Go Play Music: Teachings From A Dominican Youth
This blog post is going to be like a 3-layer cake, or if you prefer, a lasagna. The first layer is a fairly ordinary but cool story. The second layer is the thought-provoking, deeper meaning I took from that experience. Finally, the third layer is about you — how you can apply the story and reflection to your life and what action you might take.
Layer #1: The Story
This past spring break I went on my fifth Alternative Spring Break trip through St. Mary — this time as a staff member. A group of college students and I went to the Dominican Republic to be with people, learn from them, and help out where needed.
One of the moments from the trip that stuck with me the most was when we were at a nursery being with the children for a couple hours. There were a lot of children here, somewhere between 25 and 40 running around, and so you get a lot of kids who just come up to you with a toy and want to play with you.
Well, one little boy, maybe between 1 and 2-years-old came and brought me this four-key toy piano. I played the piano for him for a little bit, hitting random keys and then turned it back to him to see if he would play it too. Apparently he wasn’t ready for that because he just stared at me, and he didn’t speak at all during this entire interaction. So I took his hand and had him stick out a finger and I pressed it against the keys for him. We repeated this exchange several times: me playing and then helping him play.
Afterward, the boy went to another part of the playpen that we were in and meanwhile, other kids came and started playing with me. But the boy came back and handed me the piano once again. I play a few musical sounds and then directed it back towards him.
Before I could take his hand, he started playing on his own, pressing the keys! Wow, what a beautiful surprise. We repeated this exchange again with him playing himself this time. He didn’t show much excitement or joy on his face but I knew he was having fun. Soon, he was off to another part of the playpen again, and I’m left alone…until…
Moments later he is back again and this time, he doesn’t just have the piano but also an orange plastic tube that looked like part of some other kind of toy. He shows me his plan, using the tube to hit the keys like you would with a xylophone. All I’m thinking is, “this is incredible!”
He’s becoming a musician right before my very eyes. He’s pounding the keys with the tube with this great intensity. He’s a child prodigy. And even more incredible to me was how focused he was. In total, this child played with this piano for at least 45 minutes when most other kids might play with a toy only for a few minutes before getting bored and moving on to something else.
Layer #2: The Reflection
On the surface, this is a simple story, but after reflecting on it, it has much great meaning to me.
I realized this small experience taught me a lot about God and life. First, it taught me that God wants us to play music for Him. It’s a metaphor.
To me, playing music means living a life of love, generosity, and compassion that God is uniquely calling each of us to, and this means using and sharing our God-given gifts.
For some us, that might actually be playing music. For me, it’s not. In fact, I’m not musically-talented at all; I played zero instruments growing up. The little boy was already better than me by the end of our time together, so music is a weakness of mine. Isn’t it amazing what God can do even with our weaknesses and mistakes? Here, he used my weakness of music and made it the centerpiece of a joyful, inspiring moment.
It makes me think of the story of when a young boy gives Jesus his fives loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Jesus takes that little bit and multiplies it to feed five thousand and then some. The message here is simple: Jesus is going to take whatever we give Him, and use it to feed people and do more incredible things than we could even imagine in the first place.
Thankfully, writing is one of my gifts. For others, gifts might involve showing forgiveness or encouragement, having a heart for social justice or advocacy, healing people who are sick, or some combination of any of these.
In our early years, we might have no idea what it looks like to be living our life for God or using our gifts, and that’s okay because God wants to show us that too. He will show us like I showed the little boy how to play the piano at first. He will bring us every step of the way if we let Him.
John Michael Talbot is quoted saying, “When we let go of our plans and give them entirely to God, he will surprise us with his own plans that use our gifts, talents, and entire lives more successfully than we can ever do ourselves.”
This might mean pausing from the everyday hustle to have time in silence or time in nature. Do nothing but sit and listen. Maybe you won’t hear anything at first, but eventually you will.
Next, I noticed that there were a few times that the boy left, but each time he came back, I was ecstatic! What this tells me is that we are going to have times when we turn away from God or have our back to Him. While it’s not preferred, it’s not something to scold ourselves over because He is always welcoming us back with great enthusiasm!
We have a God of mercy and patience. He never grows tired waiting for us. And he is thrilled and delighted when we learn and make progress towards our best self, again, like I was delighted by the boy in his growing musical skills.
Finally, even though the boy was improving and doing his musical thing, he still needed me. Every time he played the piano, I was the one holding it for him. He was humble and knew he couldn’t do it on his own because this toy was too heavy for him to carry with just one hand.
Similarly, even as we grow and improve in using our gifts and move through various stages of life, we will never be able to do it on our own. We will always need to depend on God first and foremost. The great thing about this is that, unlike me, who was only at this nursery for an hour, God is always going to be there for us. Even when we don’t recognize His presence, He is absolutely still there — cheering us on, encouraging us to love bigger and do the next right thing.
Maybe it seems obvious, but I can’t get over how huge and important this is! God is always with us. I know there are dozens of places I haven’t been expecting to experience God’s presence. I’m slowly noticing where those places are and starting to pay closer attention. What I’m learning is that God is there too. At the grocery store, at the gas station, at the dentist’s office, at the airport.
Oh, and definitely at mass too. For the longest time, I didn’t experience God at mass. I just went because it was what “I was supposed to do.” I’ll admit: there were even times I would briefly fall asleep while in the pew. At the time, I didn’t understand what the mass was about, and I didn’t realize how much Jesus could be speaking to me there. Now, I love going to mass. I look forward to it.
God is with us.
Layer #3: For You
Looking back at all of this now, we can see that this small, relatively ordinary 45-minute encounter with a child was actually a remarkably meaningful experience! An experience that opens my eyes to how I think about living in this world. How might we cause it to happen more? If I can learn this much from a 45-minute interaction, what all could I be learning from an entire day?
A few practical ideas come to mind for this:
- Put myself in more situations to go outside my comfort zone
- Pray for transformative experiences (how often do we do that?)
- Take time to reflect often (daily is possible; don’t tell yourself it’s not)
While we’re pondering these ideas, here are a few other questions we might consider related to the content of the reflection:
- Where is God calling me at this very moment?
- What gifts have I been given?
- Where or who am I putting my trust in?
The last thing I want to end on is this quote from Bob Goff because it captures a lot of what I’ve written and better than I could:
“What if we found out God’s big plan for our lives is that we wouldn’t spend so much of our time trying to figure out a big plan for our lives?
Perhaps He just wants us to love Him and love each other. Our ability to change is often blocked by our plans…I don’t think God uses card tricks to get our attention. Rather, He gives us hopes and dreams and desires. He gives us tenacity and resilience and courage. He’s made us good at some things and horrible at other things. He brings joyful, beautiful, fun people into our lives and a few difficult ones too.
Sometimes He changes the trajectory of our plans by taking away what we’ve comfortably known and letting us fly through valleys that are deeper and narrower than any we’ve been through before.
Don’t ignore the green lights you already have. What delights you? What fires your imagination? What fills you we a deep sense of meaning and purpose? What draws you closer to God? What is going to last in your life and in the lives of others? Do those things. They’re your green lights. Most of us already have more lights than we need.”
This blog post is your green light.
Go. Play. Music.
