I owe my husband (Cliff) a public apology.
Okay – back story…For Cliff’s birthday (which was in December), I gave him tickets to a Yanni concert – because for years I have heard of his, what I labelled “quaint?” “cute?” “sweet?” “ridiculous?”, love of Yanni. Then, anytime I was within earshot when his friends asked what he got for his birthday and he said, “Yanni tickets,” I would jump into said conversation with something like “Yeah…Just shows you how much I love my husband. I am going to see Yanni…YANNI for ‘Sweet Betty’s sake!’” Accompanied with a truly impressive eye roll (one that would rival my 11 year-old daughter’s!).
Yanni…a hair-slinging wannabe pianist!
I know…great attitude. “Oh the sacrifices I make for love!”
I carried that attitude with me all the way into the auditorium last night and even into the first song as Yanni (all 108 pounds of him!) made a grand entrance accompanied by his orchestra and purple/pink lights, throwing kisses and flinging his hair (Full disclosure…I also thought shameful things about the 1500-2000 people in the auditorium with us!)!
Finally, resigned to the reality of my life for the ensuing 2-2 ½ hours, I actually started listening.
About 30 minutes into the whole thing, I actually took out my phone “googled” Yanni…First “designation” listed is “composer.”
In my head: “He wrote all this stuff?...Seriously?!?!”
Then, I found out that he doesn’t read music – but uses some kind of “shorthand” (You should check it out…crazy/amazing). That’s not proper!
Meanwhile, on stage the harpist (also long-haired) is going crazy making a harp sound like a grand piano and drum all at the same time. I mean, like nothing I’ve ever heard!
Then, a violinist (bald) plays with absolute virtuosity and then a trumpeter with clarity that cuts to my heart (at this point I’m feeling pretty stupid about the whole eye-roll, “my great sacrifice for love” stuff!).
Then he (Yanni) starts introducing his orchestra…And there are musicians from Greece, Paraguay, Asia, Russia, Venezuela, the US, Armenia, Canada and Cuba. The UN of orchestras!
The text for the sermon yesterday was Luke 13:31-35, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.”
Here’s the thing, I am convinced that the statement, “See, your house is left to you,” is simply a statement of fact (not a threat or even a judgment per se)…“Come together my children,” Jesus says, “or you will destroy yourselves.”
“Don’t exclude, separate, point fingers, call names, build walls (!)…just come near to my love…or you will destroy yourselves.”
We are living that reality right now, aren’t we?
We are separating more and more all while Jesus (in red letters) is saying “come together,” and we are not willing, and we are seeing the signs of our own destruction.
So sad.
So wrong.
So unfaithful.
Really cool to see embodied on stage last night the beauty of “children gathered,” working together across culture, language, gender, age, “proper musical training,” and, no doubt, religion.
There’s a quite annoying “chant” that our kids are fond of (from some lovely TV cartoon – you may be familiar with it)…It goes a little something like this: “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it all along. You just wouldn’t listen. I was right and you were wrong!” Thank you my dear husband for simply loving the concert, loving me and not chanting the “I knew it” chant for all the world to hear!
And I apologize for the eye roll!
