Why I have the best job in the world...

My mother was my first piano teacher and I started lessons at the age of five. So, for as long as I can remember the piano has been my primary source of self-expression, creativity, an instrument for music and for mental and emotional processing.

It was also my mother's untimely death that introduced me to grief. This introduction came so long ago that grief, as well as music, has been a life long companion. From the time I was a small girl to now I have had many opportunities to look death square in the face and walk away covered in the heaviness and feeling the gaping hole that death leaves. Sometimes this companion of grief can be light and even inspirational...other times it is literally heavy on my body and clouds over my smile, my music, my hope for the future.

And in these times when the heaviness outweighs the inspiration I find myself in seasons of doubt. And it is these times of disbelief that I am more thankful than I can really express that I am a church musician. Because in these times of disbelief my mouth cannot say the words, my heart aches too much to hope and my mind is overcrowded with questions and cynicism...yet somehow, my hands believe. When I am playing a hymn, or song or liturgy there are certain lines that bring a natural crescendo or explosion of sound – because the words demand great noise in the face of grief, disbelief and death.

Yesterday someone asked why is it always during the third verse of the gospel canticle do I suddenly get so loud as we sing God comes to guide our way to peace...that death shall reign no more? And when rehearsing with the Sunday night band I heard a snicker when I asked the band to drop out while we sang there was an empty tomb. I do these sometimes annoying and sometimes expressive things because this is the message that I need to hit me over the head and lighten that grief cloud. I need to hear over and over again that death shall reign no more, that there is an empty tomb, that the death of young mothers and wives, of dear friends, the destroying of towns, the end of great loves, the killing of precious innocents – that these dark and pain filled experiences will not get the last word – no, I would rather bang the hell out of the piano so my hands can remind my heart and my faith and my hope that death shall reign no more.

...sweet words from one of my favorite hymns to play:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

  I need Thy presence every passing hour.

What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.