Several posts this morning struck me as I wandered the highcallingblogs.com network.
First, new comer Sarah Fry thinks about practice and discipline as a way to tune our ears. It is a rich metaphor that she doesn’t pin down, inspired by Heifetz playing a Bach Chaconne.
In fact, scroll down to the bottom of this post and click play on the video below. Listen to that music while you read this. (I’ve made the links open in new windows, so you can keep listening while you read Sarah and L.L. and PapaPoet and Ginger.)
I’m listening while I write.
We can share this moment, these words and music–together on my screen and my speakers–will be together on yours as well.
Sarah expresses her struggle with the discipline and craft and practice required to perform music well. It’s a struggle that has left her at times…
Feeling frustrated that the walk, the dedication, seemed so difficult to master. Wishing that it would be easier. Wanting so desperately to hold perfection. But muscle memory only comes from practice.
Then, I visited my buddy, L.L. Lo and behold, she’s thinking about music and artistry and prophecy. Go Ahead, Artist, Prophesy, she says and describes the many, many temple duties listed in 1 Chronicles. Finally, L.L. concludes…
This is a picture of the body of Christ. We all work together to prophesy, to show and declare God’s word.
What a reminder! Prophesy isn’t a series of cheap predictions. It is our art. It is our work. It is my family and friendships and all relationships. It is simple things too. This blog post. The comments people might leave. Prophesy is a human life attempting to declare God’s Word.
Then, Ginger Geyer warned me again about perfection and practice and art. Compassion May Require Scuba Gear is an article at TheHighCalling.org that gave me huge html code headaches last week. But this week, receiving public and private comments from readers, I am reminded of its power.Ginger helps me remember what it means to be perfect and what it means to declare God’s word:
Teleios—to realize the purpose for which you were created. Completeness, wholeness, and authenticity are gained not by setting them up as a target.
Finally, my dad posted one of my all-time favorite poems at PapaPoet.com: “batter my heart three-person’d God.”
Reading these posts. Listening to Bach again and again as I write this, my heart is beginning to feel battered.
What is it about music? I love the logic and precision of good science, but nothing moves me like powerful music. It overwhelms me. It imprisons me. It enthralls me. It ravishes me.
The music of poetry has the same effect. And like Donne, I ask,
Batter my heart, three-person’d God…
… and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
And God does make me new–through music. Through poetry. Through these words I’m writing while I listen. Maybe even through these words you’ve read as you listened. Maybe even through the comments you’ll leave as we all work together to prophesy, to show and declare God’s work.
NOTE: My good friend and music minister, James Erwin moved on to a new church this weekend. The choir met as usual last night and we all did our best without him. I guess this post is really for James and the choir. May God help us to prophesy through the hymns and anthems in the next few weeks and declare his work as we sing.
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Thanks for the links. I’ll check them all out today while I’m reading. I saw your dad’s poem title, but haven’t gotten there to read it yet. What an amazing title.
real live preacher, I assume you mean the poem’s title, not the title of this post.
It’s John Donne. Great great poem. One of the best Christian poems in the English language, I think. It made me happy to see my dad reprint it this morning.
I read Ginger’s article the same day I listened to Friction on EscapePod. Together they left me stunned. Ginger reminds us that compassion means “suffering with.” An attribute that seems impossible to attain (he says as he fall into the perfection trap) and is only approached by knowing the Master and sacrificing self.
I loved the story Friction. (Other readers, you can hear it here if you’re interested.)
Thank you for your comment on my blog. This is an interesting blog entry too.
The violin is beautiful, really. I love the title of Ginger’s article too.
And in the end you begin to get at the implications of prophecy that comes through life, art, being. It tells us things that science cannot. (Don’t get me wrong; I am a great lover of science!) But God’s truth must bubble up through a host of expressions; even then, we only glimpse it.
What is it about that orange disappearing High Calling graphic? Now you see it, now you don’t.
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