Playing the Rests

One of the concepts that beginning music students naturally have a hard time with is the rest.  A musical rest is an interval of silence with a specific duration, and can last a single beat or less, to several or more measures.  Unless a musician knows how to “play” the rests, a song will implode into cacophony.  Because music is defined as much by what notes you don’t play as what you do play.  And there is a lesson to learned in this metaphor.

Through the month of June, I will be entering into a month-long sabbatical compliments of my church.  I’m taking time off from the fast pace of ministry to rest up, play with the family, and maybe take a few short trips.  I also intend to begin production of another CD project with the Manuel Luz Trio, and I’ve been working steadily on a new book manuscript as well.

The concept of the sabbatical comes originally from the book of Genesis.  God’s creation was poetically spoken into existence in six days, and God rested on the seventh day.  The Hebrew concept of the Sabbath, a weekly day of abstinence from work in order to rest and worship, is derived from this.  In today’s modern age, sabbaticals are often granted by corporations, universities, and religious organizations, and extend from just a few weeks to a year.

Of course, the concept behind the concept is that we were hardwired by God to both work and rest in regular intervals.  We are not unlike music in this way.

The word “rest” has implications, not just physical but emotional and spiritual as well.  To rest your body.  To rest your soul.  To rest in Him.  In a perfect world, we should purposefully schedule times of rest into the cycles of every day, every week, and every year.

I’m extremely grateful to my church for the opportunity to take a sabbatical.  The last one I took, my wife bought me a soprano saxophone which I learned to play during my time off.  Yeah, I suspect that I’m trying to be a little too busy with my month (artistic endeavors fill me up, as you can imagine!), so I need to purposefully temper my ambitions by listening to the Small Still Voice.  Because if you’re gonna play music, you’ve got to play the rests.

Ordinary Things

There are a lot of ordinary things in the world.  That is, by definition, what ordinary is.  Flowers growing in a field.  Birds flying effortlessly in the sky.  Farmers planting their seed in the earth.  Fish swimming in the deep blue sea.

We tend to see past the ordinary.  We drive to work or to the store, and our eyes do not see the beauty that whizzes by our windows.  There’s a long line of trees that I pass by every day on my way to work, young and green and hopeful.  They stretch their tiny branches up to the sky, catching rays of sunlight, catching bits of life in every single leaf.  Intricate and delicate stems intersect their way down to a fledgling but sturdy trunk and underground to unseen roots below.  In their own way and by their very design, they declare the glory of God.  But I do not see the trees, I do not see the leaves, I do not see the life abounding.  I only see the traffic lights.

Jesus saw things very differently than us.  He saw the lilies, the birds, the budding fig tree, the sheep in the pasture, the little children, the vine and the branches. And in His seeing, He saw Truth.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven was like treasure hidden in a field, and like a merchant looking for fine pearls, and like a very tiny mustard seed.  He warned us of the plank in our own eyes, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the house built on sand.  He called us salt and He called us light. He was trying to explain to us the very mysteries of the universe—God’s plan and God’s Kingdom—and he chose the ordinary things to convey them.

There is a lesson to be learned here, I think.  Jesus had an extremely poetic, artistic view of life.  And this should not surprise us.  The Bible says that the whole of the universe, the whole of creation, was created through him and for him (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-17, 1 Corinthians 8:6, etc.).  Think about that—the creative muse of the Trinity flowed through the person of Jesus.  So his view of life allowed Him to be open to the beauty and truth that surrounded Him, even in the most tenuous, desert-drenched, poverty-stricken circumstances.  And if we are to be more like him, we need to have eyes that see like him, have a mind that is open to a God revealed in the ordinary.

Do we understand that there is a type of Truth in a line of trees?  And that same Truth can be found in a child’s laughter, or a winsome melody, or a formation of geese flying south for the winter?  The birds don’t realize that we humans—in the depths of our slumber and the yearnings of our souls—dream of flying.  Birds just fly.  The trees don’t realize that photosynthesis is an astounding miracle.  And a child, in her laughter, does not realize how sacred is their being.

There’s a somewhat archaic word I wish we would use more: Mindfulness.  To be full of mind, that is, to have our minds attuned to the things around us, to the things of God.  For nothing is truly ordinary in God’s created order.

There is an implication here.  If this is true, then that same Truth in the trees can exist in a photograph of the trees, or a painting of the trees, or a song about the trees.  Because our artwork is an extension of God’s artwork.  Art is re-creation, an echo of creation.  And if you think about it in this way, then we as artists must aspire to ordinary things.

“What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.”   Psalm 104:24 The Message

[Note:  Artwork is "Endless Battle (Tree Story #141)" by Judith Monroe.  Black & white photograph with mixed media on cradled wood panel, including actual leaves and a poem written specifically for this image by a poet in Sweden.  I encourage you to check out Judith's Portfolio.]

The Artist as Servant

Artmaking is a paradoxical activity.  It is often a highly intimate expression of the artist.  Our art is birthed from our talents and sweat-obtained technique, and also from our uniquely individualized story and worldview.  But at the same time, great art only happens when we serve the art, allowing the art to be greater than we are.  For art—if it is to have any consequence—must have meaning apart from the artist.  And so as artists, we must allow our artwork to have a life of its own, to have its own identity and purpose and expression very much separate from ourselves.

In the words of Madeleine L’Engle, “When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly, than he knew; Rembrandt’s brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend.”

Michelangelo coaxed the masterpiece David out of 6-tons of flawed marble.  He could not will his vision out of the flawed and disfigured mass of stone; he could only work within the imperfections and limitations of it.  And so he served the stone, studying it, yielding to it, and eventually unveiling it.

Personally, I experienced this often in my music.  I’ve put in a lot of hours in recording studios over the years, both producing and recording for myself and a few others, and more often functioning as the keyboardist or pianist on other albums.  When you’re a studio musician, the prime directive is always to serve the song—to play only those notes, and choose only those sounds and colors, that allow the song to be fully conceived, to come alive, to have meaning and passion beyond the individual performances of the players.  The recording studio is a maternity ward, and I am simply there to help birth the vision that the artist or producer has of that particular song.  As a sideman, I know that the song is never a showcase for my abilities.

And this brings up the second way in which the artist is a servant.  For as we serve our art, we serve our audience as well.   When I write a song, I am aware that the song will have a relationship with my audience quite apart from me.  That song might end up on someone’s iPod or get streamed on someone’s laptop or played on someone’s stereo.  It will interact with my audience, as they listen to my song and add their own life experiences and attribute their own meanings upon it.  So as I write, I ask myself, “How will the listener receive this?  What will they hear beyond what I am saying?  Will they be moved?”  And so I serve the audience by doing my best to compose my song, and then let go of it, to allow my audience the freedom to make the song their own.

A painter’s painting will interact with an audience when it hangs on a wall.  An author’s book will speak to the reader quite apart from the author.  A vase will hold water on its own far removed from the hand of the potter.

And maybe in this way, art once again reflects the way of God.  For His spiritual economy is peculiar, and not at all like ours.  The first shall be last.  The least of these is the greatest.  The meek will inherit the earth.  And to be great in His Kingdom, you must be a servant of all.

Through our art, we serve the work.  We serve our audience.  We serve our God.