inflection he delivered the line - but we will remember being moved. We will remember a line or a phrase cutting straight to the heart.

Yes, there are specific moments I remember from the last year.  There are words, phrases that people have spoken to me in the last 12 months - and I will continue to replay them for years to come.  There are things people have done for me - small things, and ginormous things - that will remained ingrained in my memory.  

But Maya's right.  I remember them because of how they made me feel.

So then I got to thinking...as is prone to happen when wine and chocolate and candlelit lanterns are involved:       How do people make us feel?

Uneasy.

Awkward.

Small.

Fearful.
Weak.

Stupid.

Alone.

Worthless.

Safe.

Loved.

Heard.

Understood.

Seen.

Important.

Peaceful.

Forgiven.

Empowered.

Thankful..

Free.

Needed.

Alive.

We are not responsible for the feelings of others.  We feel what we feel - and we really have no control over that, at least to an extent.  But at the same time, we must also never forget that our words and our actions carry great weight and power.  The people we brush shoulders with every day are precious, extraordinary, fragile.

I always find it fascinating to read the list of "most influential people of the year" (by somebody's standards) and peruse the catalog of people who have passed on in the last year.  Many of them, I've never heard of. Most of them have had little or no direct impact on my life.

Because the people that matter most to me are the people whose faces now find themselves plastered to my frig.  And as I allow my eyes to drift over those precious faces, the feelings come surging back.  I see the eyes of one who sees me. I see the smile and, in my head, hear the laugh of one who makes me come alive.

For the most part, I cannot tell you what it is exactly that they did or said.  But the feelings run deep.  And the feelings remain.

And so, as I close the book on yet another year, I do so with gratitude.  I marvel at the mystery of human interaction.  I am awed by the glimpses of the divine that I see all around me.  I give thanks for the fingerprints - so divinely human - that have left their mark on my heart.  

Photo Credit: Chinwe Edeani  -  www.photosbychinwe.tumblr.com