Playing your music: Part I

He was just a roadie, the kind Jackson Browne made famous in a song. He and the others were the first to come and the last to leave. The ones to roll the cases, lift the amps, haul the trusses, and push the countless pieces of equipment up the ramps onto the stage. He needed a job and was glad to be working for this up and coming band with the peculiar name Lynyrd Skynyrd. His name was Billy Powell.

One afternoon when everything was set up and he thought the arena was empty, Billy sat down at the piano. He had trained as a classical pianist, but there was no money in that, so he became a roadie. His hands still remembered how to make music, it turned out, and as he sat there much of his training returned.

Soon, the large space was filled with glorious music. It so happened one of the band members stopped by to pick something up and heard the music. He went up to see who was playing and couldn’t believe it was one of the roadies. That moment changed Billy Powell’s life. It also changed band’s.

The story always makes me wonder who else possesses undiscovered talents? Who’s busy doing work they’re not called to do? Who, if given the chance, could fill the world with glorious music?

Every time I listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd, I listen for the piano and give thanks Billy took the chance and sat down and played. It was where he truly belonged. It was the music that was his to play.

May we all do the same. 

Extra Credit: Listen to the beginning of Free Bird, or listen to this (not great coverage of Billy but you can certainly hear him) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIqEq9OFxE

Finishing the Turn

This weekend I found myself in a new role. Up in the North Carolina mountains, celebrating my stepson’s 15thbirthday, I suddenly became a ski instructor for one of the boys who had never skied before. We began with the pizza slice snowplow and then moved to leaning to the outside to make the skis turn to the inside. He was a quick study, and by the third run he was navigating his was down the mountain with relative ease. 

Excited by his progress, however, he began to rush things. He began a new turn before finishing the one he was in. The result always left him lying on the slope, covered with snow, wondering what went wrong. “Complete the turn before you begin another,” I called out over my shoulder. I soon realized I was one to talk, not in the way I ski, but in the way I live.

I once had a wonderful idea and put it into motion, but before it had time to find its way, I thought of something new which left me on the ground wondering what I had done wrong. I began a turn before finishing the first one. It’s happened with jobs, friendships, and even in my spiritual life, and it took my recent ski experience to help me see this habit.

I began the day as a teacher but drove home as the student. “Complete the turn before you begin another,” I whispered to myself. “Complete the turn before you begin another.”

Old Report Cards

I shouldn’t have looked. 

My sister had sent me three boxes of things that belonged to our mother, one of which was full of things specifically about me. There were programs from shows I’d been in, what seemed like every letter I’d ever written to her, and also all my report cards from third grade on. I’m not sure why she would have kept my report cards. They were not special. Far from it. In third grade, I was diagnosed as a dyslexic, and all the grades and comments reflected a significant struggle in school. I didn’t need the report cards to remind me. The memories are a constant companion fifty years later. 

It seems we often take the time to look at the past, even when we know what we may find. 

“Chip will never be much of a writer.” 

“His spelling is atrocious.”

Maybe by doing so, we bolster the myth that we are defective. If we read or listen to the voices of the past, we not only get the affirmation of all the negative things we’ve acquired about ourselves over the years, but also permission to stay in the myth that has become our life’s chorus. 

It is much more difficult to listen to other voices, the ones who say we are marvelously made (PS 139 ) and that our imperfections are what make us unique and specifically qualified for the purpose God has given us. Like Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, and Jeremiah (and countless others) we can show God our report cards as proof He’s got the wrong guy or gal for the job, but those examples also prove how often our excuses point to what makes us uniquely qualified. It’s hard to listen to the other voices. As Julia Robert’s character in Pretty Woman says, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”

Like a drunk discarding a lifetime of bottles, I placed the file of report cards in the trash and walked over to the desk to finish the first draft of a novel. It may not be the best novel ever written, and, yes, I have no doubt many words are misspelled, but those aren’t the point. They never have been.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

                                                                                 Marianne Williamson