pruning

I listened to Haydn on the way home from a friend's house on Saturday night. I got to thinking about how I don't know much about music, but I always like Haydn when I hear him. It's not uncommon that when, in flipping past the classical station, I hear something I like well enough not to flip back to NPR or other music, I hear at the end of the selection that it's something Haydn composed.

I thought about how that phrase sounds in my head, "I don't know much about music." It's true, and it especially felt true coming home from my friend's house, a friend who does know a lot about music and, in fact, composes it. But it's not true in other ways: I know how to read a melody line well enough to play it decently on the recorder or to help me follow along with a new piece of music at church. I had various music lessons when I was young, and I'm grateful for them. I'm glad I know how to play at least one instrument, even if it is the humble recorder, because there's nothing like making music when that's what your heart really wants to do. It's not often for me, but when it is, I'm glad I'm able to.

It's good, I think, to be reasonably conversant with a variety of skills. To become competent at various things, especially when you're young. Good to be good enough at music, at sports, at reading, at writing, at cooking, at languages, at building, at camping. It's good to have a base in all of those areas, so that if you ever need to build on one of them as an adult, it's there. You'll have a bit of experience. You'll know where to start.

But that view of education means you will have many skills that you aren't particularly good at, as I'm not particularly good at music. This can be disturbing, because you are sometimes tempted to be upset about all the things you can do, but you can't do well. I'm still a bit tempted to that despondency, but not so much anymore. I've learned that it's a trap.

Why? Well, take my drive home on Saturday night, listening to Haydn. It made me wish I knew how to play the piano. I've often wished that, but I've never, as Elizabeth Bennett said, "taken the trouble to practice." Why? Because I don't want to enough. And this - here's the key - is a good thing.

Why? It is a good thing because the reason I don't want to practice the piano enough to actually do it is because there are other things I want to do more.

I've learned that I'm finite. To chose one thing means to not choose every other thing in the universe. Most of our choosing is easy, because most of our hours are spent on necessities: on caring for our families, on housework, on taking care of bodily functions (including the necessity of sleep), on paying the bills. Then there is our tithe and our gift of prayer. Then our relationships (love God, and love your neighbor). And then, what is left over we are (sometimes) allowed to with as we will.

And when I have that choice to make, piano is not what I want most. And if it never is what I want most, I never will learn to play it.

Instead, I write stories. Through that childhood full of learning to play instruments, to build, to camp, to speak, to read, to write, to play, to cook, to work (and how do we not realize as children how free our hours are?), it was always the writing that was where I found my fullest joy. So now that I am an adult, and cannot fit everything into my life - now that I have to choose - that is what I choose.


I think there will be seasons when this is not true. I think there are times (when the babies wake up three or four times a night, rather than just one) when I can't make the choice to write; I'm too tired to access whatever part of myself it is that the stories come from. There will be times, I think, when I might have the time to choose more than one thing (words and music!) But whatever season it is, it is a relief to know that I don't have to do everything.

My parents were good parents, and knew enough to make us learn to be competent at many things. They were also good enough to let us specialize, when we found the things at which we were more than competent.


But, finally, the point is that it's been good to learn that I'm finite. Learning this lesson has helped me to become content. To know that I don't have to do everything - well, even the idea that maybe I should be able to do everything is a kind of pride, isn't it? (You know - the kind of pride that makes you laugh when you actually spell it out - "oh, yes, hmm, me able to do everything - ha!") I must choose this, and not that, because I have only this hour, and I am only this big.

And, of course, the question, "what would you like me to do, Lord?" Sometimes, it seems, the answer is, "first what you ought, and then what you like."

But that last part, I'm still thinking about.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell