WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS HARMONY

 

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS HARMONY

 From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist

 I, Edward Lively, arrived at the pearly gates of heaven and once I got over my shock at being admitted, I noticed that the gates really are pearly. An unseen force then eased me into a crowd of people/spirits that was filing into an enormous amphitheater. There was available standing room only space and even the sky all about was alive with the fluttering wings of beings whom I concluded were angels. Six chairs placed in a semi-circle, a baby grand piano, and a set of drums that faced a raised lectern were at the center of the amphitheater. “We were concerned you wouldn’t make it in time for the concert,” a soft voice sounded in my right ear. “Well, what could be nicer than being greeted in heaven by a concert?” I responded. I then stood in rapt attention at the unfolding scene.

            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.©

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Image: Chorus Line, acrylic painting by Linda Lee Greene

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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