It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing

Notes from a different drummer

Learning the unforced rhythms of grace

"There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves." 
                                                                        Thomas Merton

So, to the practical How.

To begin with: Become aware that you are waking up.

I imagine you thinking: “The very last thing I need at the beginning of a new year, is yet another program to follow which promises to make me thinner, healthier, richer, more successful or ready for heaven.” Yet, you may have a nagging uneasiness about where you are heading. In spite of the recent holiday, you may feel tired and burnt out physically. Inwardly feelings of an emptiness and disillusionment with life and religion are surfacing. You catch yourself yearning for something which you cannot exactly name. You may feel that there has to be more to life.

A spark of hope remains. On the wind you are picking up notes that stir you. Something you read makes you think, “Yes, I can go along with this!” You start weighing statements by authority figures you would never have questioned before. The dis-ease increases as current life becomes more and more unbearable. A change is imminent but wrought with uncertainty . What is happening? 

You are waking up. 

The notes from the different drummer have reached your inner ear. 

To be woken from a deep sleep is not a pleasant experience and is often very confusing. On the one hand we are looking for more, but when the stirrings of that something announces itself we draw back. We resist it. It implies change and the insistent and beckoning notes are often discordant to what we are used to listening to.

Personally, I don’t get jazz. Yet. It jars with my sense of what enjoyable music should sound like, but I am fascinated by how seemingly effortless the ensemble tune into each other. I see how the audience becomes one along with the musicians, adding voice and movement, becoming one pulsing body able to intuit a change of tempo or key, where to fall in to the music, when to let up and incredibly, the exact moment to simultaneously stop.

I want to fall into this music the way I see them do. How they get swept away and sway and bob to it. It must feel really good. I know I’m missing out on something, but I don’t exactly know how to tune in. I’m hopeful that wanting to may be a sign of already being on the way of getting there. Letting go of my idea about what sounds are pleasing to the ear may be a next step to take: head bobbing ever so slightly to the drum beat. Then to stop trying to understand the music and rather just feel into it: a “uhm -yes” escaping my surprised lips. 

Tapping into something unfamiliar as Jazz will take some fine tuning. A lot of exposure to and awareness of the new experience are needed.  It will take time to make it my own. 

The same applies to the notes of a different drummer. We see the meaningful results of tuning into this “unfamiliar sounding song”. A little allowing, a little letting go, a little letting up on trying to understand and just feeling into it will be required. 

That, and a trusting in the relevance of our own deeper yearnings to find meaning, to have our days matter, to know that we are awake and all will be well. Trust the different Drummer who has created this yearning. The notes will not fail. 

We are picking up on the unforced rhythms of grace.

Matilda