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Sunday, August 16, 2015

" Notes of Grace"

       I had always felt that love would never find me-or that if it did, it wouldn't stay. But now, the beautiful sound of the violin reminds me of the import of this trip and of my friends and their devotion- in spite of my attempts to distance them, in recent months. I realize I've measured out my love too carefully, protected my heart with a wall of stones. Now, pried loose by the music, those stones are falling away. The walk toward the platform becomes a pilgrimage, each step burdened with old fear and leavened new hope.
       Finally, I reach the music's source: a middle-aged man sitting on a folding camp stool, with an open violin case at his feet. Despite his large belly, he sits erect. His thinning gray hair is pulled into a scraggly ponytail, and his dark flannel trousers are frayed. The sweat stains darkening his shirt belie the effortlessness with which he seems to play. The music builds until it clears away the last stones of my resistance.  I realize now that, in whatever brief time I am given, I am here to love.
       Tears stream down my cheeks as I search the musician's pale, round face, hoping to meet his gaze, wanting to thank him in some way. But when I find his eyes, they are half-closed and empty. They are the wandering white oceans of the blind.
       Many months later, I still find comfort in the fact that in this uncertain world, truth and beauty are at work.  I know, because they spoke that day in Paris to a woman hard of hearing, through the hands of a man without sight.

                                                       ~Unknown

                        
~Beannaichte'
16 August, 2015

@beannaichte.twitter.com 
     

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