Seize the Day

"In the silence of your hearts or in spoken words let us give thanks for the gift of this day and pray for the life of the world..."  J. Philip Newell

Recently I have taken up a new hobby.  Actually it is one that my mother tried to have me appreciate as a young child.  I am learning to play the piano.  

In our living room growing up we had a baby grand piano.  It was black and the piano bench held sheets of wonderful music.  But what I remember is that I loved to pick up the cover of this bench and let it slam shut.  Not hard, not enough to hurt anything, but surly enough to bother my mother.  The keys were tarnished over time and were a worn ivory color.  It was fun to sit on the bench and pretend that I could play beautiful music.  

My mother set up piano lessons with a Mr. Petillio.  He taught music on the campus of the school where we lived.  He was from Europe and had a very curious accent for a young girl.  In all fairness to this man, I don't think he was used to young children.  It is also important to note, no pun intended, that I was not a child with a long attention span.  As hard as I try, I have very little recollection of these lessons.  What I do remember is the regular arguing with my mother about practicing.  Siting in the passenger seat of our family car, driving up the driveway, knowing that I didn't know my lesson, was never fun.  Yet week after week, I would be relieved that that lesson was over and approach it exactly the same the upcoming week.  Needless to say, I never became a gifted musician.  At some point he must have convinced my mother that this was not working.  

Sometimes in life, it is so funny to look back.  Many of us spend a lot of time reflecting so that we can come to know ourselves better.  Healing and coming to terms with a difficult past involves remembering these events, telling the story and looking at ways to move on from  those places of brokenness and move into our lives today.  This is important work and very sacred ground.  But sometimes I find it really funny to look back at those times when life was funny, or I was mischievous, or even think, Wow, how did I miss that? 


Playing the piano is one of my favorite things to do these days.  I love to practice, I love to learn a new cord, a new song, or a new way of doing something.  I love the work I do. It is a blessing to know how God can best use your gifts and talents in the world.  My life has meaning and purpose.  But all that said it is very hard for me to play.  I am silly and often joyful.  The time I experience that most is during worship.  But I want to be able to play, be silly and relax outside of my work.  Ahhhhhh,  this is where the piano comes in.  

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  From now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  And now fatih, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." 

1 Cor. 13:11-13 

Music is one of the ways that many are able to pray, play or grieve.  Music speaks to our hearts and our souls. It can sooth us, comfort us, it speaks to us in ways nothing else does.   Children experience faith on a very simple and authentic level.  As we grow older we gather defenses and ideas that complicate and confuse the way we experience the world.  Yes, it also informs the way we see the world, but sometimes don't we get in the way?

Going back to the piano at this point in my life has been a blessing.  It is a time of meditation and peace.  It can also be a time of fun and playfulness.  It is good to grow and learn.  I am no longer the child that cannot sit still.  The child that just couldn't find the discipline amidst the turmoil in my home to learn new things.  Today I smile when I look back and see her squirming on the piano bench, Today I have compassion for her desire to play and her complete inability to learn.  Today it is she that gathers her books and hurries to her lesson.  She hurries to her lesson with expectation and excitement.  

For some life is short, for some life is long.  The more people I meet and the more stories I hear, there is a common thread that jumps out.  Curiosity and the desire to learn feed the spirit and the mind.  

What are you curious about?  What is something that you  would like to learn or do? 

Today I give thanks for patienct teachers and joyfull noise.  

What do you give thanks for today?  

An excerpt from a favorite poem: 

" Of course I have always known you

are present in the clouds, and the 

black oak I especially adore, and the 

wings of birds.  But you are present 

too in the body, listening to the body, 

teaching it to live, instead of all 

that touching, with disembodied joy. 

We do not do this easily.  We have 

lived so long in the heaven of touch, 

and we maintain our mutability, our

physicality, even as we begin to 

apprehend the other world.  Slowly we 

make our appreciative response. 

Slowly appreciation swells to 

astonishment.  And we enter the dialogue

of our lives that is beyond all under-

standing or conclusion.  It is mystery.

It is love of God.  It is obedience. 

Oh feed me this day, Holy  Spirit, with

the fragrance of the fields and the 

freshness of the oceans which you have 

made, and help me to hear and to hold

in all dearness those exacting and wonderful 

works of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying: 

Follow me.  "  

From the Poem:  Six Recognitions of the Lord, by Mary Oliver