The musicians took to the stage one
by one, led to my utter astonishment by a suntanned and relaxed figure whom I
swore was Moses bearing a trumpet in his left hand. A bent over figure hoisting
a gleaming tenor saxophone nearly his equal in size, and his long, white beard
brushing his sternum came next. “It’s Galileo. He’s better than John Coltrane
on any given day,” the friendly voice told me. A tiny shape swathed all in
white from head to toe was the third to take a seat. Thunderous applause erupted
upon her appearance, and she waved a flute in the air in acknowledgement of the
love that surged through the space. “Is it Mother Teresa?” I asked my guide.
“You got that right,” my guide replied. None other than Carl Sagan followed in
Mother Teresa’s hoary wake, his bulky cello tucked under his right arm. Her
violin and bow held in her right hand, a delicate woman seemed to float to her
chair. The voice explained, “Elizabeth still loves her couch and we have to
work overtime to get her off it at times like this.” “Elizabeth?” I asked. “The
poet and hymnist Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” the voice said. Near the end of
the line, an able-bodied Stephen Hawking trod blithely to the seat at the drum
set. “No doubt you don’t recognize him, but the next musician is Saint John of
the Cross wielding his clarinet. He makes it sing like a bird,” the voice
informed me. “And hold on to your hat because you won’t believe the eighth
member of this band.” And to my absolute amazement, Sigmund Freud strutted onto
the stage and lowered to the bench before the baby grand. Only the conductor of
this ensemble was yet to appear. “That’s Albert Einstein!” I blurted as the
fuzzy-haired character with his signature mustache took his place at the lectern.
“Good guess, but you’re not quite right. Actually, it’s God,” the voice
countered. “Hey! I know my Einstein when I see him,” I shot back. My guide
merely smiled and then left me to join a nearby group of people/spirits.
“What kind of music can this divergent
group pull off?” I thought to myself. “It’s impossible for the God-minded and
the science-minded to work together in such a way.” As if to validate my
skepticism, the musicians gave forth on their instruments in a random series of
discordant squawks and squeaks, of heavy-handed plucks of strings and keys, and
Hawking’s crashing drum beats that reverberated through me and nearly knocked
me over. Einstein/God then tapped his baton on the edge of the lectern, raised
his right hand and pointed his baton to Freud at the piano. With the index
finger of his right hand, Freud struck a luminous ivory and all the other
instruments keyed-up in pitch-perfect harmony with the ringing note. Einstein/God
lowered his arm, and the instruments grew silent. A toothy smile beneath his
bushy mustache, Einstein/God turned to the audience. Humor spilled from his
beady eyes, eyes that seemed to focus like a laser on me. “Our first selection
is an original composition by our illustrious Beethoven put together at the
last minute especially for the delayed arrival of our new friend, Edward
Lively,” Einstein/God announced. He then pointed his baton straight at me. Chills
surged through me, and suddenly and thereafter, I was swept away in the most
glorious music I had ever heard.
I was to learn that there was no
magical formula to this amazing display of cooperation—of commonality. The
ensemble of earth’s former intelligentsia had not discovered an elusive
connective tissue between the two camps that allowed the God-theory and
science-theory to mix compatibly. It turned out that a ticket to heaven
depended on their coming to the realization that there was nothing to gain in
holding fast to their attitudes of division. Their differences set aside, they
went about demonstrating their change of heart.
At first, they thought that co-authoring a
heavenly book comprised of illumination stories was the answer. They handed it
off to Moses, well, because he is Moses, to write the first chapter. It came
back written in parables, as people of his time are wont to do. The counsel had
the regrettable duty of explaining to Moses that parables were the Rubik’s Cube
of tongue-speak to modern-day inhabitants of the universe. Sagan then insisted
that it be non-fiction in its entirety. In the end, the idea defied consensus
and was scrapped. Maybe painting a picture on a giant canvas would do the
trick? they conjectured. Rumor has it that Picasso cornered the Saint and
Hawking and convinced them that it had to be in the style of his famous
‘Guernica’. That went over with the others like a meteor plummeting through
space. They saw their chance to advocate for a folksier style like the work of
Normal Rockwell. That idea went the way of the heavenly book, which left the
do-gooders confounded, to say the least. At this point, Mozart decided he had
no other choice than to offer his own insight into the situation. “How about
giving music a try?” he suggested. Miracle of miracles, the participants discovered
within themselves latent musicians chomping at the bit to come out and play.
Presently the music they made together was so beautifully harmonious that it
proved to be their most attainable pathway to peace on earth and throughout the
whole of the universe.©
~
Image:
Chorus Line, acrylic painting by Linda Lee Greene
#Moses, #Galileo, #MotherTeresa, #CarlSagan, #ElizabethBarrettBrowning, #StephenHawking, #SaintJohnOfTheCross, #SigmundFreud, #AlbertEinstein, #Beethoven, #Mozart, #Heaven, #Music, #LindaLeeGreene
~
In
multi-award-winning author Linda Lee Greene’s GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE
POTS, Nicholas Plato flees his troubles in the USA and forges a new life in
Australia. But his troubles hitch a ride right alongside him and forces in the
land Downunder bring him face to face with them and eventually reveal to him
his true purpose in life.
GARDEN OF THE SPIRITS OF THE POTS is
available in eBook and/or paperback. Just click the following blue link and it
will take you straight to the page on Amazon on which you can purchase the
book. https://tinyurl.com/dw6zbhbv
