A Harp Is Always a Good Thing

My Daughter Sarah said an amazingly profound thing today. Although it’s been said in many ways before, she has put the magic of music into a new light for me. She has been a busy musician this summer with playing a Pop Gig one night, understudy for the lead in an Opera another night, playing Harp in a wedding, bussing tables, doing day-care, and then culminating in her last Gig here for the Summer at Chamberlain’s Old Forest Inn in Curtis today.

On the way home from Chamberlains she said to me “Daddy I have been struggling with writing my Essay for my College Applications for weeks.” She said she couldn’t come up with anything concrete. However, she woke up at 2 A.M. last night and it finally came to her. She said she had been struggling with working and practicing music all summer and had very little free time to even go for a swim. She said her fingers were sore from playing the Harp for hours and hours. Nonetheless, she said it was all really worth it because when she played at our local coffeehouse, the Anchor Inn in Naubinway last night, she realized she made a connection with her audience that was “unexplainable” She said that right there she realized she had connected with people in a very special way. There were people who had tears in their eyes as they experienced the joy of the sound of a Harp, an instrument that’s not in every corner music store or one you get to hear live very often. In fact, hearing a live Harp is even a rare thing in Manhatten, New York or Paris, France. But, to hear it on the edge of the “Grid”, in the little Upper Peninsula Town of Naubinway, Michigan, with the cedar trees and the water’s edge all about you, is even more “magnanimous”.

When Sarah played at the Wedding, then the Anchor, then Chamberlains, people said it’s as if the clocks stopped, time stood still, there was nothing else but the music and the feelings of relief that it brought. People said the problems they were thinking about just disappeared, that they were connected for a moment, to something beautiful, and soft, and loving, and ethereal, you know, beyond this little world. I think that Sarah has experienced the love, touch, and voice of God in this music. That is why it was so touching, I think that of all the instruments and voices ever created, that the sound of the Harp is the closest you will hear on Earth to the sound of God’s own music.

As profoundly proud I am of Sarah and her accomplishments, I am most assured and pleased that she has felt the power of connecting to others thru a loving voice. I am well-pleased that she has realized that there is a connection, a communication, a relationship going on here that transcends the physical boundaries of our lives and bodies. She has heard the voice, the Voice. It woke her up at 2 AM and gave her the answer she sought. I certainly hope you too hear such lovely music today, are transcended, and brought to that lovely moment that takes you outside this World. Thank you Sarah, I thank you for becoming the lovely Woman you are, but even more so, we should both be thankful for that Eternal Voice.

Pictures will be forthcoming.