The Best Gifts of This Life - 1,2
I. Early Childhood’s Gifts
Gift 1:
Is love felt from our parents, our friends a true gift
or more something we earn bit by bit over time,
(a child adds to, subtracts from, as days turn to years)?
This is such a big question (I dream God might know),
but tied musical chords are what I score most high!
I discovered them early (Mom thought out of reach?)
in stacked seventy-eights (1) that my uncle had left
six feet up in a closet and gathering dust.
(I had learned to play records (at three and a half)
on our floor-standing radio (changer built-in).
Did I dream Mom would pass on this symphonic shift
in our home’s mood, might fail to discern I could climb
walls in closets so high at my age? Did new fears
overwhelm her (“Dear God! When and how did he grow?
DO I HAVE NO CONTROL?”) or just manifest sigh?
The ballet (2) that I’d picked was what she chose to teach
me, the language of music and dance (3), its flow deft-
ly conducted parsed feelings that time could not rust.
Now, her gift to her offspring (please pardon my laugh-
ter), has heft of Christ’s Death on the cross for ALL sin!
Poet’s Notes:
1. My earliest records were heavy, flat vinyl disks that revolved at 78
rpm. A whole symphony frequently required 2 (or more) of these disks.
Records evolved over my lifetime to much smaller 45rpm records that
could hold just one popular song (front and back) and later to lighter
33 and 1/3 rpm disks that helped reduce the value of a record-changer
when playing longer pieces.
2. The album that I chose first from my uncle’s stash was Stravinsky’s
“Firebird Suite.” Did I chose FBS because of its cover? (Ha! Art has its place!)
FBS remains, today, near the top of all music to me. Revolutionary! Bach
Is a flickering candle emotionally, but Mahler plays in the same ballpark!
3. I can remember, in early college, insisting to friends that music was
a superior language of emotion, in my opinion, to the spoken word (even
poetry!)
Gift 2:
It’s a tie in my mind, (Musics’ Riffs) - (Grace of Christ!) (1)
Riffs in music, though earthy, we grok while we live,
and if that’s best there is, I thank God for the share!
Still the memory thrills me of Grace I first felt
in stained pews I was born to (that sinners controlled),
not from love priest’s words taught us but love I was shown
at a Church Christmas Party (2) (was I more than five?)
This tree’s gifts weren’t sufficient (and I, odd child out!)
but my minister found me alone in the dark.
He addressed human failure, dried tears, made Grace real!
It’s in hearts Grace has changed that Love finds its appeal,
not in wisdom of man that grooms wood for an ark
to save us from earth’s “floods!” Faith is dead (with no doubt)! (3)
If God’s not in your heart do dreams count? You’re alive?
In the light of man’s giving my own faith was grown
to see God’s omnipresence though trusted friends fold.
Lord, I felt Angels singing as humbly I knelt
and confessed, “Christ’s my savior! There’s none to compare!” (4)
My heart’s changed though I stumble, Grace humbly I give
as I walk on Christ’s path, pray that pride’s sacrificed.
Poet’s Notes:
(1) Am I unhinged to compare music’s impact to eternal life?
(2) See my earlier poem, “The Man Who Proved God is Real!”
(3) Paraphrase of a Karen Armstrong quote, who correctly suggests, I think, that
if you are sure God is real, then your “faith” is dead.
(4) Christ’s ‘Grace’ makes the possibility of God’s existence feel
very real to me.
More to Come...
Brian Johnston
21st of April in 2022
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