When the Music Stops

There is never too much time to prepare for adolescence. I was a gangly kid, skinny as a fence rail and had little to no confidence. Oh, I put up a good front. I have said many times, on many occasions, that I have been a terrible introvert that got either turned inside out or upside down, I am never sure. Life does carry with it the need to grow up, but one scarcely thinks about the need to stay a child. The main push in life is to prepare for adulthood. A wise (well maybe radical) instructor I had in Technical College once told the leaving Electrical Construction Class; “The great plan for life, you will one day find, has been poorly planned.” He went on to tell us that if life were to be more productive, the first 40-45 years of life should have been designed for play, exploration, and finding one’s self. As good as that sounded, my psyche had already been both primed and tuned to hard work, and toward support of the nuclear family; described as “a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit”

Life for most then has become a constant round of the experience of hardship, the ecstasy of highs in life, and oft times long droughts of mundane constancy. In my old age, I am finding that the cycle of life has held everything I need to know about survival, but for the impending ending of it all. Ok, that sounds morose I know. But, there is a lighter side to all this, I promise.

Did you go to dances in your adolescence? Perhaps you still do, at one level or another! Like most young men of my social and economic background (both semi-rural and poor) I began this juncture of life with a healthy fear, planted by conservative parental guidance and harsh peer pressure. Stresses created by the moral codes of Church and faith directives, confronted and in direct opposition to natural human urges toward a desire for both female companionship and some element of fun in life, can almost tear a teen in puberty apart! That may be overstated, but it borders on the absolute for most!

Never the one for just blurting out anything beyond the need to know, I found myself in a quandary, trying to establish some knowledge of, “What happens then?”. Ok, I am not talking about how I got my sex education here; this is about the mechanics of meeting a girl, how to ask her out and when the music stops… literally, what happens next? You see, the simple answers, or what seems so apparent to most, can be a vast desert of despair to a young person seeking guidance on what should be the most natural of life events. But, it is not; in my case life was underscored by a huge lack of confidence. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that environment sometimes has a cynical plan, directed by some of the players in life, to drag you down and bury you in self-doubt and crushed by ridicule. Even when the playing field has been drawn, the players are dressed and ready for action, there is often the presence of cliques, power strategies and of course the ever-present stealth of that greatest enemy, jealousy. We don’t like to address the negatives, but it is good to face them, do our best to understand the dynamics of their presence and live both through them and beyond them if we are to not just survive, but on to succeed in living.

Youth today are under great strain; greater perhaps than ever before in our past few generations. I know that is a reoccurring theme for me! The need to perform well, make elevated and financially significant strides in life, and thus establish a well-polished and socially groomed presentation for the world, is not just a goal, but a mandated “must accomplish” directive for most. I know I digress again! My perception of the process in life is that we must both acknowledge and understand the processes that get us to where we find ourselves at present, so as to more beneficially prepare us for the future. Today’s generation, without a doubt is finding themselves in that position. Who is really taking the time, or has the time to know what, where and when our youth are functioning at more than a reasonable level within a healthy, secure environment outside the home? I will leave that to your own thoughts and ruminations.

Life then is tenuous at best; we know that much, without too much prompting. Going to that first dance at our Town Hall was likely the most daring and scary adventure for me of anything to that point. I had never been on a date, never danced and the only thing I had going for me was that I loved music. Word had it (the rumour mill) that lots of guys went to the dance without a date, and there were generally plenty of girls there waiting to be asked to dance. Mustering the courage to ask, after watching the gyrations (I didn’t know what to expect as a sheltered novice) of those who kept time to the music, was no easy task. That pool of self-doubt seemed like an endless sea engulfing me, so I only stood and watched for much of the evening. It took a few more few dance nights to get my courage up and I finally asked a school mate to dance. Little did I know at the time that she was as nervous as I was! But, the enduring question still remained… “What do I do when the music stops?”

Moments of embarrassed fidgeting, apologies for not being the best dancer and “thanks for the dance”, were my best attempts and off she went, and Edwin left the building. It was a long time before I tried again and that same girl asked me to dance the very next attempt I made at attendance. Trial and error seemed to work, but there is more to the story. I never understood then the concern I had for the ending of the music and what was either expected or desired after one has heard the music, responded in chorus with another human; in that case on the dance floor. What exacerbated the situation was that I had received all the warnings, the prompting to be morally sound in judgement and of course the loudest, “Stay out of those dark corners!”

Time healed many wounds, many disappointments and prepared me for most of the fears that I would face throughout my life. What actually begins to prepare us for loss of grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents, and some cases siblings and spouses, long before their expected departure? We tune our lives for certain expectations like a musician tunes their instrument. Somehow during those events in life, like the breaking of a carefully tuned string in the midst of a concert, reality snaps to the forefront, and our state of mind may gauge our readiness and response. Today I am able to laugh at the insignificance of my flight from the dancefloor that night so many years ago, assessed against mountains of stress I have had to face since, and yet live on.

