Last week I had a wonderful surprise. I sat to lunch with Jim and Penny with whom I am so honored to live in community. The surprise was that Dan and Regina were also at that table. Given that they live in Zambia, it's a most welcome treat to breathe the same air for those two hours.
Dan asked me how music is going. He asked me how things are with Suzanne. He asked me the direct questions a concerned father asks when he knows he's got only minutes to catch up on a year's worth of conversation. I see Dan maybe twice a year. He has been given by God to many people and I treasure any chance we have to connect and sit at the same table.
Reality check. Music may or not be going. I do not know. It is stirring inside me still, distilling always, constantly telling and retelling a story I recognize as it unfolds, yet do not know before it comes to me. My first CD cost a lot of money. I still owe a man $8500 on that project. I feel like a thief as the months go by that I cannot pay this man. I feel like a fool, when I realize how much better I like the cd we made by accident on Isaac's couch for a grand total of $100.
Life is coming full circle, it seems. I began as a man with guitar and grew into various ensembles and configurations. I've been blessed to work with great musicians. Now it's me and this piece of wood again. It's broken. I broke it, stupidly. I was angry at Suzanne and I hit the guitar. That's pretty dumb, right? Yeah, that's me.
Some of you think I'm depressed and you send me "cheer up" messages. I think there's more going on than that. In the same conversations that call me to death, I am also being called to dance. Maybe I am to dance the dance of death? Is there such a thing? Are there cultures that tradition the death dance? Google will know.
When I say I am dissonant against God's will, here's another attempt at conveying my meaning. I love it that He called me to be a musician, but it has caused so much hurt to me. Music is one of the things He's asked of me, and I knew years ago that it would bring about more struggle than I wish to encounter. I would have liked to have a comfortable, predictable life. I did not want this, but I also would not trade it.
The dissonance lies in the discrepancy between what I know and what I feel. I know I make music because it's the way I'm designed. I feel foolish to have created such a huge debt to a man I now cannot pay.
I know the Lord wants me to continue pursuing Suzanne. I feel like it's futile and going nowhere. I'm surrounded by loving friends who interpret the circumstance as God leading me to move on. After all, if it was His will that I be reunited to my wife, then wouldn't it have happened by now? And if He did in fact purpose for me to be a musician, wouldn't I have succeeded by now? Great questions, both.
I do not have an answer. I am alive. I sing because I breathe. I play where I'm invited.
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