The Silent Note

There was a song within her that needed to be written but the keys sit silent, the room filled with a void where the music should have been.  Her last album never charted and deep inside she knew she had drifted away from her gospel roots.  She sat there by the window remembering Pastor Brown.  She could see him with his head down, his fingers gently touching the piano keys.  When he leans back and releases the song, singing with his voice powerful and filled with spirit, singing some deep southern roots music.  It was not soon forgotten.

Pastor Brown had left the congregation unexpectedly a few days ago to make his journey across the Jordan River to rest by the distant shore.  She missed him as he was the soul of her music always inspiring and teaching her the little things that made her songs great. The band sat in her studio reading and telling road stories and still the music was silent, the songs unwritten.  The waiting was unbearable to everyone, yet the band would not play a note until her hands hit that first chord on the piano.

She mailed Pastor Brown some music a few days ago that was rejected by her producer as too old-fashioned for the new country music.  She hoped he could bring her songs to life to be her next album.  But Pastor Brown was gone and so were her songs.  She looked at the piano, the keys begging to be touched and the music released, but her fingers would not touch the keys and the emptiness was thick and suffocating.

Around midnight there was a knock upon the door, and she walked with a lifelessness toward the closed door.  Her steps were loud on the wood floor echoing through the studio making her band look up expectantly.  When she opened the door, a brown envelope was laying by the door with her name written across it boldly in black ink.  She looked out into the deserted streets and seeing no one she closed the door with a loud bang.

She went and sat down on the piano bench running her fingers over the brown envelope and finally tearing it open and pulling out a photo of her and Pastor Brown sitting together on a stool playing to the congregation heads back, singing to the rafters.  She pulled out the sheet music and saw a note written in his elegant script.  If you get this envelope, I am gone but the music lives on within you.  It is not my music but yours that needs to be played.

She turned toward the piano gently placing her trembling hands on the keys, feeling them vibrate and hum, one note, two then she started tapping her foot and the music came, she sang like the little girl standing on the banks of the river, singing Pastor Brown home so he could sing with the angels.  One by one the band came out plugged in and they made a joyful sound.  She was back home in the little white church singing to the heavens.

Point Of View

Often the music within us becomes silent. The words, notes, and chords seem unwilling to be released.  They weigh heavy upon our spirit needing us to sing or hit that first note so they can become a song.  The silent note can come from a fear that we have lost what once was second nature and it may take something that touches our soul deeply for our hand to play that note and our song to reach the rafters.  When it does it will be beauty beyond imagination.

As writers, it is true that we honestly don’t know what we hold within us until we unleash it. When our words inspire others only then will inspiration return to the writer.