Ivory Therapy

I made a commitment to my old friend Paula, when she was diagnosed with liver cancer weeks ago, that I would sit at the piano and pound out a "Praise Offering", as it's called, on her behalf daily. I've been there a lot lately. It seems to be the thing I can do most honestly to bring whatever is up there down into these situations.

When my One Drunk Friend ("Mama and My One Drunk Friend", February archives) stopped by before Christmas to regale me with What A Friend We Have In Jesus several times over, I nudged him over on the bench and did a couple rounds of "Great Is Thy Faithfulness". He was surprised in that way that drunk folks tend to be. He got shy about playing and said something about not having taken as many lessons as I did. I told him something I'd never told anyone outside The Church: I've never had a lesson.

When I went to college, lived with Grandma and Pappy, and took to singing regularly in church, I was forever in need of an accompanist. The gracious ladies who obliged me never declined but even just to bellow on my own time was less than fulfilling without some accompaniment. I got frustrated. I hadn't yet completely sold out to the notions of prayer, faith, and the supernatural. I ended up after services one Sunday night locked in a momentous conversation with one of the ladies of the congregation. We talked about prayer and how I wished I was fully convinced of its efficacy. This was in the early days of The Faith Movement.

The Faith Movement, at its inception, had ordinary people running around "Confessin' and Possessin'" as we called it. The notion was - and is - that if you could say it, you could have it. The Bible does, indeed, note that "...the power of life and death is in the tongue..." This particular theology takes note, as well, that several times throughout the Bible, God "calls things that are not as though they are". (Ex: He called Abraham a father of many nations when he was, in fact, the father of but one bastard child.) This was the environment in which I was quickly coming of age.

In that conversation after church, I arrogantly and dismissively ended the exchange with some version of "If God answers prayer, I want to play the piano." I didn't think much more of it. Some time later - I don't recall if it was days or weeks - I happened through the Fellowship Hall where there was a small, tan console piano with a sheet of music propped on it. I sat at the keyboard and in an instant the chord markings above the lyrics made perfect sense. To this day I cannot explain how, in that moment, the music training I'd had as a vocalist, four years in childhood playing violin, one semester of guitar lessons in high school...How these all converged in that moment and resulted in me playing that song.

I didn't - and don't - have the ability to sit down and sight-read a piece or even learn to play it as written. But with the "tabs" or chords, I can fake my way through almost anything. They make "fake books" for just such a purpose. I bought two of them that just arrived on Tuesday. A trained pianist would probably clutch their pearls in agony to hear me. That's OK. I don't play for them. I play for me. It stopped My One Drunk Friend in his tracks. Because he isn't from inside the circle of those who speak of such things, I didn't tell him how, exactly, I ended up playing the piano without lessons. I'm not entirely sure myself. I don't think it's coincidence that it happened shortly after issuing The Challenge in the sanctuary.

I don't think my ability - such as it is - was intended for anyone's edification so much as my own. It has served that purpose well. The only songs I can play from memory are worship songs, hymns, songs from The Tour. Every time I sit at a piano anywhere, that's what comes out. I suppose that's only right, under the circumstances.

So that's my therapy - outside of Therapy. I thumb through the hymn books, worship books and now my fake books playing until my hands cramp up. It's not something I share with everyone, mainly because it's not "real" piano playing, I guess. And it takes too much explanation, if the question gets asked. My "catalogue" of music isn't for everyone. But it reaches a place in me that often seems so remote. King David, it's written, played the harp in his youth to soothe the anger of King Saul. I get that. I really get that. If there is anything that proves the existence of God, it is once through "I Believe In A Hill Called Mt. Calvary" with Guy Penrod. Music soothes the savage beast. And all that.

Even if you're faking it.