The Resounding Note

Saturday was like peering deep into a wishing well and faintly seeing a reflection of the future despite the ripples of distortion. I found much to be comforted with, much to be concerned with, but all to be overjoyed with as timing, even for that day, was exactly to the point and circumscribed within God's blessed design. There were little hints everywhere; if we but only search for these joyful notes in spite of the cacophony surrounding, we would find our dwelling place secure.

I feel somewhat exiled from a past mixed with a delayed longing for a complex future, a restructured bond that hasn't quite reset. Some is but a deep nostalgia misplaced. However, so much remains fluid and in flux, except my desire to return in earnest and concerted steps through faith.The city of my birth, the city I returned to, is not whitewashed or even clean. It has its bruises, its diversions, and its divisions, but it is found lived in and experienced. Even so, there was cause for great joy that day: weddings! Weddings can be messy affairs, the mixing of two parts not quite similar. In the case of the one I stumbled across at the Cathedral played to the contrasts of the City... Outside the Cathedral in front of Jackson Square, there was a woman playing a full-size piano moved into the midst of the fortune tellers at the steps of the Cathedral. The other side of the Cathedral contrasted greatly with a parade for St. Patrick's Day with much useless noise that overpowered much in the Square, from the people streaming in for the wedding, to the more subtle sights and sounds... but for a moment all melted away and the silence of her piece amid the hustle and bustle of a tourist-filled space was all that could be heard... Much like prayer in a tempest. Like a decisive stroke of a master artist's brush completing a masterpiece, this flashed before me in silhouette.

Communication doesn't win by being the loudest but, rather, by being the most heartfelt, the most direct. All the garishness passes away at once, and one sees clearly the outline of a city and of the soul itself. Let us not forget to nourish our souls through earnest prayer and moments of silence throughout the day to mark the gifts and the struggles the Lord gives us to complete through Him.