Symphonic Musings: Bartók and Banov and Giants and Walls

There is no photo to accompany thoughts (gasp!) ... But a great deal of musing (plenty of which I won't share simply for ease of thumb typing on my BlackBerry!).

Symphony.
Sumphonia.
Music.
Ministry.

This is the chain of words that comes to mind. There are awakenings in these words and also great resistance.

Last night I found myself in the delightful atmosphere of music (much thanks to a friend who appreciates the same) and found myself enamored with Bartók. I think one of my professors mentioned him as a favorite along with Debussy, and at the time I didn't easily distinguish between many composers, so it slipped far off my radar. Funny how after a quarter of a century it can come flooding back. Béla Bartók ... I even know his first name! As both a pianist and composer, it's no wonder my professor liked him (she was a pianist, violinist, and conductor and loved to conduct the more expressive pieces - and the piece tonight was certainly that).

Tonight at the symphony (well, it still feels like tonight!) I wanted to be invisibly in the midst of those musicians ... But not playing. I wanted to be lying on my back in a meadow, sensing breezes and butterflies and fragrant clover, staring at the sky or my own imaginations scrolling by, swallowed up by sound. A few times, I closed my eyes, but couldn't lose myself too far in a reverie because I didn't want anyone to think I was sleeping!

All this came on the heels of getting weepy as I passed by the pianos in the music store a couple of days ago.

Again, it makes me wonder if God is up to something. These little intersections of musical emotion are not new. I keep bumping up against these bits of abstract glimpses and feelings. Yet there is a great resistance within me.

I just remembered how Georgian Banov said he saw a sleeping giant within me. Ironic ... I think he is also Hungarian like my "new friend" Béla. His music also easily impassioned like breathing, just in a whole different genre ... Praise and worship.

So how does one go about gracefully wakening a sleeping giant? I don't think it's an embrace easily enjoyed.

I probably need to pull out my "I Project" again and continue capturing/remembering/accepting those significant moments. Even now as I am remembering, tears are coming as I recall the great parade of people who have been a voice into these things already. It's awfully humbling. And I think, "Who am I to resist?"

But it's not as much willful resistance as it is fear, I think. And fear started with doubt. Doubt started with trust ... Trust misplaced. All along, I could have trusted my heart.

Last night I was reminded of how G would kick me under the table if it appeared to him that I was enjoying a conversation too much. And I remember being at many a table with amazing ministers, men and women of God who were inspiring and deep thinkers and enjoyers of life, and the signal would come to disengage.

But I also wonder now if the motivation for that signal was insecurity or intimidation? I remember in 2004 before the grand unveiling and crumbling, G said he thought he might be ready to accept my gifts and talents without being intimidated or afraid he'd lose the spotlight. Maybe that's part of the picture throughout!

Intimidation so easily turns around and intimidates. And me? Because I so easily trusted, I so easily accepted. I wrestled but believed it was for my own good. And I ultimately imprisoned myself with invisible walls.

It's time for them to come down. (I almost didn't write that because the thought scares me ... But I feel like I need to say it. GOSH does it ever scare me! I'm fighting myself to delete it even now. Yet I'm leaving this moment here. Evidently it's important.)
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