Longing for the good life
July 27, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 15 Comments
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“Excuse me,” I said, “can you help me with this? I have no idea what I’m doing.”
The twenty-something man—Kurt was on the nametag, with Can I Help You? under that—looked at me and smiled. When he did, the ring in his nose inched upward in a way that reminded me of winking. I fought the urge to reach out and pull on it.
“First time?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Well, things are tough all over, right?”
Since it’s just the two of us, he makes his way around the counter. The first shift at the factory would be over in fifteen minutes, which meant he had about twenty to get me taken care of before the afternoon rush. No problem. I’d be out of there by then.
“Here.” He pulled one of the slips from the kiosk and reached for a tiny green pencil with VA LOTTERY stamped on the side. “Here’s your ticket. You have five choices, just fill in the numbers you want.” He pointed to one of the boxes at the bottom—“Powerball goes here. Easy peasy.”
I thanked Kurt and he left me to brew more coffee and add another roll of quarters to the register drawer. If I’d asked him, he would have said he was getting ready for the rush. But I suspect that’s a lie, the truth being something a bit more esoteric—a person needs his privacy while choosing his lotto numbers.
That was the first time I’d ever played the lottery. And while Kurt was right when he said things were tough all over, that’s not why I played. It’s research for my next novel, a story in which the lottery plays an important role. And since I couldn’t very well write about something I didn’t know, off to the 7-11 I went.
But there was more than simple ignorance working against me. There was also disdain. I’ve never been a fan of the lottery. I’ve seen what it does to people. I frequent the 7-11 in town often, and each time I see the poorer folk of my fair town preyed upon by the false gods of riches and good fortune, plunking down dollar after dollar that would be better spent on bills and groceries. They say the Virginia lottery paves our roads and saves us money. That might be so. But all that makes me do is think about my smooth ride to and from work and how my comfort is surfaced by the unrealized dreams of others.
But I played anyway. Just to learn, just to write. Filled out one ticket and handed it to Kurt, who exchanged it for a receipt that went into my pocket. I left just as the afternoon rush pulled in.
The Powerball drawing was that night at 10:55 pm. I’ll be honest, I thought about my ticket more than a few times. Thought about it when the mailman shoved six bills into the box. When I remembered the grumblings of cutbacks at work. When I thought about just how better my family’s life could be with a few million dollars in the bank.
You don’t have to say it. The “Money isn’t everything” line , I mean. I know that. Believe it, too.
But still.
I sat there in front of the television and waited for the man in the cheap tuxedo and the woman in the sequined dress whom Kurt said would announce the winner. Sat there and watched as the big lotto machine whirred to life and all those numbered ping pong balls fluttered in the air. Sat there and dreamed of a life when finally—finally—I wouldn’t have to worry about electric bills and gas money and if the water heater was going kaput.
And you know what? It was a good life. It really was.
And also a life that evaporated in the twelve seconds it took for the machine to spit out the winning numbers.
I’d lost. Terribly. I’d lost as bad as a person could. Didn’t even get one number right.
Yet I still remember that world my longings built, one where want and worry were nonexistent and where I could exchange one set of problems for other, hopefully less intense ones. And I suppose that’s why so many people line up in front of Kurt each day. They don’t want to let that dream go, no matter how elusive and impossible—perhaps even immoral—they may be.
But then I ponder the fact that we all long for fairer lands, no matter how fair our surroundings here are. We’ll always want more or better or different. The learned among us call that a flaw.
Not me.
I think longing is a blessing. No matter how much its barbs and spurs prick, I welcome them.
Because we all long for fairer lands, and that is a holy longing. A beacon from God.
Guiding us home.
In the name of Jayzus!
July 25, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 14 Comments
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I was winning.
Nothing too strange about that. The backyard baseball games with my son are usually close on purpose, which is much more important than who wins or loses. Sometimes I let him win in an effort to teach him how to be a gracious victor. And sometimes I makes sure he loses, because being a gracious failure is equally important. He’s going to face both triumph and setback in life. Best to teach him about both now, when he’s young.
This time, though, I was going to leave the end result to him. He would win or lose on his own, and it all came down to one pitch.
So.
Tie game, two outs, last inning. A homerun (in our backyard, homeruns are anything that passes the maple tree in the air) wins. Anything else, and he’d have to wait until the next evening to try again. Mother and sister were on the porch, watching and cheering. He took his stance, glared, and tapped on the rock we used for home plate.
