God on Guitar

After a lifetime of leaning over his guitar,
Segovia offered this aesthetic of craft: Not more,
not less. When approaching the romance of spirit,
Put on the brakes. Too much music, isn’t music.
Be calm. Let the word do its work. Allow
each string its resonance in silence.
—Joseph Stroud, “Hacedor,” Below Cold Mountain, 23.

I want to stretch my usual metaphors for God as Creator. Too often I limit them to the physical: God the Architect, arranging all the pieces just so, or God the Potter, fashioning us from dust, breathing into our nostrils the breath of life. Occasionally, I even imagine God the Author, writing out complicated plot lines, fleshing out characters, spinning out the myths and stories that bring us meaning and joy.

Stroud’s poem leads me to set the physical imagery aside. What if God played guitar, I now wonder? What if the events in our lives were the notes, and each life a song?

I think it’s liberating, imagining God leaning over my life like Segovia over his guitar, allowing each string to resonate in the silence, waiting to hear what it will do. The sweet melodies, the deepening themes, even the dissonant chords and suspended sevenths that demand resolution—all of it in God’s careful fingers. Never too much, never too little—God always playing, sometimes delighted at the result, at other times perhaps concerned. But always calmly, allowing the word to “do its work.”

Perhaps some lives are etudes, studies upon a theme, testing various techniques. Perhaps others are sonatas, folk songs, or dance tunes. I’d like to think many of us are jazz combos, a series of intimate twelve-bar phrases with a little improvisation to work things out against the silence to which all music returns.

What’s your song sounding like? Are you keeping your instrument tuned? Can you feel God’s fingers on your strings?

Along the Way, I wish you God’s peace on today’s stage of your Lenten spiritual journey. May Christ’s companionship bless you with confidence for the day, comfort you in trouble, and put a spring of joy in your step.