The art of listening

As I practiced yesterday, I was struck by how much of what I call 'practice' is really just figuring out what to listen for. The inner voices, the way one chord leans into the resolution of another. It's easy to just get drawn in by soprano line - the melody. Our ears have been trained to do so, through years of conditioning.

But what about the counter-melodies? What about the harmony? What about the bass line - that foundation upon which everything else rests and resonates?

There are very few instruments that can play multiple lines of music at once. Mine is one of them. And of course, with that immense gift comes the enormous responsibility of caring for each individual line. It is, indeed a blessing and a curse to be given both melody and harmony. Managing both simultaneously is a tall order for a mere ten fingers. Indeed, it takes years of practice to develop the ability to bring out different lines at different times - to find the balance between them.

We have a term for that attempt at balance: voicing.
My last teacher was determined that I would never, ever play a chord that was not properly voiced. And I still hear her voice in my head as I sit in the practice room each morning.

But voicing is the end result. The goal.

The first step is listening.
Finding each individual line. Studying its contour.
Singing it, internalizing it, letting it become a part of me.
Appreciating how it relates to and interacts with the lines around it.

I have to know each line independent of the others in order to understand how they relate to each other.
And there are no shortcuts for that.
Listening takes time. It takes intentionality. It takes openness.

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I am taking a history class right now - a historical research class, to be precise. And this week, we have begun our exploration of different 'subfields' of history - which are essentially different filters through which we interpret or even begin to form our narrative of past events.

We have been taught to use these subfields as a means of finding other voices. Of telling stories that have been ignored. Of questioning our preconceived ideas about 'facts.' Not in an attempt to deny the existence of the truth, but rather, in an attempt to find the whole truth.

What if the story you have been told is only part of a bigger story?

Or, to put it in musical terms: what if the part of the song you know is only the alto part?
Is the alto part a true, integral part of the whole? Of course it is. But have you listened to the tenor line? What does your alto line sound like in the context of the whole? Do you realize that there's a whole orchestra behind you? Could it be that the song is actually completely different than what you assumed it to be?

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And so it is with people.

The daily interactions I have with students, colleagues, strangers, do not even begin to tell me the whole story. I hear one line, one phrase - and I am quick to jump to conclusions. I make assumptions about who these people are, about what they are thinking, about what their motivations are. But these little snippets of melodies cannot express the whole of the person.

So, I become a student of the score. I sing these individual lines in my head, let them resonate in me. I seek out other lines, and I find them in body language, in the breath, in the syntax of the sentence, in the gleam of the eyes. I listen for the unspoken message, the one that lies between the lines. I listen for the person. I listen for the Divine.

The Place I Want to Get Back To

is where

     in the pinewoods

          in the moments between 

               the darkness

and first light

     two deer

          came walking down the hill

               and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,

     this one is okay,

          let's see who she is

               and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,

     so quiet, as if

          asleep, or in a dream,

               but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came

     on their slender legs

          and gazed upon me

               not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look

     and look and look

          into the faces of the flowers;

               and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life

     bring to me that could exceed

          that brief moment?

               For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,

     not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

          Such gifts, bestowed,

               can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this

     come to visit. I live in the house

          near the corner, which I have named

               Gratitude.

-Mary Oliver

Lo, he comes

A canceled end-of-the-day lesson leaves me with several hours in a row to do with as I please.

There are a host of things on my to-do list. The least of which is the hours of practice I still have yet to do in preparation for what may prove to be the most difficult final of my academic career.

Every part of me knows that I should practice. I have successfully avoided it all day, and tomorrow's Mary, as well as next Thursday's Mary will be annoyed with present Mary for not using the time she has.

But my soul is restless, in a way I can't help but attend to.

And as I allow myself a moment to sit, they come. 

The tears. 

The ones that have been brimming all day, all week.

From where, I don't exactly know.

Maybe they spring from anxiety, from exhaustion, from overwhelmedness. 

Will I make it?

Will I be enough?

Will I find any more reserves of strength within me?

