On Resting, Recovering, and Loving in a Blessed World (G. Merkel, Bach, Schubert, and James Cleveland)

All photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, August 6, 2024

It has been quite some time since I have been so physically weak ... but I am finding delight in my rest and am learning much from it.

A long recovery allows plenty of time to discover new musical delights ... my love for Bach's "Schmücke Dich" led me to discover German composer Gustav Merkel and his equally lovely Romantic-era take on the same theme ... the harmonies are exquisite in that they honor the past, but also provide beautiful reminders that Beethoven and Schubert are much nearer, while Mendelssohn and Brahms are peers ...

I suppose one might arrange love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, patience, meekness, faith, and self-control and adorn the soul in many ways. Fun fact: any nine things can be arranged in 362,880 ways ... and this would also leave room so I might have Bach and Gustav Merkel both provide me a lovely setting to remind me of the same thing, and perhaps collect a few more favorites!

But that got me back to thinking: when we talk about abundance just inside common grace, just how big a concept is that? Knowing there is a Gustav Merkel opens up my musical universe of lovely organ music to listen to, and that opening provided me a bridge between other concepts I have been considering through life, illness, faith, and music ...

"In Thee is Joy" -- one of Bach's most amazing pieces ... he keeps on with that motif, slowly but surely revealing the chorale's soaring melody carrying the words of praise, "In Thee is joy, Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of all sorrows." As a Christian acting as and now recovering from the strain of being patient and nurse, I greatly appreciated this piece in this last two weeks and found it true. It has been an honor as glorious as it was difficult to serve God by making sure to honor my parents and give them the best chance at 100 percent recovery ... I never had to worry about their future, here or beyond ... we never for a moment doubted that our Lord was watching over us ... we had the prayers and love of so many people in our fellowship ... Covid-19 is no light journey, but in how God met us in every direction -- In Him is joy, no doubt about it!

But now having come through that, my parents well and back to their routines ... I am not, and cannot be for some time. I content myself with keeping up on Hive, and 1-2 major work tasks per day, and check in on other processes that seem to be going well ... things I have set in motion are proceeding well without me at the driver's seat, and one thing came to its completion: the opening of a new scholarship source for the young people I have labored with in my community. All I had to do was take notes and give my assent where needed ... it is done. I could not be happier unless I had the energy to do so!

So, perhaps it was time for me to take a step back -- indeed it must have been, but He Who called me knew how little inclined I was to do that on my own, and so arranged it.

At this point I recalled something I have heard more than once in these parts ...

I have said to you recently that you understand the side of loving deeply, Frau Mathews, but you have yet to fully understand the side of being deeply loved. Know for certain that as you attend faithfully to what you do thoroughly understand, you are permitted and shall be fitted to understand, thoroughly, what is not yet clear to you.

I wondered if this time is not part of the fitting, for wouldn't you know it, I spoke with my grand old solder again on the weekend check-in, and wouldn't you know he said again, "If you need anything, CALL ME!" Now that I am not contagious, I almost feel like he would appreciate it if I found something to need ... for I was told the same thing in a different way also:

You deeply see the side of loving, and you do no wrong in loving those given to you for that purpose. I show you the side of being loved, and that you do no wrong in being loved. I have been echoing it from the beginning, and will continue to do so, because there is no end to the Love Who has called you, in Whom indeed, you may safely rest.

It had taken fifteen months for the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past to make that much of a groove in my thinking ... to think that my grand old soldier STILL just awaited an opportunity to show his love for me, for so great STILL was the love he and I had been called to for each other.

But indeed, I had learned my lessons and found them true ... so delivered from fear and doubt, so held in the eternal power of love and joy and peace have I been through the past two weeks that my heart was completely open to the idea -- at last -- that I might need to slow down to realize all the love around me in full.

I am fully aware, too, how weak I am now compared with three weeks ago ... it was quite an effort to just get to where my beloved Buena Vista Hill looks down upon the easternmost portion of Golden Gate Park...

... but in having made it, I was content ... I even took "Schmücke dich" in mind to encourage myself ...

My plans for August shall not now be, but I had been content in the triple sickroom of my home, with all its miseries, in that I knew that there I would uphold my calling, and there I would see God's glory in sparing, healing, and restoring -- and I did. To now return to what I never took for granted, but to have its freedom and liberty elevated even more in my eyes took me into near-ecstatic contentment, and thus ready to understand -- because not instantly resisting -- an advanced new lesson!

Just in case there had been any resistance left, of course the voice of a basso profundo expressed in love would have been dissolve it, and so of course the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past arrived. But he had forgotten his lesson plan, because he was so overjoyed he could barely get into gravity!

Every dedicated teacher has that one student that requires extra effort and every ounce of faith, hope, and love, because otherwise that student just isn't going to make it ... but when at last faith and hope are realized, and that student graduates, all that teacher can feel is love, triumphant! Indeed, the right word for the day for him was selig ... blessed, blissful, overjoyed ... he was all that in the German masculine, probably aiming for age 55-60 but missing, because his glow was too high ... so he was 49 again, at the peak of his powers, and at the sight of me contentedly resting, he could not keep from bursting into song for a very intense minute, recalling this minute in 1987!