I had already started my windup when he called time. Rather than take another practice swing or spit, he raised his hands in the air, looked to the heavens, and said, “In the name of Jayzus, lemme hit a homer!”
Laughter from the porch. I wrinkled my brow. Said, “What are you doing?”
“Heard it on the radio,” he told me. “Preacher said God gives me anythin’ if I ask in the name of Jayzus.”
Oh. Jayzus = Jesus. Okay then.
He stepped back in, tapped the bat on the rock. Glared. I threw. He hit.
Over the maple tree. Homerun.
That’s how it started.
Since then, the name of Jayzus has been bandied about quite often in our house. I heard it the next evening when my son lost the Lego spaceship he’d built—“In the name of Jayzus, come back to me!” Heard it again a few hours later—“In the name of Jayzus, save me from the bathtub!”
And then this morning—“In the name of Jayzus, let me at a Pop-Tart and not eggs!”
Comical, yes. And I suppose it’s even more comical that in all those instances, things worked out just the way he wanted. He did find his Lego spaceship. And since he’d stayed indoors all day because it was about a million degrees outside, we allowed him to forgo his bath. And we were out of eggs this morning, out of everything really. Except for Pop-Tarts.
My son thinks he has quite a thing going on here. He believes he’s just stumbled on the secret to life, that he’s won some sort of supernatural lottery. You should see him strutting around.
Me, I say nothing. Sometimes it’s best to let these things play out on their own. Sticking my Daddy Nose into it, telling him he’s really kind of wrong about the whole thing, won’t work. The big things in life tend to be the ones you have to learn on your own.
Besides, I really don’t think I’m qualified to add any wisdom. Not with this. Because I pretty much do the same thing.
I use God as a rabbit’s foot. I tend to keep him around in my pocket and pull Him out whenever there’s trouble. Not so much when I lose a Lego spaceship, but definitely when I want something bad to go away. Or when I want something good to get a little closer.
Or just when I want.
Truth is, I’m no better than my son.
Maybe what’s best is that I talk to him about this after all. Just be honest and say that yes, he’s doing something wrong, but so am I. And maybe we can figure out this thing together.
Because God wants us all to love Him for who He is, not for what He can give.
Where you belong
July 20, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 15 Comments
Last January, satellite pictures of the Amazon rain forest revealed the presence of a hidden community living in three clearings in the Javari Valley, which lies near the Brazil/Peru border. Subsequent flight expeditions over the region confirmed about 200 people lived in the tiny village. Not a big deal, really. Despite notions to the contrary, the Amazon is home to many communities. What set this community apart, however, was that it had never been seen before. Scientists had stumbled upon a tribe of people unknown to the world.
I confess to a geeky side. News stories such as that one rock my world. Imagine that in an age of telescopes that can see into the farthest reaches of the universe and submarines that can reach the very depths of the ocean, there are still entire cultures that have somehow managed to remain hidden in the untrodden places of our fair planet. Cut off from civilization, blissfully ignorant of things like debt ceilings and Charlie Sheen and Jersey Shore. It’s a storyline straight out of Indiana Jones.
It’s enough to make me giddy.
It’s also enough to make me wonder what happiness they must enjoy. Imagine being able to live life unfettered by nasty things like time and career. You rise with the sun, venture into the jungle to either kill or dig up some breakfast, and eat it in a hammock surrounded by your family and friends. Repeat again for lunch and dinner. Maybe weave a basket or have a dance. Watch the kids play with critters and pets. Make sure the fire has plenty of wood. Go check the crops, then maybe visit your buddy who lives in the next hut to shoot the breeze and engage in a bit of gossip. Watch the sun go down. Go to bed. Do it all again the next day.
No taxes to pay or commutes to endure. No 401k to watch as it shrinks into oblivion. And who cares about gas prices when you’ve never even seen a car? No, the busy world you’ve never seen simply passes you by and leaves you alone. No muss, no fuss, just a hammock and the jungle around you.
I’ll be honest, I envy those people. They don’t know how good they have it.
Regardless of how much I long to chuck it all, fly to the Amazon, and apply for admission into the tribe, it won’t happen. The Brazilian government has a strict policy regarding uncontacted tribes. They are not to be bothered.
But just in case I would get that chance, I could see myself trekking down some forgotten jungle path and coming across the tribal chief, who would invite me to his hut for a little food and a lot of talk. And more than likely, he’d look at me and laugh.