To face imminent loss, to fear the outcome of what might be, and then to live through it is no simple task. Fleeing from the Town Hall at that young age, trying to look as though I had everything in control, I was doing my level best to just breathe. People often ask how I am doing. It is clearly out of a desire to know my state of health, state of mind, and perhaps even if I am content with life in retirement. “Are you keeping busy?” “Are you doing any preaching these days?” One that often disarms me is; “Oh Hi Edwin, I was thinking of you the other day… are you interested in taking an interim position for a few months anywhere?” The kindness is poured forth from internal caring perhaps, but depending on my state of mind that day, the words may hold more a sense of curiosity that those intended to be empathetic in nature. So, while memories echo back from my youth, I am sometimes facing that Town Hall crowd on the way out, while the curious asked their questions; “Isn’t the band great tonight?… you’re not leaving early are you?” Confused now? Without overstating the stated, we are not always in complete control of the past. Most will know what I mean when triggers cause us to doubt our decisions or motivations.

We vacillate between our ability to be courageous or bolting in fear, throughout life. Those trivial exercises in preparation for life can prepare us for the pitfalls, disappointments and tragedies, but what is most often left out, is something I have mentioned before. It is the foundation of a faith base that is capable of carrying us when we can’t stand; keep us together when we are falling apart. It matters not our age when the music stops… for it will, it does and what we do next makes all the difference. Human nature has shown that we are capable of living beyond the disappointment of anything that takes away our momentary joy. That could be taken as a very unfair statement, and seem to trivialize circumstances. The moment when fear of the aftermath, that draining fear of hearing ourselves say’ “What am I going to do then, or now?” is not trivial… it is life-altering.

Putting away the fear, the anger, even to a certain extent the process of equating blame; for that is a real problem in and of itself; there is that critical point looming before us when we will have to face the world once again. I used to wonder how people moved on, how the process of letting go was manifest with such grace and ease.  Then I entered the study of human psychology and learned how our innate systems of defence and recovery can get us through. Yes, it is true; the human heart is capable of bouncing back, of putting a good face on the situation and ploughing on into the future. There is more to that then a mere knowledge that whatever the circumstance we find ourselves in, and hearing the words, “it will eventually be OK!” We love to put a gloss on everything, to dress up our agonies, put on a happy face, while inside we are eaten up by that self-doubt and fear. I could never get beyond the pain. A bit of a self-disclosure there eh! Well, it is true. In weakness and despair, I fell back to my roots and that root system was found in my faith.

Here’s the kicker though (the hard line taken by many that often makes a decision seen something less than meaningful), turning to God as an act of faith and comfort, is seen as weakness. It didn’t take me long in a university study to that see that humanism was the basis of most academic thought. My naivety in life, even though I worked in the toughest of conditions, had not prepared me for that confrontation with confusion, and as I confess now, it nearly broke my resolve to enter the ministry.  The music stopped not once but hundreds of times, as I was confronted by not only the humanism of others but my own inability to cope with the heartlessness and deviousness of humanity. It all sounds quite terrible doesn’t it; so unlike the usual stuff, I write about! But, It was dismantling, it is, it always will be; so I cry out to God, “What now, what next, how can I carry on?”

That first dance was just the beginning. Many will know I’ve lost a child, faced death in a distant country, wandered in the wilderness of regret and despair and tears would not stop the pain only my faith helped. Turning to God is not a weakness, it takes courage to let go of who and what we think we are and then take hold of the only one who truly understands. I’ve gotten so tired of listlessness, paralyzed by both stress and distress, while my needs were being designed, defined and refined by the well-meaning others. The greatest help I have ever received from others were in those moments when they came alongside of my pain and prayed; not a demeaning, sympathetic discourse, but from a heart that hurt like me; for me, not out of pity, but because my pain was their pain.

It has often been said that today God has no hands or feet, no voice or personhood; He is the silent God, once alive now dead. When the music stops, and it does, we may go deaf and blind to the potentials yet remaining. We need not to persist in that state if we reach out to He who has always been there and forever will be. I had started writing this a couple of days ago and the processing of thought was interrupted over the weekend by a family visit. Then, last night my wife asked if we could watch the movie, “The Shack”. Odd how God’s presence, in unexpected ways, can match the need of the moment? No, I am convinced that life is neither mere happenstance nor just providence working its magic. That movie underscored once again the meaning of love, God’s love and His desire for us to allow forgiveness for both self and others in the worst of times. Loss of anything, jobs, health security or separation from loved ones in divorce, death or indifference can make the music stop. How you handle those moments may be gauged by either “Karma” or a more fruitful trust in God’s plan.

I leave you with these faithful words from Scripture that have helped me immensely; “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13 - New International Version

I pray God will allow me to be His hands, feet and voice for someone when the music stops… and it does! Remember, I will always be praying for you!