Shaun Groves
She’s asking to quit piano lessons. She loves her teacher. She practices dutifully and cheerfully. But she knows all she needs to.
All she needs to mimic pop songs from the radio. All she needs to write her own. She’s arrived.
Many years ago, after the number one plaques were hung on the wall and the nominees were announced, Billy took me to breakfast. We sat down in our booth at the coffee shop and before my cinnamon roll was even cool enough to taste he began.
“I want you to know…” he said.
In the nanosecond pause before he spoke his next words I completed his sentence in my mind. I want you to know I’m proud of you…I knew you could do this…you deserve this…you’re really good at this.
“…you have not arrived,” he said. “And apart from Christ you can do nothing.”
John 15 was a constant conversation for us for a couple years before breakfast. We are all vines attached to a branch; our fruit is the result of connection and not perfection. Apart from Christ? Nothing. And with Christ? Always more to come, pressing forward, grateful now yet hoping ahead.
“I love you,” Billy said a thousand times. Which made his words over breakfast more humbling than humiliating, more devotional than deflating.
All of this memory whooshes into my head again as she plays eighth notes on the C chord, then the A minor, the F and the G.
I want to tell her there are more than four chords in the world to be discovered. More rhythm than eighth notes alone can convey.
I want her to know I love her.
And because I love her I want her to know she has not arrived. Never will. But she’s connected, so beauty and music and power and truth will arrive in this world through her little hands. Growing hands. More and more.
Its arrival – His arrival – will grow as she grows and there’s no end to the growing, the arriving. So don’t stop small, I want to say. Keep growing the vine, pruning, tilling, fertilizing, pressing on, to stronger and taller and wider…
But instead all I think to say is “That’s great…but you’re not quitting piano.”
dubdynomite says:
I think we all need people who can look at us, not at the merits of what we’ve accomplished, but at the extent of our potential. Someone who won’t let us rest on our laurels, but will push us to maximize what we can be.
Mela Kamin says:
We’ve had this same discussion at our house. My two oldest are in lessons and they try negotiating out of practicing, or doing theory … they know our policy – music is a requirement – the enjoyment is entirely up to them. It’s not because I think they’ll become pro musicians someday – there’s so much more wonder of music to be explored and lessons to be taken away from practicing, learning the fundamentals, etc., and many gifts to discover and develop – and this is one small way. And yes, they are gifted, so it’s a bonus to listen to them. I’m among the thousands who never learned piano and wish I had – but now I plunk out a melody and ask my daughter to tell me what notes I’m playing. Humbling. And, reminds me to keep learning and asking questions myself.
Jessica says:
You so smart sometimes.
That’s why I like ya.
Melissa Jones says:
How often that happens to me. I want to explain the world to my kids -explain how wonderful they are and how much I hope for them – but what comes out is something so much more prosaic.
Shelly Wildman says:
Ha! I’ve said the same thing, and finally, as a 13-year-old, she can’t imagine ever quitting piano. Hang in there!
Kelli says:
I love this. Sometimes being a parent is so hard. 🙂
Jenn says:
The 34-year old me wishes frequently that the 12-year old me had pushed through the boredom and continued with piano lessons. I so wish my mom had said to me what your said to your daughter.
Lindsay says:
Thank you again for finding “grateful now yet hoping ahead” for me. I really appreciate this post, and, as you can tell, God’s been using it to do a work in my heart for several days now.
Jason says:
We all need someone like that in our lives to keep us humble and grounded.