a simple word of gratitude...

Last month, Charlotte Sass wrote about love and how her understanding of it has changed in the past year (click here to read her original post). She posed the question, "Do we really take God's greatest commandment to love one another seriously at BUMC?" A few weeks later, she received the following reply via e-mail from Brian, a member of the music team, and he gave us permission to post his thoughts here on the blog.

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Charlotte,

I looked over the BUMC Blog page and I’m not quite sure how to post a comment of this length (over 300 words) without the Blog page yelling at me. So feel free to pass this on to anyone, especially God’s House Band.

So, you asked for it and this time you’re going to get it with both barrels!

Passion.

There are times when my feelings on life and humanity run from ragged & raw to soaring, and everything in between. At this time in my life, I’m now being dragged towards “raw” because of my job, my family, my heart and trying to hear His words.

What do I mean? Recently I’ve received many accolades at work that I don’t know how to handle. I never knew I was this good. I thought I was just doing my job. Last year I was awarded one of the company’s top awards. This year I’m going to receive the highest review and therefore highest pay raise in our division. I have been offered promotions to management with huge increases in pay on two ultra high priority projects in North America. However, if I accept, it means that my family would have to move either to California or Canada. Let’s stop and think about the offers: Let’s say I make $XX per year. Then I was offered an increase of 50% to 60%! Ouch! That’s a lot of money … and in THIS economy, too! The alternative however, is grim: if I decline, I basically go on company “overhead” because I’m wrapping up my regional work this month and there’s only a weak outlook for work & essentially take my chances, possibly leaving my company if no work comes up. It’s a gorgeous cliff like Glenwood Canyon. I need a parachute, badly, and the ground is so close.

I’ve been meaning to write you for so long about your loss, your words over the last year, and how it all has influenced me. Yes, I’ve been going through my own highs and lows, but nothing compared with what you’ve gone through: At least not this year.

First of all, when it really comes down to it, I don’t know you. I mean, really, really KNOW you. I also really don’t know everyone at BUMC. But I try. I do feel that I can count myself as one of the very lucky people to be a part of your and BUMC’s flock who listens to / have read your truly inspirational words, are blown away by your gift of music, strength and leadership, and are drawn to you with every opportunity. While you were gone, I deeply missed you at church and let Ken know this.

Last summer my family and I went on a mountain camping trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park. We went for a long hike up to Emerald Lake among the glaciers. The view of Hallett Peak and the valley below alone was so breathtaking that it made me cry. I was in God’s cathedral. I sat on a boulder way off the trail and prayed while the others continued with the hike. I prayed for my family. I love them so much and when I travel I’m torn between their need for me and the demands of my job, which I also love. I prayed for war veterans who have given up their lives for my freedom. I prayed for you and your husband, thanked God for his life in your life, and especially for your healing. I had no exact words because it was so hard to express my feelings. But music crept into my mind almost without thought as I closed my eyes and listened for His words in the wind.

This week, as a family, we are at the Peaks to Plains Suzuki Institute at the Academy of Charter Schools off of 120th. We’ve been taking the girls to this institute for years and like church, we’ve become a part of the family. In Director Ann Kitayama’s opening letter to students and parents, her salient words shine through:

In a speech given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music at Boston Conservatory, he talks about the ancient Greeks and how they were the first people to understand how music really works. He said that while ‘astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us.’ He gives examples of famous music compositions being written in the darkest times when men were imprisoned and in concentration camps. Why is this, when there was barely enough energy to find food and water, to stay warm, to avoid beatings and escape torture? It is because ‘music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our heart, when we can’t with our minds.’ (Paulnack). As believed by the Greeks, ‘music is the understanding of the relationships between invisible internal objects’ (Paulnack). Isn’t it the music that helps create the mood that makes us burst into tears at a wedding, or what grips us during a movie’s climax, or sparks a past memory?

Music is my heart’s one true passion in life. It’s what keeps me practicing, too.

“Where love is deep, much can be accomplished” – Shinichi Suzuki

This link is one of the most emotional pieces of music, "Pie Jesu," sung by a young jewel. It’s slow: almost no vibrato or ornamentation. The words are simple. The power is unbelievable!

Lord Have Mercy.

So what does this have to do with your question? Everything. To be most fulfilling, music needs a listener as well as a player. Life needs the same.

To answer your question, it’s easy. I do. I love.

When compared to so many other men out there in the world today including those in my own family, it’s probably my greatest strength and my most insufferable weakness, mostly because I let it show with my friendliness and energy, heart-on-my-sleeve highs and lows, whereas most other men and many women do not.

I love life. I love people; even when it’s hard.

I agree with you. At times when you have nothing, and you’re left lying naked on a hospital bed hooked up to hoses and wires, you finally understand what it means that God is love, and love is what life is about with our fellow humans. And the music comes so easily to your mind.

This is why I go to BUMC.

And my response to my job situation? I've lifted it up. It's in His hands now.

Brian