Will I get it done?

Will this, too, pass?

Maybe they spring from soul-weariness, from grief, from disillusionment with the fight.

Will the wrong ever be made right?

Will the evil ever be broken?

Will the light ever overcome the darkness?

Will the truth win out?

Will this, too, pass?

Maybe they spring from joy, from wonder, from surprising, unspeakable beauty.

Will I give in to the joy?

Will I dare to hope?

Will I choose to feed my faith?

Will I continue to keep my eyes peeled for the glimpses of light?

Will I refuse to let the moments pass me by without choosing to be present to them?

As I write, I find myself mesmerized by the brilliant hues of the setting sun peering through the shadows of a tangled web of bare branches.
The contrast is stark.
The branches are cold and lifeless - the sun, warm and inviting. 

And isn't this the perfect picture of Advent?

The dark and the light. The cold and the warm. The now and the not yet. 

The hope and belief that the baby will come, and the honest acknowledgement of the reality that he is not here yet.

But it is more than that. It is the belief that his coming does not happen all at once. That his coming is gradual. That he is still in the process of coming. That his arrival wasn't only in the past, and that it isn't only in the future.
It is ongoing. It is today. It is now.

The last glimmer of daylight fades, and we settle in for a long, cold night.

But there is life in the darkness.

Though all seems still, cold, lifeless, tired, dead....yet there is movement, imperceptible to our near-sighted eyes. While we sleep, the dancing globe will continue its slow and steady twirl. And tomorrow, when we wake again, we will once more greet the light of the sun. The light that has been there all along. The light that even as it leaves us, has already begun its return.

And so we give thanks.

For the light that has been.
For the light that is now.
For the light that is, even now, coming.

Lo, he comes, the long-expected one.

Lo, he is here, Emmanuel.

The one who has been with us.

The one who will be with us.

The one who is being with us.

Lady Mississippi

We have been meeting for several months now, she and I. We have a standing date at 6:45am, Monday through Saturday.

For the first few weeks, there was some semblance of daylight. Then, for a few weeks, we shared the glow of daybreak together. Now we meet in the cover of darkness. At times, I can barely see her, but still I know she is there. 

I have found myself a bit rudderless in these months. I am used to having a landmark to center me. For many years, it was the North Cascades. The outline of their jagged peaks against the glow of the rising sun. And even on cloudy days, when they were not visible, I somehow still felt their presence.

For many years, it was the view of Mt. Spokane. Sometimes green and bald, sometimes white and snow-capped. But again, a steady presence. A landmark to orient myself to. Something constant. Something bigger than me.

It was a sad day when I read that the highest point in Minnesota is 2,300 feet. An even sadder day when I learned that the Black Hills of South Dakota are the tallest point between the Rockies and the Swiss Alps. What would I do without my mountains?

Let me be clear: she is not a replacement. I will always need my mountains. But she has proven to be a faithful companion for this stage in the journey. Our meetings are brief, but each time, I feel my center lower...sometimes by millimeters, sometimes by centimeters. 

She never says much. Of course, neither do I. But somehow in her silent flow, she communicates the truth I most need to hear. And somehow, although she is forever changing, I feel the comfort of her constant presence. I feel the strength in her wide girth. I feel the life in her waves.

And while she will never be a mountain, I like to think that she may meet a few of them along the way as she continues on her journey.

And I'm sure, if I ask her, she'll bring them greetings from me. 

Memory

My dirty feet carry me today

The residue mirroring that which

Remains on my soul

An escape to the north, to the wide open space

To a lake, masquerading as an

Ocean

To a hill, pretending to be a

Mountain

In the desperate freedom of my imagination,

They are both.

My feet find the mud

Plunge into its murky

Depths

Surrender to its squishy

Darkness

They come alive as they leap from rock to rock

Bask in the sunlight, fresh air

Relish in the flow, deep below the surface of the cloudy stream

Here, they are finally at

Home.

Could it be that this is where my soul dwells?

