Today’s Word from Karl Olsen, Minister of Music…
We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.
W. H. Auden
It is a gift to meet people who are really themselves. Folks without pretense or guile. We are good at putting on masks (different from these COVID masks!) and in some settings, or for different people, being a slightly different version of ourselves. Maybe not a lot different, maybe just a little. Not always intentional, but it happens.
I know I’ve been guilty of masking—not being real—now and then. I’d like to think it’s all in the past….! It’s a good chance for me to step back and evaluate…is it true? And, if so, why? What am I gaining, or protecting myself from? From what we know, Jesus had no mask—he was just who he was. John Michael Talbot says he was “a King without guile.”
The philosopher Martin Buber told a story, part of which included… Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?‚ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?”
Mark Pearson, whose song Let Love Go Forward we sang a couple of weeks ago during church, had a good friend, Paul Meyer, who died this past year. By all accounts, he was a person who was authentically himself. His passing, unexpected, had a profound impact on friends and family alike. Mark’s response was to write a song. Of course.
Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.
Pablo Casals
More about that song in a bit, but first, a small tangent.
Some years ago, our son Jean was riding in the car with us on the way to a track meet, or some such event. He asked to use my phone to look up something while we were driving. The next time Deb called me, the call ID on my phone read “Love of My Life.” Sneaky Jean had done a little work in the contacts! But I left it… if that was how he saw my relationship with my wife, that was ok by me! To this day, when I’m out somewhere and ask my phone to call Deb, it shouts out “calling Love of My Life!” People smile.
So, Mark’s divine gift to Paul’s partner Jodi was to tell beautiful poetic things about Paul to us all, and encourage us on that same road. His song, The Love of My Life, tells the story, so I will let it do that now.
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
PAUL’S SONG
“Using my God given talents to make the world better, with a loving partner, Jody Deering Nyquist.” The final words in a lifelong journal of Paul Rauch Meyer
The news that we got yesterday took us by surprise
Someone who we all loved so well suddenly had died
When he got up most mornings in his journal he would write
Turns out the final words he left behind… were…
Used the talents that God gave
To make this world a better place
Did it with the love of my life
Far as anyone could tell no way for him to know
As he wrote those final words it was his time to go
Was simply being who he was and how those last words show
Why so many of us loved him so
Used the talents that God gave
To make the world a better place
Did it with the love of my life
May I live life well enough that when it comes that day
That those I touched and those I loved will want and choose to say
Used the talents that God gave
To make the world a better place
Did it with the love of my life
©Copyright 2020
Love Gives More Music
Every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Love someone who doesn’t deserve it. Plant sequoias. Be joyful even though you’ve considered the facts. Practice resurrection.
Wendell Berry
What God calls us to do we can do and do well. When we listen in silence to God’s voice and speak with our friends in trust, we will know what we are called to do. We will do it with a grateful heart.
Henri Nouwen
See you on the road.
Be well.
Tell them you love them.
Karl
