God

Counting Measures

Counting Measures

Every musician in the orchestra has to know how to do two things: how to make beautiful sounds and how to keep beautiful silences. If everyone played at once the music could not breathe. In those silences the player is not idle, nor drifting, nor detached. He is listening to the other notes, keeping his place in the flow and his eye on the conductor. What you don’t see is that he is counting measures.

There are times when he is playing the notes written on his own score, listening to the other players, carefully matching pitch and tempo and dynamics- playing in harmony. Then there are those brief moments when it is his turn for a solo, for the few bars where his instrument alone is intended to shimmer against the background laid down by the other performers.

The readiness is all. Years of lessons, hours of practice come to the fore when he is called upon to step out alone and let his light shine for a brief but glorious interval. It is the discipline of long periods of just counting measures that allow him to make his entrance and exit at the exact right moment.

During those silent times, when it seems that no one is watching or listening, that the sound of your instrument is not being heard at all, remember that you aren’t idle or sidelined; your place in the orchestra is secure and your notes are essential. Keep your eyes on the conductor while you keep that beautiful silence. Keep counting the measures, enjoying the music that surrounds you ; always leaning slightly forward, ready and able and waiting for your turn.

The Passion

The Passion. A response, poetic.

Heart wide-open,
Shocked open.
Agony of empathy
made every beat a pulsation of pain.
But then,
the balm was laid in
to the place of the open wound,
with a surgeon’s skill- this surely brought us
a comfort of peace.
What is this gift of God?

How can something so ethereal simply enter the ear
And soothe the soul that stretches inside a man,
From the roots of his hair to the nails of his toes?

The cruelest piercings ran head to toe.
Not a halo, but cursed thorns surrounded and
spilled a series of scarlet rivulets
that ran over his shoulders
and continued
down
to the place they would meet the
bruised heel,
held fast against the splintered wood
by the coarsest of nails.
Arms that did not need to be forced open
revealed the heart laid bare,
laid open and broken.

Just to watch,
Weeping,
My eyes as wide open as I could force them to be.
This was the smallest part of sharing in Your sufferings.

But most memorable on that most memorable of nights?
It was the comfort of Your love,
expressed from each to each.
Comforts were
warmth of firelight,
heat of sweet tea,
a meal marinated in gratitude
from the making to the receiving.
Warm dog eyes, breath, and the press of his head,
The silence of a togetherness of solitude.

And ultimately the music
that entered and did its work of washing,
giving us the only way possible to express the
fullness of our worship and Your worth.
Again You poured out your gift to us through
The heart and head and hands
of Your child ;
A collecting pool midway
down
the cascade.
We stood under the waterfall and felt the splash of refreshment.
First, a time to listen ,
Then a time to join in
In the song of our love
for You.
Our passion.

Your passion.

Gail Bones June 21, 2004