Anna and her cousin, Alyssa
It’s almost that time of the year! Anna is performing this weekend with TRYPS in Scrooge: The Musical. She plays the part of Miss Dilber. It is the 10th anniversary of TRYPS and their director, Jill Womack, does a fantastic job of bringing energy and vision to each production.
Last week I was walking across campus with a friend and colleague, Terry Martin who teaches art at William Woods University. Terry was telling me a fascinating story about a autistic girl in one of his past art classes. Young Katherine had sketched a spiral pattern on paper and when Terry asked her to talk about it, she said it was a picture of God. The point in the center of the page meant that God is the smallest of all things. The spiraling line extending off the page meant that God is bigger than all things.
The child’s insights are profound. For as long as people have thought about these things, they have used spatial metaphors to stress both God’s transcendence and God’s immanence. God is the great, mysterious “Other”, the Holy One who is high above the heavens, “in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.” God is more than our eyes can behold and unlike anything else we can know or experience. And yet, and yet….God is near to us. He is present and in the neighborhood. The God who is big enough to fill all in all is all big enough to become small. Taken together, the insights suggest that God is both without and within and that faith needs both a telescope and a microscope. Now, how do you draw that?
Follow the lead of a little girl. When Terry told me this story, a flurry of biblical texts came to mind. Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet said so long ago, a “little child shall lead them.” Jesus reminded us centuries later, “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” and “out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.”
Or take Picasso who is reported to have said, “"It took me four years to paint like Raphael; it took me a lifetime to learn to paint like a child."
The original sketch is long since gone but I encouraged Terry to paint a piece in tribute to the little girl. Here is Terry’s artwork and what follows is the story in his own words.
The announcement that President Barack Obama was awarded the coveted Nobel Peace Prize reminds me of when my son Jonathan was four years old and had just started violin lessons. And I mean, he had just started violin lessons. His teacher insisted that he be included in the upcoming recital of her students. So there he was, with his older siblings and all of the other children at various levels of ability and accomplishment. Some were playing a Brahms’ Waltz; others performing Handel’s Chorus from Judas Maccabaeus. And halfway through the spring recital was Jonathan doing a “Pre-Twinkle Demonstration.” His performance consisted of him dressing up really fancy, walking to the front of the recital hall, looking at the audience, holding his violin a certain way and taking a bow. Our part was to applaud generously, like he had just performed Minuet from Mozart or had just won the Nobel Peace Prize! I thought to myself, what a lucky little guy! He is honored as much if he had actually practiced and played a piece of music. The psychology behind this is what I”m calling a preemptive stroke: the applause precedes the accomplishment. For the record, Jonathan lost an interest in violin, somewhere in the first flickers of a twinkling, little star. I pray for better things with our prize-winning President.
Every few months Miss Rollings, my son’s violin teacher, will host a group lesson at her home. On those Saturday mornings, her studio room is packed with students and parents, as well as Buddy her dog, a black cat named Moggy and some bright fish in the corner aquarium.
I enjoy these occasions for a number of reasons. To start with, I delight in hearing the music. The music is usually effective at lulling me into some moments of calm. But I also like the method of instruction. Resembling the old, one-room school house, the students have different levels of ability and experience. There is a small blond-haired boy in colorful glasses who has to be coaxed by his mother into standing up with the rest of the group. He is learning how to hold the instrument between his chin and shoulder and where to place his fingers on the string. On the other side of the room, there is a father who has decided in the middle of life to learn the violin, so he can make music with his ten-year old daughter who is also just starting out. Standing taller than the younger children, there are a handful of more advanced students who have been doing this for years. Their skills have been honed through thousands of hours of practice so that they make a complicated piece play beautifully. And here they all are, together in one room.
As Miss Rollings calls out a song, those who know the song remain standing. Those who don’t, sit down. When the few more accomplished violinists finish a rousing performance of Handel’s “Sonata”, then it is time for a more basic piece. Everyone will then stand up to play an introductory song from Book One such as “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.”
The song selections alternate between the familiar and the unfamiliar. When the novices cannot participate, they sit and listen, learning to recognize the sounds of excellence and the rewards of hard work. When the beginners can play a song, all participate, including the most advanced students. The “experts” learn that they are never too old to practice their scales or play the early songs. Join in they must.