“What are you doing here?” he’d ask. “What, you think WE have it good? Really? Tell you what, you try growing all your food in the jungle. Doesn’t always work, you know. And it’s not like you can just run down to the Food Lion for some chips and dip if the animals and the weather take your crops. Which happens, like, ALL the time.
“You can go hunting. Lots of animals in the jungle to eat. Of course, most of them will just as soon eat YOU. Try stepping on a snake or a spider or running across a panther. Tell me how that goes for you. And you better hope you don’t run into anyone from the tribe down the river, because they’ll just as soon kill you as let you pass.
“Can’t go to the hospital, either. We don’t have one here. We have a doctor of course, and he’s a real smart guy, but in the end the only thing he can do is pray to the gods and give you some plants to eat. Plants don’t cure everything, you know. And the gods…well, let’s just say they do their thing and we do ours. We don’t understand them, we just try to keep them happy.
“Sure, you can stay. You’ll probably live a few more years, most of us make it to 50 or so before we’re so worn out that we drop. That’s assuming you don’t get bitten or eaten or killed, though. Actually, why don’t you just run on back home where you belong.”
At which point I probably would.
And I would take with me this lesson: Life is tough. Doesn’t matter who you are or where you are. We’re all looking for something better, we’re all stressed, we’re all struggling for a little hope.
In a world that seems determined to point out our differences, those are similarities we will always share.
Choosing stubbornness
July 18, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 5 Comments
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My children are arguing.
Not exactly breaking news, of course. Kids fight. It’s one of those givens in life that are about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning or a hot day in July. Blame it on summer vacation. I think they’re just tired of each other.
I’m not sure what caused the conflict; I just got home from work and caught the tail end of it. Something to do with Legos, from what I gather. Or an errant water balloon. One of those. Or maybe it was something else all together. You never can tell with kids. Kids can argue about anything.
I get caught up to speed by my wife, who doesn’t really know what the conflict is about herself. She was in the kitchen fixing dinner at the time. There was just a thump and a scream, followed by yells and accusations. That was enough for her. She sent both of the kids to their rooms to calm down.
I walk down the hallway to their bedrooms to say hello and gauge the amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth and find the Go To Your Room rule broken. My son is in my daughter’s room. She’s sitting Indian-style on the bed. He stands in front of her. Both are talking. Each have their arms crossed.
These are some serious negotiations, which is why I don’t barge in, make a Daddy Arrest, and charge them with not abiding by their mother’s wishes. It isn’t often that I have the opportunity to listen in on my children’s discussions. More often then not, they clamp up as soon as I enter the room and offer little more than, “Yes, Daddy?” I get plenty of opportunities to learn about what they think and believe in my conversations with them, but most times that seems like only half the story. What you think and say when your father or mother is around is often quite different than when it’s just you and a sibling in the room.
So I put my daughter’s bedroom wall between us and listen.
“I didn’t hit you on purpose,” my son says.
“Yes you did,” says my daughter. “You liked it. I saw it in your eyes.”
“You can’t see in my eyes. And you should have gotten out of my way.”
“I didn’t want to. It’s MY house too, you know.”
I’m not going to play anymore until you say you’re sorry.”
“Well I’M not going to play anymore until YOU say YOU’RE sorry.”
“All I was trying to do was get a Lego.”
“Well all I was trying to do is get a Lego, too.”
And on. And on and on.
Rather than interrupt, I decide to let them be. My kids will work this out, they always do. And then things will be fine until the next skirmish. I suspect my home isn’t much different than any other in that peaceful times are merely those few quiet days between wars of both opinion and blame.
In the meantime, I retire to the television and the evening news. Which, by the way, is much the same news as yesterday and the day before. Still the arguing, still the blaming. The system is broken, they say. I’m inclined to agree. Especially since the people who made the system are broken as well.
A commercial appears, one of those thirty-second spots about scooters old folk can ride around in to make themselves feel useful again (free cup holder included!).
The news is back, this time given by a pretty blond rather than a non-pretty man, as if bad news could seem a little better if she is the one telling it. She wonders aloud how we fix the problems in Washington, then poses the question to an educated man in a pair of thick glasses.
That’s when I turn the television off. I don’t need to listen to a pretty blond or an educated man to know how to fix things. I already know fixing them is pretty much impossible.
Because in the end, we’ll always prefer arguing rather than talking.
And we’ll always choose stubbornness over compromise.
We’ll always strive to reinforce our own opinions rather than admit those opinions might be wrong.
Call me pessimistic, that’s just how I see it.
