I’m starting this note at 3:30 – the time in my day when Jack typically called to say he was on his way home.
We’d talk about what he’d built that day, the wood he’d used, how easy or hard it was to work with, how much glue he’d gotten on himself in the process. He’d describe the various procedures he’d followed in constructing a stringer, a horse, or any of a number of stair-building terms, and then go on to talk over his plans for the next day.
We’d talk about whether he’d stop at the gym first or come straight home, whether he’d need to get money from the ATM for Tuesday bowling. Ordinary talk. How the traffic was moving.. or wasn’t. Maybe whether he’d stop at Iron Hill to see Stephen.
This was his favorite part of the day, he said, calling to talk. When I checked my watch just now and happened to see it was once again 3:30, it struck me that those conversations will now only sound in my memory.
As if on cue, the song playing on my computer at that exact moment said:
Tell me what you know
about God and the world and the human soul
how so much can go wrong
and still there are songs.
Sara Groves and Charlie Peacock. “In the Girl There’s a Room.” Tell Me What You Know, 2007
“Still there are songs.”
What would life be like without music, without songs to sing, without hope to hum? Music leaches down to our very souls and waters the arid, aching places. It gives us words when we have no words. It helpfully throws us a rope to grab, a map for the big picture, a direction to head. It gives us a mindset to adopt as we get out of bed and head out to make the coffee.
For instance, this refrain from an album I have been wearing out in the last month:
I will trust You, I’ll trust You
Trust You, God, I will
Even when I don’t understand
Even then I will say again
You are my GodSteven Curtis Chapman – “I Will Trust You”, Beauty Will Rise 2009
And I will trust You
And another from the same CD:
This is not how it should be
This is not how it could be
But this is how it is
And our God is in control
Steven Curtis Chapman – “Our God is in Control”, Beauty Will Rise, 2009
The other day, my Josh called to ask a random question at 3:30. For a fleeting instant, “Josh” looked like “Jack” in the caller ID. My heart jumped to think that the impossible had happened. What?! Just like that, was I in my old life again?!
Of course I wasn’t. I realized it in the same instant. No, the reality is I’m still here. He’s still not.
Yet.
In this mid-afternoon reality check, I declare to my soul that God is trustworthy, even when I don’t understand.
And I am glad “still there are songs.”