"Just like ringing a bell"

Recently I’ve had this feeling that there’s a jazz pianist locked inside of me trying to get out. Of course the feeling occurs when I’m listening to the likes of Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor, Bill Evans, John Lewis, Ray Bryant or Gene Harris. Increasingly my listening happens through my iPod as I’m jogging along trying to stay limber and fit.

My locked-up-jazz-pianist feeling is one of later life’s nagging little regrets. It isn’t all-consuming and besides I suppose that I could even take a “fun run” at dispelling it by...what? Taking lessons as I approach my eighth decade?

Not impossible but unlikely.

This morning I was vaguely communing with my inner jazz pianist while listening intently to changes in a spare and perfect Count Basie riff. The iPod was in its randomizing “shuffle” mode. Suddenly, after the pause following Basie’s little opus, Johnny Winter’s pounding version of “Johnny B. Goode” popped up on the play list.

Way down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
He never learned to read or write so well
But he could play a guitar just like ringing a bell....

His mother told him someday he would be a man
And he would be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear him play his music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name would be in lights
Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight!

Oddly the line that jumped out at me was “He never learned to read or write so well.”

Imagine. There’s a trade-off, I thought. What if I had “never learned to read or write so well” but could play the piano “just like ringing a bell.”

What if I had to choose? What difference would it make? Would the wisdom of the choice be determined by whether my name “would be in lights”? Or was there something more here? Emerson and Thoreau perhaps. Or Hemingway or Baldwin or Orwell.

To me, the story of Johnny B. Goode is a story of success and failure. It doesn’t consider Johnny’s regrets in later life because “he never learned to read or write so well.” Who would he be if he had written and read well?

Then again, perhaps “playing a guitar just like ringing a bell” was enough. We don’t regret what we don’t know. (Question for another time: If ignorance is bliss, what is knowledge?)

For me, simply playing and having my name in lights would not have been enough — knowing what I do know from reading, and, yes, the challenges of writing.

Still, thanks to the Johnny B. Goodes (and the Johnny Winters and the Chuck Berrys) and the Basies and Petersons, I have music in my head.

Come to think of it, why not do it all? Find music in the words — and words in the music.

Can "God" substitute for "Spirit"?

This is the companion piece to an earlier post in which I took well known references to God and substituted the word "Spirit.” The idea was to “test” what happened to meaning by the substitution. Are the two words equivalent and interchangeable? When I speak of “Spirit,” do you understand that to mean “God”? Are we talking about the same thing?

I’m holding off sharing my impressions, but the post has drawn considerable attention, if little comment.

In that post, I promised to flip the exercise and substitute “God” for “Spirit” in a number of “Spirit” quotes.

But which quotes to use? I found that, like “God,” “Spirit” is used in a variety of contexts which morph its meaning. Some meanings are clearly non-religious, tending to the political or commercial. Consider just one, “The Spirit of ’76,” which turns out to be both. Think of this nation’s independence and the gasoline company, Union Oil.

I found too that the word can be personal in that each of us has a “spirit to survive.” Hence “his spirit was broken” or “her spirit was lifted.” It didn't seem to be spiritual, or at least as spiritual as other references.

“Spirit” or “Great Spirit” is also at the heart of Native-American religious belief, so some quotations are from Native-American historical figures.

Countless passages of Biblical text refer to "The Holy Spirit" as God. Could this be the answer to my questions? Do Christians automatically consider references to "Spirit" as being references to God? Frankly, that hasn't been my experience among my fellow Quakers, as I noted in my first post.

With that, here are some “Spirit” quotes, many from THIS site. They are followed by the “God” substitutions.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. —Khalil Gibran

Life without liberty is like a body without God.


I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. —Khalil Gibran

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is God.


In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. —Genesis 1:1-2

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the God of God moved upon the face of the waters.


There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence. —John Calvin

There is no worse screen to block out God than confidence in our own intelligence.


All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. —Chief Joseph

All men were made by the Great God Chief. They are all brothers.


I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me. —William Blake

I myself do nothing. God accomplishes all through me.


All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love. —Morihei Ueshiba

All life is a manifestation of God, the manifestation of love.


Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature always wears the colors of God.


In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified. —Hermann Hesse

In each individual God is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.


Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art. —Leonardo da Vinci

Where God does not work with the hand, there is no art.


And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. —Black Elk

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in God, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.


It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control. —Oprah Winfrey

It isn't until you come to a divine understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, God within - that you can begin to take control.


It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us. —John Ruskin

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts God within us.


All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the Spirit. —Thomas Aquinas

All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in God.


Finally, and tellingly, this from Voltaire

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and God gives life.

Three

Three from "The Essence of Tao," compiled by Maggie Pinkney.
The Five Mile Press


The world is won by those who let go!

Lao Tzu



The things that are really for thee,
Gravitate to thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson



Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, Is always beyond our grasp, But which, if you sit down quietly, May alight upon you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Driving home the point

We were down to three peace vigilers (vigil-antes?) at Sunset Boulevard and Capitol Highway during this evening’s rush hour. Not that our numbers have ever been overwhelming. The most I can remember is 12 or 13 waving placards at two thousand or so commuters headed home. We’ve been protesting since January or February.

Some commuters, call them Group A, must wonder what good we think we are doing. It reminds me a little of Emerson’s famous exchange with Thoreau when the latter was in jail for refusing to pay his war tax.

“Henry, what are you doing in there?” asked Emerson, to which Thoreau retorted, “What are YOU doing out there?”

It’s important to prompt Group A’s 400 or 500 commuters simply to hesitate, even if only to question our motives. At least they will be forced to think of this tragic, wasteful war.

You might say that I’m standing at Capitol and Sunset, a sign in both hands, in order to get Group A to think about something other than mowing the lawn, the weekend sale at Macy’s or the price of gasoline.

If Group A commuters pause a single instant to reflect on this war, my half hour at Sunset and Capitol is more than worth it.

And then there are all those Group B folks who obviously do understand our protest. Group B still honks and gives us thumbs up. And, like us, they too draw the attention of Group A.

Even if our numbers dwindle to one, each Friday evening from 5:30 to 6:00, the protest will still have Group B, honking and helping — driving home the point for peace.