Friday, April 22, 2011

Rachmaninoff and Easter 2011

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Walt Disney, Vladimir Horowitz

LANGHORNE, PENNSYLVANIA. Sergei Rachmaninoff is a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who lived between 1873 and 1943. After the more than terrible reception of the first symphony that he composed, along with other circumstances as well, he went into a kind of depression and could not compose anything for almost three years. Then he was brought out of his depression and writer's block by a psychiatrist named Nikolai Dahl who was also a musician. He kept telling the composer, "You will write the most loved concerto in the world." Out of this therapy came the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Opus 18. First came the second movement, then the third, and later the first movement. That was in 1901. In 2011 it is still an enduring and inspiring favorite of many, myself included.

For this very short essay let us consider what happened back then and bring it into a current context, one that is a bit more personal. Let us say that you have been having a really tough time recently. It has caused you to be in a kind of a depression where you think you cannot make it anymore. You feel like throwing in the towel and just quitting. This is perhaps effecting your personal life, your family, and maybe even your professional life. Some are beginning to wonder whether you are going to be okay, whether you are going to snap out of it and somehow become normal again.

Let us further say that you are a writer of sorts. It may not be your full-time profession but you would like it to be. You would really like to write things that would be meaningful to others. But life has got you down. The words are just not there.

Then let us say that someone very important in your life gets your attention one day. That person in several different ways tells you, "You will write some of the most loved words that some people have ever read." And that person keeps telling you that day after day after day.

What happens to you? Do you start to believe that person? Do you start writing again? Who is that person in your life that really helps you believe in yourself again when everything goes wrong?

There have been several for me. But those several would have never been there if it was not for He who has become the most important Person in my life. His name is Jesus the Christ. Now before you may stop here and decide to read something else, please do me a personal favor and read on. Through the Bible and in my life He along with His Father in heaven and the Holy Spirit have taught me many things, some things new and some things old. But all are like treasure that is beyond any price imaginable. He has adopted me into His family and no one or no thing can take me from Him. He continues to teach me to be a disciple of the kingdom of heaven which is a pearl without price, a mustard seed that has become a tree that shades many from a variety of things in their lives.

Now this Sunday is Easter. It is the one day of the year that many celebrate as the day that Jesus the Christ rose from the dead after dying on the cross three days earlier. For some it may be one of only two or three days a year when they go to church. For others, they still do not go to church at all. For these folks it may just be that what Man has done through Religion has turned them off from going to church. They say that they are believers in God and that they have a faith. They just cannot stand what others who also have said that they are believers have done with the whole concept of Faith. And what they see and read in the current media continues to feed that perception that church is just not the place for them, maybe some time in the future but not now, or maybe not ever.

However, as you the reader may have seen in the first part of this essay, Faith is not just about what may be perceived as what the Church has become. It just may be about what Faith can be if you make an honest effort to see through the eyes of a personal God who believes in you, wants the very best for you, has a meaningful plan for your life, and really, truely loves you.

Think on that this Sunday, and if you have the time and opportunity, go to church. Your perception of Church may just change as maybe you see things in a different light, something more personal than all the people who clouded your concept of church before. Do me a favor though, will you? When you go, focus on Him who loved you so much that He died on the cross for you, but then also rose from the dead. All that so that you may have life, a meaningful life with real purpose, a living adventure without end. He believes in you more than you know, and that is a fact you can truely rely on. Oh, and if you have the time, drop me a line about your Easter or just life in general. I would love to hear from you :-)

Happy Easter :-)

ALW
alwinger1@gmail.com