Oboe concerto by Brahams, Pachelbel’s concerto, and many others soothe and stimulate in the same way. I listen to Music Choice all day (country music; and I sing along) but today I am visiting friend Karla who now lives in Hilton Head. I can’t sing along to piano and oboe and maybe that is more soothing. It’s possible that a country song that I sing along to keeps my practical brain awake…. There’s lots of "stories" in country music, and I wonder if the story part of our brain is different from the "just beautiful" part of our brain? I’m not sure, but I think I will research that. I intuitively think that music without words often causes us to relax. Today is Shakespeare’s birthday. Somehow this led me to quote a line from a poem that I love "I wandered through fields of golden daffodils." When we remembered the poem was by William Wordsworth (Karla remembered it was Wordsworth) I went and looked it up. Turns out it is really, "I wandered lonely as a cloud." In reading the poem we discovered "Fields of Golden Daffodils" is a lovely image for me.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
I have always loved daffodils. My mother called them Jonquils. What soothes us can often be as simple as that!
What is soothing to us? We need to know this in a world growing more chaotic every day. Karla repeated something that my sister Sarah and niece Erin said to me. When the President came on TV on the night the Chauvin jury was sequestered he was soothing… He is sincere, humble, and grandfatherly. We can tell "the President" our fears and troubles, and I get the feeling he will not put me off. I have been praying a lot for "our world." Having faith that we are in God’s hands, but "it" still gets under our skin and irritates. "It" might be, people in our world getting killed by violence and by Covid. I received 2 emails today to pray for our church family members dying of Covid. "It" might be Financials, it’s tax season, and the Cable bill needs to be paid! It’s medical worries: "should I fix my teeth, my toes, or my…. " you name it. It costs money. So… Lets give the worries a nod and then head out if possible (I don’t know if my sister visiting Idaho can get out yet!), but get out and find the clouds, flowers, breezes. Get to the water if you can! These are the beauties of our earth. Absolute beauties: things that never change because man’s hand cannot stop life from growing. Love, honor, justice, faith, never changing, always present. Ah! Present! In Luke 24:35, two disciples who saw the Resurrected Jesus on the way to Emmaus told how he "made himself known". At that point that they believed the Lord Jesus is Present; they chose to believe he is with them, they relaxed and became fruitful. "Look! Touch! See!" says the Lord as he directs discussion to himself present in the world. As my sister Sarah said, " Great photos of sunrise, make my brushes want to dance!" You go girls and boys! Let’s get those brushes and pens dancing. Angels with us!!!!