Because our politicians really are representative of us all, if not in political philosophy then in brokenness.
Which means the adults we send to Washington aren’t really all that different than the kids we send to their rooms.
Last week, Jay Leno introduced the following video as a meeting between the republicans and democrats in Washington. Maybe not, but the similarities are striking:
Dear Casey Anthony
July 13, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
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Dear Casey Anthony,
I have to say I’m probably the only person in the world who didn’t know about you two weeks ago. That’s not to say I keep myself ill-informed of what’s going on in the world. I don’t. In fact, I think I probably know more than I should.
It’s just that when it comes to murdered children…well, that’s the sort of thing of which I do try to keep myself ill-informed. I have kids, you see. I worry about them and fear for them enough. I figure I really don’t need another reason to do more.
That’s why I ignored you as best I could. Sure, there were a few times when I’d come across a newspaper story or some television commentary. But I turned either the page or the channel. I didn’t want to see you, didn’t want to read about you. No offense intended. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
But then came the trial and then the verdict, and it was pretty much impossible for anyone to do anything without hearing about you. So I did start to pay attention. I wanted to know what it was about you that had struck such a nerve in so many people, and I wanted to know what that said about us.
I’m neither theologian nor philosopher, just a guy in a hat. I won’t use this space to excoriate you (plenty have done that, right or wrong) or laude our justice system (ditto). I’ll just say this:
I’m not sure why you got all that attention. Ours is a world in which many children such as your own go missing and are found dead. And like you, their accusers are brought in front of judges and juries to be found guilty or innocent. I’ll leave the answers as to why your case became the focus rather than another to those smarter than I. But I do think ours is a society that must be entertained. We may walk straight in our going about, but inside our hearts are hooked downward. We crave the terrible and the depraved, and we found both in you.
We also found in you the culmination of our baser, more selfish selves. What parents in their weakest moments have not fantasized of a life of freedom from their children? Who has not secretly considered any means necessary to exchange a bland existence for one of fame and fortune? I suspect the difference between you and most is that those frail moments remain in our hidden places and yours were cast out into the world.
Much of the anger directed at you is justified. Much of that outrage, I think, is also a kind of fear. In you we see what evil results when we are untethered from responsibility and left to ourselves. We are reminded of the ease by which we can rationalize even the worst acts. We see the depths to which human beings can plumb.
I understand you’ll be free soon, at least the sort of freedom that imprisonment denies. I’ve heard of death threats and relocation plans. I’ve also heard of agents being hired and books being planned. Movies being discussed. And a desire for more children.
I think in the end, that’s what bothers people most. We have an inherent desire for justice, for the guilty to be punished and the innocent redeemed. For many, you are but one piece of evidence among many to prove that desire is an empty one that cannot be filled in this world.
Fair or not, in the end we see that a blameless child has been killed and her mother will now receive the wealth and attention she so coveted. I suppose that’s where we’ll end this. So much has already been said by so many people, and I hate to add to the pile. But I will say this before I go—you are not the first person to be hated in this world, nor the first to perhaps put your own wants before the needs of others in a search for some sort of earthly heaven. But as you step out from behind bars and into the world, you would do well to remember the many who have found that heaven and discovered it to be a hell.
Regards,
Billy
For reasons unknown
July 11, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 18 Comments
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Josh Hamilton was just a kid in 1999. The only difference between him and most other kids was that he was given four million dollars to play baseball.
He was a can’t-miss pick, the scouts said. A golden boy. A natural. But two years later he was involved in a car accident, and shortly thereafter began a downward spiral into drugs and alcohol. He was suspended by major league baseball for failing several drug tests. And just like that, The Natural was gone.
His story could have ended there, yet another sad tale of a promising athletic career ruined by personal demons. But somewhere along the way Josh Hamilton found something special that not only helped them beat those demons, but helped resurrect a career most considered dead.
He found faith.
The road back started with The Texas Rangers, who traded for him in 2007. Last year, he won the award for Most Valuable Player in a year that ended with the Rangers winning the American League Championship. When they celebrated afterward, the traditional champagne was replaced with ginger ale for Josh’s benefit.
He’s a favorite with baseball fans and open with his faith, giving glory to Christ rather than turning attention to himself. Josh Hamilton is a humble man. A good man. A natural.
Last Thursday a 39-year-old father named Shannon Stone took his young son Cooper to Arlington to watch the Rangers play. Cooper loves baseball, and he’s a big Josh Hamilton fan. And though the game itself was enough, both father and son knew what they were really there for. As they took their seats in the front row along the railing in left field just in front of Cooper’s favorite player, all they wanted was to catch a ball.
