Thursday, July 6, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Oh, those piccolos!
Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name give glory because of your kindness, because of your truth.
Our friend Amanda played the piccolo as well as the flute, and more than once we headed for the bandstand at Hessel Park in Champaign on the Sunday before the 4th of July, to hear her play. The band is long gone, but memories of Stars and Stripes Forever just a day or two before the 4th will last forever. The song, like all songs, began as a blank page and notes heard only in Mr. Sousa’s head.
The faded pictures in my head brightened considerably on Tuesday evening at the Rattan Park Bandstand near Andi’s home, as yet another community band swept me away. We rose up for the National Anthem, sat for America the Beautiful, clapped along with Over There until finally, the conductor whose military posture stood us all up straight turned, and said, “This will be our final tune. It is called Stars and Stripes Forever.” A satisfied sigh rippled through the crowd sitting on the grass. YES. That is THE song. John Philip Sousa’s masterpiece, the very song that seemingly can lift both body and soul whenever it is played.
Jesus said to the paralytic, “Rise, take up your stretcher, and go home.” And he rose, and he went home. The crowds were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to men.
Mr. Sousa’s great friend A. A. Harding was also the director of bands at the University of Illinois. When Sousa died in 1932, 39 trunks and two boxes of sheet music were sent to Champaign, to be housed in the U of I band building for the foreseeable future as the foundation of the Sousa Archives. The archives and museum are still going strong.
During our 30 plus years in Champaign we never made the journey (of just a few blocks) over to learn more about the maestro. But we certainly did listen to his marches, which lifted us off our feet into the wild blue yonder. And I am more inclined than ever, on one of our visits back to Illinois, to take the short drive over to the band building and honor Mr. Sousa’s memory.
The Lord’s messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said: “In your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing.”
Strangely enough, Mr. Sousa wondered if his music would stay alive after he was gone. His friend Harding convinced him that he must keep that music in the hands of the bands, beginning with the marching band at the University of Illinois. Nearly a hundred years later, that advice seems to have been proved just right.
The story today, of Abraham and Isaac, is the story of a man listening only to God, not to anyone else. The edges of this story repel me, but the core, the kernel, the deepest place of the story breaks through my rationalism and self-knowledge.
In ways mysterious to the rest of us, God also speaks to his writers and composers and artists, who make somethings out of nothing and then offer it up to the world. Listening to God and knowing how vulnerable they are, they give it anyway, regularly rescued by God at the last minute to sing and dance their way back down the mountain, just a breather before the next creative crisis.
I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.
(Genesis 22, Psalm 115, 2 Corinthians 5, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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