Could it be that it is housed not in my head, or in my chest, but

Here, where my body-clothes grasp the earth,

Here, where my trunk sends down its roots,

Here, where the weight teeters and balances

Here, where the trail is blazed, where the wandering begins

I will leave the dirt lodged between my toes

The mark of my

Baptism

A reminder to my forgetful eyes

That I am not just where I am

Going

That I am also where I have

Been. 

here's to the mess we make

Today I marched.

We came armed with instruments: a banjo, a jingle fish, a frog rasp, some spoons, and our voices. And we sang the whole way.

I was reminded of one who went before us. I had the honor of sharing the stage with him once, albeit not in the traditional sense. He shuffled up to the podium in his tweed coat, and glanced back at the sea of graduates behind him on the stage. There was joy in his eyes, as he paused to take us all in, a new generation of musicians, ready to raise our voices. And in that moment, I felt the mantle pass.

His remarks were simple and brief.
"If there is a human race here in a few hundred years, I think one of the few things to save it from its own foolishness will be the arts."

And so we carried his mantle today. We stepped out as artists and did what we do best. For the better part of an hour, we sang the words that he made famous (he did so together with his banjo that "surrounded hate and forced it to surrender").

Finding myself the caller, I started with his verses. We shall overcome. We'll walk hand-in-hand. We are not afraid. We shall live in peace. But as we continued to sing, new words poured from my lips. We shall live in hope. We shall be the light. We shall speak the truth. We shall live in joy. We shall live in love. I will stand with you. We shall overcome.

Others chanted. Some cheered. Many carried signs. And we sang on.

Gathering at the end of the march, we welcomed the crowd with our music. We circled up, and our numbers began to grow, our sound multiplying as more voices joined our ranks.

Truth be told, I did not agree fully with everyone that I marched with. But honestly, that was the beauty of it. I don't have to agree with you to love you, to stand with you...

...or to sing with you.

See, there's something about music, about singing, in particular. It shatters your defenses, and brings unity in a way that few things can. There is something about raising our voices together in song. There is something other-worldly about it. There is something heavenly about it.


This week, I made my annual appearance at a movie theater and saw La La Land. It had been billed to me as one of those "every-artist-needs-to-see-it" kind of films, though I honestly didn't know much about it. I think I was expecting it to be a feel-good-Hollywood-ending kind of experience. What I got was a journey through the war of art.

I found myself tearing up many times throughout the film, the conversations and experiences of the characters resonating so deeply with my own life experience. But what finally sent the tears flowing was the scene in which one of the characters is trying to get the other to come back for one more audition...probably her one-thousandth. The two argue a bit, and he finally says, "Why won't you do it?"

"Because it hurts too much."

In the scene that follows, she sings a song that traces her journey as an artist.

A bit of madness is key to give us new colors to see 

Who knows where it will lead us?
And that's why they need us

So bring on the rebels 

The ripples from pebbles 

The painters, and poets, and plays 

And here's to the fools who dream 

Crazy, as they may seem 

Here's to the hearts that break 

Here's to the mess we make

It is indeed messy in my studio. The floor is littered with wrong notes and failed phrasings and tears. I spent awhile crying with Mozart this week. I may have yelled at Schubert a time or two. I fought some battles in myself, even just getting myself to that bench to begin with...let alone keeping my butt planted on it for any length of time.

But here's to the mess. Because today in that crowd of people, I knew for myself, This is what I can do. This is what I must do. Because Pete was right: we need those crazy artists and the foolish dreamers. Because it's hard to argue with each other when you're singing together.

the possibility of sky

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.

- Frederick Buechner

As I reflect on the passing year, my mind centers on a word that I have been chewing on for quite some time now: gratitude. It has been an intentional practice in my life for a number of years. I keep a gratitude journal and regularly track the blessings, large and small, that fall by the bucketful on my head.

