Solitude

December 9, 2014

I love music. More to the point, I love making music. I love playing my bass for the church band and for the New Horizons Jazz Band; I love playing the bassoon, I love singing; I even like writing music. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at any of this. Barely adequate would be more like it, but I do enjoy the attempt. For someone who loves music as I do, it is perhaps strange then, that I don't particularly like listening to it. Except for the holidays when Linda likes to have Christmas music playing, I rarely listen to the radio. I can drive for hours at a stretch and never turn on the radio in my truck. If I do, it's either classical or PBS commentary, but even then, I can only listen for a short while before I turn it off.

One might think that as a pastor, I would love Christian radio, but with the exception of a very few radio preachers, most of what I hear just about gives me heartburn. The "affect" assumed by many of the performers seems fake to me, the constant beat and boom of the bands gets tiresome, and I just plain prefer the silence. A live performance is another story. Jazz, classical, chamber music, country/western, Christian contemporary; I would attend much more than I do if I had more time available. And if I wanted to be out in the evenings. In winter, once I'm home, I want to stay there. In summer, there's too much to keep me busy during the day, and by the time the light is gone, it's too late to go anywhere.

Today, after visiting with my friends Willie and Cameron, I did a few errands, then came home to write. It was quiet. Now at nearly 7:30, it still is, and I like it that way. For many people, if there isn't some sort of noise in the background, they go nuts. Not me. I'm grateful for solitude, which is different than being alone, although usually one has to be alone to have solitude. Solitude affords the opportunity for reflection, which is often in pretty short supply in a day and age where everything digital is instantly and continually available. I have to work at it a bit more than I used to; instant distraction didn't used to be a possibility. Now, it's there at the click of a mouse, or in my case with an iPad, the touch of my finger. But the possibility is before me, and I am grateful for this stage in my life that affords me more potential for solitude than ever before.