Learning life is a lot like learning an instrument. It takes a lot of practice. There are a lot of missed notes. There are moments when you think you’ll never get past “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. And then, thankfully, there are times when your life actually sounds like music. Maybe not concert quality. Maybe not as well as you’d like it to play. But music nonetheless: beautiful, satisfying, rhythmic and passionate.
And here’s something else I believe. We’re all in this together. Some of us have been learning the ways of Jesus for a long time. Some of us are just starting out. But all of us need practice in the basic scales of gratitude and reverence, forgiveness and compassion. All of us need to watch and listen so we can remember how the song goes when things gets complicated. And most important, all of us need God.
Today Elizabeth is 10 years old, which means I have no more children in single digits. We’ll celebrate next weekend, but today, on her actual birthday, the girls kicked off the season of feasting with a tea party featuring a menu of Dr. Pepper, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Rolos for dessert.
Yesterday, Jason and Amy dropped off their three-year-old son John Clyde at our place and went to watch the latest Harry Potter film. Caleb was playing Legos with little John when I came around the corner. John was seated in a catcher’s crouch and had a look of consternation on his face. He was about to cry. “I’m scared”, he said.
“What are you scared of?” I asked.
“I’m scared of something.”
I picked him up and told him everything was going to be all right.
“Your parents will be here in just a few minutes.”
Then I discovered that my right forearm was getting wet and warm. (Ah, that’s what he’s scared of.)
Fortunately, his mom had sent an extra change of clothes along in case he failed his early exam in Potty Training 101. After he got down from the toilet, I was handing him his clean, look-a-like underwear and jean shorts when he looked at me like the kid in Sixth Sense (“I see dead people”). John Clyde said, “I’m scared of my pants.”
Then, I had to convince him that these were new, dry, safe britches and that I was not asking him to put on his wet ones again. In all of this, the official sitter – Caleb, seemed to suddenly disappear like he was on union break. Imagine that.
I consoled little John Clyde with the words of one Sebastian Valfar: “When this is all over, you will not regret having suffered; rather, you will regret having suffered so little, and having that little so badly.”
Caleb’s text message:
Went to tavern on the green. Amazing blackberry cobbler and salmon, creme brulle (?) not so good. savannah threw ice at me. tried to deflect it and knocked my soda over and on to me (this was before the meal). central park is awesome!!! we took a buggy ride around it. saw a necklace i might get for anna later (shhh)
getting ready to see phantom of the opera so i’ll have phone turned off in a few minutes
Caleb and Anna are in New York City with their grandmother. After attending a wedding on Saturday, Caleb sent me this text message from the airport.
“Hey dad, not sure what time we got back the reception went past ten. nicki 
was sick and barfing. they startwd the toasts and the last person to toast said something that ended with a wise man once said and it was something elvis said in a song and as he finished some guy pretending to be elvis came out and everyone cheered. I dont think that even the parents knews about that. suzannes bf forgot his tie jacket and the flower that goes on the jacket so they didn’t match but he borrowed the jacket and tie from a friend. the chicken was great and the steak was bland so i let nana have the chicken. the cake was very good. it tasted like cookie dough. anna says I text very slowly….Scott has me on the lookout for two lego towers he wants to complete his set.”
After taking eight kids camping last night, unwillingly keeping the monastic hours (finding Kleenex at 3:30 am for Elly; escorting Anna to the park bathrooms at 4:30 am and asking Garret to turn off his cell phone alarm which was blasting a song at 5:30 am) and spending today at Six Flags with my young novitiates, I am, in my fatigue, pondering profound existential questions, such as: why am I here?
The children and I made a day trip this week to the Current River in southern Missouri. It was an exceptional day: the water clear, the temperatures mild, the sky a brilliant blue and the river quiet. We came home missing a sandal, an athletic shoe, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of underwear. Anticipating the possibility that some disenchanted evening to come, one of my sons will sue me for defamation of character, I will not tell the underwear story. Suffice it to say, he responded to nature’s call three hours from our destination; we preserved the ecosystem; John Muir would be proud and we shared a good laugh.
Here are a few pictures:
Leaving Cedargrove
Anna braving the cold water
future noodler in the family?
A journal of reflections on things seen and unseen, wimsical and wise, ordinary and odd, magical and mundane
