Wednesday's Labyrinth - A Cold Morning After a Night with Jon Batiste
And a guest reflection from my amazing wife about the concert!
Today’s labyrinth...the other one right near our house and the one that Lisa and I walked together more than a few times and the one that I walked nearly daily in the first few months after Covid showed up and after Lisa was first diagnosed with cancer. It is also the pattern that I chose for my labyrinth tattoo. Today was truly an “it’s all in there” kind of day. It was grey, drizzly (Scout and I were still damp from the earlier part of our walk when we got caught in a super quick but heavy downpour), windy, and generally miserable to be out at that moment. It mirrored a lot of how I was feeling.
There’s a lot of feels going on in me right now not only from the many losses of last year but some other areas of my life right now that have a lot of emotional weight and complexities. And I was literally pretty tired - I wasn’t in bed until about 1am this morning as we returned home late after seeing Jon Batiste in concert in Indianapolis and then was up early with our HS senior as they were getting out the door for school. So the grey, drizzly, windy, and cold fit with some of how I felt today.
But there was also life out there. There were other rocks that had been placed on the central rock at the heart meaning others had recently walked out there. Scout was doing her usual sniffy stuff as I walked and she especially liked poking the big rock that I placed when I got to the center. Twice she snooted it off onto the ground after I placed it.
There were also the first glimpses of daffodils starting to bloom along the outside of the labyrinth.
And those glimpses of life spoke of the incredible experience we had the night before at Jon’s concert. We have adored the man and his life and his music as we started to see him on Colbert years ago and then as he moved on into his next stage of life and music we have followed along. We love his joy, his heart for people and the world, his deep spirituality, his incredible talent, his commitment to his wife, his creativity in his craft, and his incredible laugh and smiles, among so much else. When I saw he was coming to Indy, I knew that was going to be my Christmas present for my wife and she beamed with a smile as big as Jon’s when she opened that present on Christmas morning. Amy has written a beautiful reflection about the concert that I’ve added at the end of this that expresses the experience of the concert so much better than I ever could so please continue reading. But before that, I have one moment from the concert that touched me deeply that connects to part of what Amy shares.
Amy shares about Jon asking us to shine our phones’ lights and it was amazing how these thousands of little lights so completely illuminated the darkened theater. From where we were sitting we couldn’t really see the fullness of what all these lights looked like and I wondered what it must have looked like for Jon on stage looking out at the audience. But there was one place that the lights could be seen - in their reflection on the side of the polished grand piano where he was playing. (The image is pretty low quality because I had to zoom way in with a digital zoom on my phone - sigh)
But look at the piano - the collection of little lights shining back from that beautiful instrument that was being used to share so much musical beauty and deep truth. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking back to our last concert and a similar moment. At the U2 concert in Vegas, as the band sang One, the thousands in attendance shined their lights and the insane screen showed millions more. Bono sang of how we are One and that we get to carry each other.
And of course, Jon last night spoke and sang so many times of this same need for returning to the unity from which we began. One of his songs literally says, “we are born the same...return to that place...return to that place...”
So yeah...all in there. My friends, we are able to hold these things together. I can hold these feelings of grief and loss and overwhelm and the many related emotions alongside the wonder, the joy, the hope, the beauty, and the lift of the experience last night of the music and being there with my wife and our youngest.
I guess what I am saying is that God can take it all. God can be present in all of these places. God can meet us in the grief and loss. God can meet us in the joy and the wonder. God can meet us in the silent tears and in the fullest-voice songs of joy. God can meet us when we feel separated from Them and also separated from others. And God can meet us when our lights and voices together illuminate and fill a space. Read on for Amy’s thoughts on the concert last night and then some photos a few videos from the concert.
Last night I experienced incandescent joy! My husband, Senior in High School and I all drove to Indianapolis for the Jon Batiste concert and I’m finding it difficult to put into words the love, hope and jubilation that were experienced in that concert hall.
Upon reflection I believe that if Jon were not an incredibly gifted top-drawer musician- (which he most certainly is) I feel he could be an incredible preacher and pastor. As I experienced the concert, I felt the familiar waves of our worship service liturgy wash over me. As an orchestra conductor coaxes transcendent melodies out of individuals with different instruments, there were times during the concert that Jon had us, the attendees, singing together, and then had different parts of the auditorium singing different parts. It was glorious and beautiful and wonderful to be immersed in a great crowd of humanity all breathing together and creating this wonderful music together that sounded like love and hope and joy combined.
There was also prayer. Jon sat at the piano and I suppose he has a great sense of humor because he played the opening chords to the Van Halen song “Jump” and cracked himself up before masterfully transitioning into a classical piece that I could not name, if you are happy and you know it, and a gospel riff before settling into the lullaby he wrote for his wife, “Butterfly”. It was written as she was going through her second bone marrow transplant and was close to death. If you have not heard it, please find it and listen. This song gave me a new way to view the butterfly- a long held symbol of the resurrection. We have so many small deaths and rebirths in our lives that affect us deeply. So many butterflies to celebrate, and some butterflies to let go, to let fly home.
Somewhere in this song Jon asked us to hum along and he said that this song had healing power. I think this song was his prayer for his wife. He invited us to hum along and imagine someone we loved that needed healing and to imagine some of our love and light, and energy flying to them like a butterfly, surrounding them. THEN he said, that love and light will never end. That light will never go out, the darkness cannot win because even one tiny speck of light will defeat it! Light and love shine in the darkness and they will win!
That is a SERMON friends! I have heard it before, and it was beautiful to hear it so well received in such a large audience! Many times, in that concert Jon invited us to take out our phones and shine our lights. Toward the end of the evening, he reminded us never to let our lights go out.
My prayer for all of you is that you find places to experience incandescent joy in your life. I pray that you find places that you can experience communal healing and support. I pray that you find places that you can be inspired and encouraged to shine your light of love in this world.
And here’s the 2022 Labyrinth Prayer Walk from this labyrinth
GPLJ,
Ed