This year, the intensity, intentionality, and even sense of urgency, of my practice deepened, as I began to see the roots of bitterness in the lives of the people around me. I reflected on this, and on the ugly parts of myself that have the potential to harden into bitterness. And I sought an answer to the nagging question: how do I prevent this? How can I remain soft, open, compassionate, joyful towards the people and world around me?  The answer was clear: the best cure, and even preventative measure, for bitterness is gratitude. 

I was sharing this with a friend this fall, and through our conversation, I began to see the patterns in our culture that often feed our bitterness. It is our American practice to ask each other how we are - and unfortunately, it's more of a greeting now, than an intentional question. But we often respond negatively: I'm tired, stressed, overwhelmed, just OK, busy. And as I continued to ponder this, the question arose: how would we change if we replaced this greeting with, what are you thankful for?

So this has become our practice, my friend and I, when we see each other. No meaningless how-are-you's allowed. Only expressions of thankfulness. And over time, our practice has been refined. A few ground rules have been established. The answer must be true, pure - not twinged with sarcasm. How often do we issue a complaint, shrouded in a cloak of thanksgiving? 

But what a beautiful thing it is to fill the well with truth, to dispel the darkness, to starve the bitter roots. How energizing and life-giving it is to be on the lookout for the gifts, to cultivate an awareness for the things that are so often rendered invisible by our preoccupation with productivity. I find myself keeping track of the blessings throughout the day, ready to give an answer when the question comes. I struggle to give just one answer when there is so much to rejoice in!

~~~

A few nights ago, I had a dream.  Well, I'm not sure if you can technically call it a dream. It occurred in the no-man's-land between fully-awake and out-cold. For some inexplicable reason, a memory broke loose from the hidden recesses of my brain and danced its way across my consciousness. And upon further consideration, I now realize that the event it recalled was ten years ago this year.

I was fulfilling my maid of honor duties, attending a bridal shower thrown by the bride's college friends, most of whom I'd never met. One of them, a kind, thoughtful soul, happened to share my name - a rarity for me, especially with someone my own age. Our conversation turned, quite naturally, to the topic of names. She had grown to love exploring their meanings and implications and asked me what I thought of ours. I laughed as I told her about the little name card I'd been given as a child, which identified the meaning as "blessed fragrance." It couldn't be further from the truth. The name is Hebrew in origin, a derivative of the word "mara" - the word for "bitter." Not exactly high on the list of "names you should give your child to bring them health and prosperity." 

She asked if I'd like to hear her take on it, and naturally, I obliged. She began to talk about the most famous Mary, the mother of Jesus. It was a dark time in Jewish history, she said; the people were angry at God, weary of the weight of the Roman oppression, wondering if He would ever break His silence (a silence that lasted 400 years). Why hadn't He sent a savior to them, to lead them to freedom? How long would they have to wait? 

She went on: how beautiful, then, that salvation would come through the womb of a woman named Mary - in the face of their bitterness. So, she smiled, I prefer to think of it, not as 'bitter', but instead as 'conqueror of bitterness.'  Now there's a meaning I can get on board with.

~~~

Who knows what brought that memory to mind as I lay silent in the dark? Who knows what thought or conversation plucked it loose from its place on some forgotten shelf? 

But how beautiful to see the evidence of life, of growth, of hidden streams beneath the frozen surface, of the belief in the possibility of sky, even in the midst of total darkness. Who knew that a seed scattered 10 years ago in a two-minute conversation with a perfect stranger would take root? Who knew that under the dry, crusty, rocky soil, there were forces of life at work? Who knew that this practice of gratitude would sprinkle water and light and nutrients on a long-forgotten seed? Who knew that that seed would wrestle its way to the surface and send a shoot blazing through the cold, hard earth?

~~~

As I write, the snow falls softly outside. I have long been mystified by the fact that we celebrate the new year now, in the middle of winter, when the outside world speaks of nothing but death and cold and darkness. It seems the most illogical time to speak of new life and hope and light. The ground is cold, frozen solid, buried under a foot of snow. Spring seems an impossibility; how could anything survive in this icy darkness? And yet, here we are, turning our faces into the bitter cold, looking forward with expectation, with joy, with gratitude.