I began piano lessons at nine years old at the church where I grew up in the Brooklyn area of New York. About to complete my third book, there was a piece three pages long, and for some reason, I kept making a mistake on the same note repeatedly. So much was the music teacher’s frustration with me that he called me stupid. That was my last day at the piano, but I never lost my love of music. Deep down inside, I always knew I was a percussionist at heart. You can ask my mom. I drove her up the wall with my banging on the dinner table and every other flat surface.
During our “Here We Sing, Hear We Sing” services, I watched the musicians playing their instruments, with special attention to Alex Nafz playing the drums and Rich Lovallo playing the piano. Our 11:30 am services lack percussion instruments that characterize the Hispanic and Latino music and song culture. Perhaps I could learn to play the drums and the congas and accompany Rich during worship. When Rich is away on vacation, we sing our songs acapella, and though we sound beautiful (I may be biased), some miss the music during worship. And I get that.
As a self-care gift to myself, I decided to take drums and piano lessons during the summer. One can say that I’m pursuing healing and redemption from the humiliating experience I had at the age of nine. At the end of the day, after each session, I have learned valuable lessons about myself, including that being ambidextrous and dyslexic can cause the brain to think faster than one can act, move, and speak. And there are times when I have to slow my thinking process down.
Something spiritually moving occurred in one of my drum lessons with instructor Nick. Nick explained that playing the drums is like walking and asked me to pretend that each stroke of the drumstick would resemble my right foot and the other my left foot and that I should practice at a slow pace and increase speed once I catch the rhythm.
Another lesson I learned from Nick is the importance of feeling each stroke of the drumstick. As he continued to explain the movements and strokes, I was deeply immersed in his words and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, bringing on the metaphors. It was no longer a music lesson but a spiritual lesson. If you know me well, you know that I shared with Nick that “I felt a sermon coming on!”
Our spiritual lives are like learning to play the drums or any other instrument. Or, as Nick said, living life itself. We cannot expect to know everything in life overnight. Life takes practice; we make mistakes, get up, and move on to the next life lesson, hoping to have learned something from our previous mistakes. Spiritually, we spend more time trying to figure God out than we do trying to understand, welcome, receive, and share God’s love, mercy, compassion, and abundant grace for us.
Living spiritually as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ takes a lot of time and many years of soul-searching, and I do not want to be the bearer of not-so-good news, but just like the disciples, we may never get it all right, and we will always learn something. Some life lessons are more challenging than others. We can fall into the temptation of covering up our mistakes or pass the torch of blame onto others. We may make the mistake of judging others based on the head start we may have had in coming to know of Christ sooner than those around us. If we take it one step at a time, slowly, and practice daily, we may find many opportunities to testify to those seeking Christ about when we were at our lowest point, and then Jesus came to our rescue. It’s all about offering hope, the kind of hope that God provides us, not to harm us but that we may have a future filled with hope (Jeremiah 29:11). As faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, we must remember where and when we started our faith journey and recall the moment when Jesus came into our lives and began transforming us, mind, body, and soul. Only then will we learn how to be and play like Jesus!
Have a blessed rest of the summer, and stay cool!
In Christ,
Pastor Iraida