In the second inning a foul ball was hit down the line that Hamilton tossed into the stands. Someone yelled, “Hey, Hamilton, how about the next one?” He turned and saw Shannon sitting with Cooper and gave him a nod.
Another foul ball, this again in Hamilton’s direction, which he picked up and tossed in Shannon’s direction. The father reached for it, thrilled to get the ultimate souvenir.
He fell headfirst twenty feet over the railing onto the concrete below.
Paramedics rushed to the area. Shannon was bleeding was conscious—“Please check on my son,” he said. “My son was up there by himself.” He died before the paramedics could get him to the hospital.
It isn’t enough (at least not enough for me) to say in circumstances like these that sometimes bad things happen. Not enough to say that some things just don’t make sense, that dwelling upon them serves no purpose and the best thing to do is move on. I doubt little Cooper Stone is managing that feat at this moment. I doubt Josh Hamilton is, too.
“It was just hard for me, hearing the little boy screaming for his daddy after he had fallen,” he said, “and then being home with my kids, really hit home last night.”
He said his faith was not shaken, nor would the experience plunge him back into the abyss from which God pulled him four years ago. He plans to speak with Cooper when the time is right, and I have no doubt he will. I can only imagine how difficult that conversation will be.
If I’m honest, I’ll say what bothers me the most about this is the fact that Josh Hamilton was the one who threw that ball into the stands. He with the story of redemption and the lasting faith, rather than another player with perhaps no faith at all. It’s difficult enough as a believer to abide by the jabs and assaults of an increasingly secular world. Harder to know that for reasons unknown, God somehow allowed this man of faith to be involved in the death of a father in front of that father’s son.
Had the ball been thrown a bit harder, had it traveled an inch farther, had it been thrown to someone else, had the pitcher thrown a curve rather than a fastball or the batter taken the pitch rather than swing, this would not have happened.
Or maybe it would have. Maybe all of this is set in stone and our time is our time and there is no changing these things. God has His reasons, however flawed those reasons may seem to pitiable creatures such as we.
I do not know.
That is not the first time I’ve come to that conclusion. I’m sure it will not be the last.
A letter to me
July 6, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 28 Comments
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When helping your parents clean out their attic, it helps if you approach the task as a recovery mission. You aren’t discarding, you’re salvaging. I know this from experience. I did it three weeks ago.
We found the normal things—Christmas decorations long forgotten, toys long neglected, and several items of which no one can remember using, much less purchasing. We found not-so-normal things as well. Like the box of notebooks.
You could say I caught the writing bug early; I was filling notebooks before I understood what words were, drawing pictures of the sun and trees and describing them with an jumble of mismatched and incoherent letters. These, sadly, were not in the box.
The high school stuff was.
Lyrics mostly, as if the words to Skid Row’s “18 and Life” and Cinderella’s “Coming Home” were so moving, so utterly profound, that they warranted preservation for the ages.
There were thoughts as well. Plenty of them, all sopping with the angst and shallowness that define the teenage years. Some were laughable in their naivety—“The suddenness of life is a guarantee the soul is eternal.” Others, to my surprise, weren’t so bad at all—“We have lost much of the language of religion, but little of our longing for a faith in something larger than ourselves.”
Memories, all. Not the false ones either, the ones that are saccharine in the remembering. These were more a mixture of sweet and salty, proof that my recollections were true. Regardless, the decision of whether the box was to be discarded or salvaged was an easy one.
It all went to the junk pile save for a single sheet of paper torn from the notebook on top. The last page, as a matter of fact. Written two days before I graduated.
It was a letter. Not to the me I was then, but to the me I am now.
A portion:
“I don’t know who you are (hard to do that, especially since it’s tough enough knowing who I am). I don’t know what you’re doing, either. But I can make the sort of guess with both that people do when they see a falling star or a discarded eyelash, the sort of guess that has a wish at the end. So I’m guessing you’ve made it. I’m guessing you’re rich and famous and happy, and I’m guessing you’re far away. And I figure as long as I guess and wish those things, I’m going to be okay. Because that means I’ll eventually be you.”
I remembered writing that. It was late at night. I was outside, scribbling in my notebook while watching the stars and sneaking a Marlboro red. I remembered how I felt then—sweet and salty, so it must be true—knowing that part of my life was about to fall away and another was ready to begin.
