[Propertalk] Maybe this is how God's Kingdom comes

[Joe Parrish]

Salvation in a Heartbeat
Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11
Advent 3 - Year A
November 12, 2006
Thursday afternoon in a nursing home is pretty much like any other afternoon, unless you happened to be there last Thursday. About 1:30, residents began gathering for the afternoon activity. Advertised as "Drumming with Connie," it seemed something different and maybe interesting, and so about 30 residents straggled in. They sat as they almost always do, in a large circle; but, as usual, few people spoke to each other. Mostly they just sit and wait in silence, another diversion promised to help pass the time before dinner. They know their neighbors, know them all too well maybe, and there are no surprises there. It's just another Thursday.
Then Connie came in. A short, rather round woman of middle age with long platinum blonde hair, she came in with a flatbed cart laden with drums. And she began unpacking. Tall drums that sat on the floor went to residents with two good hands. Smaller drums could be held between the knees; and so for those paralyzed on one side by a stroke, she had drums that hung from the neck by a strap. She had drums of every size and description, a hammered silver drum from India and a hand-carved wooden drum from Egypt. There were drums covered in hairy cowskin and drums of smooth leather, wooden drums from Nigeria and painted drums from Haiti. And for those who couldn't manage a drum, she had maracas, those gourds that are so easy to shake. And people perked up then, because it's been a long time since someone handed them something unique and valuable and said, "Here, this is for you." And eyes brightened and there was an air of anticipation in the room. 
And then Connie sat down with her own drum and began to teach us what she knew. "It's easy," she said. "Let's start with the sound of your own heart: lub, dub, lub, dub." This is music we all know and so it was easy, and everyone found they could make that sound with their drum. "Now," she said, "while you play I'll add a note. But you must be sure to hold the beat, because we'll come back to it again and again." And the people played their heartbeats and she added a beat here and there and soon this incredible deep bass throbbing filled the place and we were drumming! And the amazing thing was that it was all perfect!

When she got louder, all the drums got louder. And when she drummed soft as a whisper, everyone drummed softly. Every drum beat in a tempo passed from soul to soul, drawing on something primitive and sacred, the heartbeat of life pounded out in a place of darkness. And she knew just how to teach us because when it came time to end the song, she would count down: 4 - beat, beat, 3 - beat, beat, 2 - beat, beat, 1 - beat, beat, and everyone stopped-and then broke out in joyous applause!

She taught us so much. She taught us how to make the sound of the wind in the trees by running our flat hands around the face of the drum. She taught us how to make the sound of the rain with our fluttering fingertips. And she continued for an hour, teaching songs from the Congo and Cuba and all sorts of faraway places in languages we didn't understand, except that somehow we did understand it; we knew these songs somewhere deep inside and the drums translated for us. Songs at once simple and eternally complex, songs as natural as our own skin and as dear.

And a woman with Alzheimer's, who sits most of her days in her room in silence, was shaking her maraca in time and grinning from ear to ear. And people with strokes were dancing in their wheelchairs and drumming out the rhythm and smiling for the pure joy of it. And even the deaf could hear this sound and it was a wonder. And the throbbing drumbeats filled the building and staff members wandered in and couldn't help themselves-the activities director danced with the maintenance man, and the head of housekeeping took the center of the circle to pound out a dance with a head nurse. And a man blind in one eye, who normally shuffles down the hall, took to the floor and gyrated in reckless abandon, and there was music and it was heavenly!

The writer, the Rev. Patti Davis, is a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia.

http://day1.org/1016-salvation_in_a_heartbeat


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