She was wrong.
My mother-in-law was. The dear lady is gone and can no longer defend her position, but her daughter may take up the argument for her—may have even done so before anyone else reads this—in her absence.
I’ve written before about my first experience playing the piano at my in-law’s house, many years past. A near-stranger in a strange place, I awaited the evening meal with my new girlfriend’s parents.
The beautiful Chickering grand piano stood begging in the living room and the Lovely Young Lady encouraged me to yield to its call while I waited. Sitting down at the keyboard, I noticed a book of arrangements from which I had played in the past.
I started well. I did. I know the starting notes of many songs. Most of them begin simply, single notes in each hand blending and playing off each other, drawing the listener in as the melody is introduced.
It’s the parts that come later in most pieces I am not so sure of. That’s what happened on this occasion. After whizzing through the early parts with ease, I ran up against some of the less familiar—and more difficult—sections.
My hands began to falter and fingers to stumble. Finally, in one difficult section of multiple chords—with notes stacked from the bottom of the staff to the top—I stopped. Leaving the sustain pedal down to keep the last correct chord sounding, I took a breath and a moment to analyze the upcoming chords.
A voice rang out from the kitchen.
“Don’t camp out on it!” came the words.
Until just weeks before she died, she was a piano teacher. She never stopped correcting; never stopped encouraging. She knew that a pianist who developed the habit of slowing the tempo every time the music became difficult would retain that habit for a lifetime.
I never faulted her for her vigilance. I don’t today.
We have phrases similar to the piano teacher’s mantra in common use in our daily life.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
“Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues.” Benjamin Franklin contributed that gem, along with many others in the same vein.
And yet, there are a few words I want to add to my late mother-in-law’s reproof, as well as to others who would motivate us to higher planes continually. Words to comfort and to heal. Timeless words that have quieted stressed and struggling spirits for centuries.
“Come away.”
The words are not my own, having been uttered by the Teacher who would become Savior. He acknowledged, all those years ago, the toll that constant activity, disappointments, and defeats could take on the humans who followed him.
And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a little while.” (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.)
(Mark 6:31, NASB)
I want to tell you they’re words I’ve heeded all my days, taking time to stop and study the music of life, analyzing the hard passages, and developing a plan for going on. I can’t say that.
I have spent a lifetime in an upward spiral of activity and stress, stopping only when I crash into the incomprehensible tangle of problems and quandaries life invariably throws at me. It seems most of us do that.
But He says to take the time to camp out on it. To turn our attention to all that surrounds us and see the beauty in the midst of the chaos.
This morning, I ran into that difficult section again. I took one of our dogs to the veterinarian, thinking I might not return home with him again. Ever. The vet gave me better news than I expected, but the emotion of the morning still hit hard.
I camped out on it for the rest of the day. At first, I berated myself. The poem my dad used to quote played on repeat through my mind.
“Not half the storms that threatened me
Ere broke upon my head…”
Why do I fall for it every time? Why do I worry when I know God wants good things for me? The barrage of questions hit me again and again. I sank down into regret and disappointment.
But, here’s the thing about camping out. We take time, not only to assess the problem but to work past it—to find the way forward.
Better men than I have fretted and despaired. Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Peter, even Paul—and a lot more since then. The tangle of life loomed larger before them than their puny intellects could work through.
But, when they took time to look at the issues and to see the provision their God had already laid out for them, the tangle invariably gave way to become a path forward.
It’s the same for us today.
If our troubles seem too much for us, we get to take a minute or two to breathe.
Go ahead and camp out on it. Take time to relax and see His solution.
Come away.
The music will be all the sweeter for it.
Rest.
The Lord will fight for you, while you keep silent. (Exodus 14:14, NASB)
All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.
(Blaise Pascal)
© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2022. All Rights Reserved.