I was afraid. Afraid of the world and my place in it. And in that fear I wrote that night with a sense of purity and honesty that even now I try to capture each time I reach for pen and paper.
I wrote those words in secrecy, and now, all these years later, I snatched them away in secrecy as well. No one saw me stash that letter into my pocket. I’ve kept it since on the top of my office desk, there and not there, like a sickness hidden from a doctor for fear it is a symptom of something more serious.
“So I’m guessing you’ve made it. I’m guessing you’re rich and famous and happy, and I’m guessing you’re far away. And I figure as long as I guess and wish those things, I’m going to be okay. Because that means I’ll eventually be you.”
I couldn’t let those four sentences go. They weren’t supposed to be disposed. They were supposed to be salvaged. I needed to answer myself.
Today is my birthday. I suppose by some sort of twisted logic, that’s why I waited until now to send a note of my own back in time. After all, birthdays are much like graduations. They are a falling away and a beginning.
So on my porch this morning in front of the mountains and the birds and the rising sun, I wrote this:
“I’m not rich. I’m not famous. And though twenty-one years separate us in time, only five miles separate us in distance. But I’ve found things greater than those, and I’ve become happy in the finding. Because the things you search for as a child are not the things you stumble upon as an adult, and thank God for that.”
It’s all music
July 5, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 13 Comments
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For the most part, I seem to be the only one immune to the music bug. Not so for the rest of my family. My wife caught it first, passed to her via a visit with the music leader at church. They were starting an instrument ensemble. My wife played the trombone in high school. Would be she interested in playing it again?
My daughter came down with it the following day. It was a variant—ivory keys rather than a brass horn—but just as bad a case. For the past week, she’s been practicing finger placement and note recognition at the piano in the dining room under the watchful eye of her mother.
Not to be outdone, my son has borrowed an acoustic guitar from the aforementioned music leader. He’s since become attached to it, would even sleep with it if I let him. We’re looking for a guitar instructor.
Fast.
Because, you see, whether just starting out or starting out again after years of neglect, making beautiful music requires three things—time, practice, and instruction.
All three are currently missing in the musical lives of my family.
It isn’t easy for me. My nerves are already frayed to the point of snapping. I’ve just finished driving my children home from their grandparents’ house, five miles of my son’s guitar and my daughter’s singing, both trying to match the perfectly-pitched tones of the Zac Brown Band’s “Knee Deep” that was wafting through the speakers. I’d spent much of that ride with my head out the driver’s side window, trying to escape the pain.
Yes, it’s that bad.
All you would need for proof of that is to be sitting here with me right now. Each of them are scattered throughout the house, trying to find music where music is yet to be. If I were honest—and I always try to be—I could say my wife’s attempt at the trombone sounds a little like two wounded hippos attempting to mate. And my daughter’s struggle at the piano sounds much like the tortured screams of someone walking over broken glass. And my son’s endeavor with the guitar is nothing less than the musical equivalent of waterboarding.
But still I endure, as do they. Because something is going on here that until two minutes ago I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Because that was the moment my daughter yelled, “Did you hear me play, Daddy?”
“I did,” I said, and let the second part of my answer—Pretty sure the whole neighborhood heard you, too—go unsaid.
“Am I getting better?”
“I believe you are.”
“Good, because I can’t tell. Sometimes the wrong notes sound as good as the right ones. Isn’t that silly?”
Ah.
“Not really,” I told her.
I suppose one would think the point of my family’s newfound musical training is straightforward—one learns to play an instrument in order to make good music. That’s where the time, practice, and instruction come into play. And yet my daughter has just shown me there is another something beyond that, a deeper and more necessary requirement.
I think learning to play music isn’t all that different from learning to live life. We try to do the best we can to make something beautiful, knowing all the while there will be a lot of the unbeautiful in the meantime.
There will be sour notes and awkward movements. Blatant frustration and unreasonable expectations. Failures abounding. And yet now I wonder if the beautiful lives we are all trying to build must be devoid of those things—if they must be perfect in order to be good.
I doubt it.
I think my daughter is right. Sometimes the wrong notes sound as good as the right ones. Sometimes a little girl struggling to play “Chopsticks” on the piano and a little boy trying to find a note—any note—on a guitar is better than even angel song.
When it comes to song and life, the point isn’t so much to play it well as it is to play it, to try and sing and dance despite the sour notes, and to believe and love and hope despite the pain that can result.
Because when it comes to God, it’s all music. Every single note.
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. But don't let that fool you. I'm just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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