The Music Within

"What?  I can't hear you.  I'm deaf as a door knob."

 Jean - a fiery, spunky, and sharp woman, makes a statement when she enters a room.  She moves quickly; you can tell she's always thinking too.  She sees everything and notices the smallest of details.  And she remembers what you've told her.  Despite her loss of hearing she still tells it like it is.  Jean knows what it is to call a thing what it is.  No excuses.  No ifs, ands, or buts. 

 I met Jean when I visited with her sister.  The two are inspiring.  Pure, sisterly love.  Always caring and always loving.  Their relationship, like all relationships, takes work, and with that work they bring out each other’s gifts.  They call each other out on their stumblings.   They lift each other in love.  

 Jean was a music teacher. The kind of music teacher, I imagine, that students knew not to mess around with.  The kind of teacher that students knew was giving them the very best she had to offer.  The music in her soul shines brightly and loudly. 

 

A piano sits in the room.  I ask, "Can you play something for me?" 

 

Jean smiles timidly.  She looks at the piano. 

 

Jean sits down at the piano bench. 

 

Yes, Jean, deaf as a door knob, Jean can still play the piano as if she could hear every note.  And she does, she feels the music.  She hears it in her heart and soul.  The music resides within her very being. 

 

And she needs the music.  She needs people to listen to her.  She needs to know that the Spirit never leaves. 

 

I too need the reminder that the music never dies.   

 The Spirit is at work in the world making music where there seem to be no instruments.  The Spirit is at work bringing hope to the hopeless and voices to the voiceless.  

 

Thank you, Jean, for reviving the music in my soul.