Promise

Can you sense the promise while enduring a time of hardship?

I am currently enveloped in a stress-laden, iron-gray cloud of challenges as vowed caretaker of my beloved partner with his advancing Parkinson’s, as primary breadwinner while most of my close friends enjoy retirement, and as taskmistress of downsizing and boxing up 40+ years in our Victorian home so we can move into a condo. Did I mention that I’m doing all this solo?

Why solo, after so many generous volunteer offers from kith and kin? Because of a lockdown driven by a virus god, that’s why.

But enough pity party.

Gods and transformations are weird bedfellows. So, I believe that with all this manure there must be a pony in there somewhere. It’s a girlhood promise that baits me in my stillest stolen inner moments, and I’m still hooked on rose colored glasses.

I want to share a true song by Natalie Sleeth. I know it’s true because I have experienced it.

One line assures us, “There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody…” In 1969, I became the mere instrument for a song that had perhaps long waited to be sung, to be heard.

That late spring day, I was seated at a piano, alone and in silence, meditating on an Old Testament psalm celebrating the faithful Eternal Love in which our lives are embedded.

Then, as if guided by a longing outside myself, I found my fingers effortlessly picking out a melody on the piano keys (interesting use of “key”). The song’s season had arrived. By what grace was I chosen to unlock the door so it could take wing? I simply don’t know.

Since then “I Will Celebrate Your Love” has circulated in publication and recordings around the globe, translated into 8 languages. Amazingly (or is it?), I also benefited materially. Its royalties (interesting use of “royal”) helped put me through graduate school.

Back to hardship. When yanked into an undertow of grief, loneliness, struggle, trauma, fear, worry and all the rest, it’s hard to trust that if we surrender into it, all will come to fruition in a transformation that will ultimately soothe, elate, or astonish. Maybe even make sense.

In her “Hymn of Promise,” Ms. Sleeth reminds us that when the season comes, latent promises are indeed fulfilled.

Today, I don’t yet see the season, but my pony is in there somewhere.

To sweep you more deeply into this faith, take a few minutes to feel the consoling audio hug of Sleeth’s inspired hymn set to a gorgeous choral arrangement by Mary McCarthy. Listen and read the lyrics at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u81NLz5pHhU

Send me a virtual hug to tide me over so I know I’m not as solo as I sometimes perceive. I promise I will thankfully feel it.