Thresholds

threshold n.  1: the plank, stone, or piece of timber that lies under a door : sill.  2a : gate, door.  b (1) : end, boundary; specifically : the end of a runway (2) : the place or point of entering or beginning : outset Merriam Webster

The beginning of a new year, any new year, is really quite arbitrary as measures go: this is a new year simply because we’ve agreed it is.

That said, there is, nevertheless, a sense of pondering, of considering, of weighing, that happens as one year ends and a new year begins.  Maybe it’s a simple by-product of sentience, this taking stock process.

Whenever I consider thresholds, my mind travels back to when I learned that a grandchild can be a kindred spirit.  It was a discovery moment.

Just old enough to walk on his own confidence, so maybe 18-20 months or so, I had grandson Rowen in tow one day ducking into the church for some work-related thing or another.

Entering from a back hallway into the sanctuary, Rowen experienced one of the joys of this particular worship space: perfect acoustics.

Babbling along in those softly indistinguishable sounds babies make before going verbal on us, he walked behind me, carrying his sing-song along with him.

Two steps into the sanctuary, he came to a sudden stop.

He raised his voice, babbled and listened intently.

He did that baby side-canter wobble/walk back out into the hallway, babbled a bit; came back in – babbled a bit; and repeated the process a few times, with utter delight on his face.

Baptistry in Pisa, Italy, where the acoustics
make a tenor sound like a cherubic choir

Rowen had crossed the threshold from the ordinary to the extraordinary in a few baby steps, and because of the gifts of sound and hearing and recognition, was able to know it in an instant.

Watching his discovery that day was a joy-filled thrill for me as well, as child and gran jumped back and forth over the threshold, hearing the noise of our happiness magnified by the near-perfect engineering surrounding us.

Thresholds can be drug places, as one figuratively or literally drags or is drug across.  They can be the place where pain begins.  They can be the boundary place.  And they can be the place where song unfurls, first as discovered sound, moving into its own symphony of filled space.

May this moment be a threshold to your song unfurled, 

echoing into perfect harmony in the ears of all you love.

That Satisfying Sound

I don’t know why

the sound
of the leaves
grown dead
on the ground
in the fall
makes a most
satisfying sound
underfoot

Left to choose
the cleared yard
or the leaf strewn
walk
I always go
straight for the
leaves

Crunch
Snap-crackle-pop
all-at-once
crumble, rumble
mumblin

there is something
so simply right
about this sound
of the earth
returning to itself
it makes my feet
happy and my ears
rejoice

The Symphony

I read David Byrne of Talking Heads fame waxing philosophical about music.  I read and learn and am gratified.  We have moved, it seems from music as the sounds around us to our own organization of sound full circle to music as the sound around us.

I hear the sizzle of the candle on my desk made to sizzle . . . the intermittent slap on asphalt of cars and trucks rushing from who knows where to who knows what . . . the occasional bird determined not to fly south for this is not a presage to winter or anything like it . . .

But today I wonder more about the sounds I do not know, have not heard . . . what sound does the black swift make nestled behind the waterfall?

What secret sounds do twins murmur in greeting after a day’s separation?

What sound does God hear when hands are clasped together in that moment before the prayer begins?

In what key do the winds of the Himalayas blow?

Is there harmony in the creaking and breaking of the Arctic ice?

What tempo resounds in the keening of the polar bear for its mate?

Whether I hear it or not; whether I am mindful of it or not, a symphony is happening, filling every moment in every space of this whole wide world and the keys I tap are the tiniest contributors . . . my own pizzicato contribution.

I hope The Conductor is pleased.

When Sound Turns Into Music

Some time ago, my friend and fellow pastor, Melissa, speaking about my struggles to learn to play the cello, with lots of descriptors by me of the screeches and howls I was managing to evoke from my instrument, spoke of her own love of playing and the magic moment when sound turns into music.  Even though I haven’t gotten there on the cello, I knew just what she meant.

A symphony of laundry
from Wikimedia Commons

The rough and tumble mix of voices in the choir melding into one sweet note of accord . . . the murmur of husband and wife emerging into one long note of love . . . the sing-song cadence of the preached sermon transforming into a spoken song of praise . . . a single, understandable word emerging from a baby’s gibberish . . . the moment on the dance floor when you and your partner move as one . . . when the seemingly random calls of the birds clarifies in my ears into the song of the flying world . . . when the sung notes of a single man in the Baptistry in Piza reverberate into a choir of sound as he sings to and with himself . . . when crunching tires in the snow evoke the rhythms of the swishing jazz drum player . . . when the wind-whipped laundry on the line on a cold and bright winter’s day segues into hand-clapping, foot-stomping, finger-snapping, rhythmic gusto . . . when sound turns into music . . . Melissa’s right . . . it is magic.