"Selige Welt" -- "Blessed World" -- "Blissful World" -- "Overjoyed World" -- if only for a minute! People great and small were just living in the sound of that world, just for a minute ... the idea, in all the world's turmoil, that one could hear the sound of a blessed world ... the character describes his life as a good boat and comfortable on the sea, though he has no rudder to steer ... he cannot take himself to his idea of a blessed isle, but after all, there isn't one ... yet in a blessed world, the current will take him to the right place for him, so he may rest in assurance of the fact!

I listened to this staggering minute of music and was stunned by it -- of course, the singing! -- but also by sitting with the idea that in a blessed world, one COULD indeed know that one was safe and protected, and the current and land alike would be all-blessed, so there would be no need to worry about getting to a particular spot. One was not looking for an escape from this world to a blessed isle in it: no, one here is living in a whole new world.

And then the other things I knew came back ... about boats and seas ... it depended on Who was in the boat with you, if He were the Carpenter and both created the trees and made the good wood and iron of the boat and overseen how it was put together, and if He was also the Master of the sea ...

In this world, but not of this world ... not seeking or needing a particular spot, but knowing one could be blessed EVERYWHERE ... and thus, living in a blessed world even when things like Covid-19 came to call and ripped the wheel and rudder right off the boat of one's summer... this seemed to go right along with now sixteen months of

Keine Angst, Frau Mathews -- nur ruhe!

-- except it was from the side of seeing me finally get it! That had him so caught up that I had to amp up Q-Inspired's extra gravity enhancers for just such an emergency, and hope that eventually, his English would touch down as well!

"Ach, Frau Mathews ... meine Tochter ... meine Töchterlein ... mein geliebtes Blumenkind ... mein Herz jubelt für dich ... du hast übergangen ... du hast deine Lektionen gelernt ... deine Augen wurden geöffnet ... für dich, jetzt, diese selige Welt, während du noch in dieser Welt bist ...

He had summed up the meaning of our last several lessons ... I had gone over -- übergangen -- from the concerns of 2022 and 2023 -- I had learned my lessons and my eyes had been opened, so now, I was living in a blessed world, though still actually in this one ... and of course, as he had been saying more and more, his heart was rejoicing -- jubelt, the strongest world possible, recalling jubilation or jubilee in English -- for me.

Of course, if you did not know any German, and you just saw this huge, handsome man in a deep sea blue summer suit just carried away in the park on a beautiful day over some pleasingly plump little woman in her Blumenkind era who was his peer in early middle age ... oh, there was going to be trouble, because the love was going to be misunderstood ... but I had the sense of the rejoicing there must have been, all that last week, above me, as I released all idea of control of outcomes for my family, and rested in faith and love in the One Who had called us as we moved through our battle with Covid-19. My companion was literally echoing all the world could hold, and barely hold, for the sunshine could scarcely account for his glow, and the approximation of his mortal voice was straining at the verge of his immortal voice in power.

And then, in approximation of the love that had held me all that week, he came and embraced me, and my heart melted, for even with some fully mortal men, you are instantly aware of the fact that they could hurt or even kill you with just a squeeze because of the size and strength differential ... but you also know just as instantly how much they love you and are taking care not to hurt you in any way. Now with him, the size and strength differential would have been big enough to make the point in mortal life, but that voice ... the way he brought that voice down to a double-deep whisper-purr, so soft and so sweet that it could not hurt me even while verging upon its immortal strength ...

"Du bist selig, meine liebe Töchterlein ... du bist selig ... In der Vergangenheit habe ich zu dir gesagt: „Gesegnet sei“, aber jetzt ... wisst du ... bist du gesegnet ... bist du selig."

He had brought the two words for blessed -- gesegnet that I learned from him singing Wagner, and selig that I learned from Schubert -- together. In the foregoing (past) he had said, "Be blessed" ... now he knew that I knew that I was blessed and was resting in the fact.

Now his English had still not gotten into Earth's gravity, and my German still isn't great, but I had to get it across somehow that I recognized his hard work with me ... so I just borrowed his own terms and said it back ... I had learned my lessons, and so we were now blessed, and thanks much for all ...

"Ich habe meine Lektionen gelernt ... vielen Dank für alle ... jetzt wir sind gesegnet, wir sind selig.

Now I had forgotten things like, you know, general safety for mere mortal women ... we could just be walking around in springtime and need to improvise a runway to get back down to earth because sunshine would pick up his steps and therefore mine because I was with him. But the truth was the truth. How could I not tell him?

So, the world melted around me for a moment, as if the Pacific had come up from beneath the park ... we sank so deeply that somehow below us, the stars of heaven shone, and the moon cast rainbows, silver-polished and rippling across the face of the deep ... this was a visualization of Brahms's "Versunken," for the waves of love had gone up over his heart, just that quick! He had already been overjoyed ... but my reciprocation had pushed him over!

"Oops," I said, and even that was a mistake ... the vowels came out all smoothed out and musical in a thousand little twinkling bubbles that turned into little fireworks on the shimmering night sky above and below us. Like me walking for too long in the Oak Woodlands, he was just too far gone ... time was required for those waves to roll on, and for us to find ourselves safely on the bench again in Golden Gate Park, everything having floated back to its proper place and looking even better than it had been before. It could not have been more than a second in regular time ... but in every second, there is indeed the depth of an eternity, and love is sufficient for all of eternity's heights and depths, at once.

"Ach ... wo bin ich?"

"Tsunami-sichere Zone -- Tsunami Safe Zone, San Francisco, CA."

He laughed himself back into full consciousness from some unfathomable near-infrasonic depth to the low middle of his known mortal range before purring: "So denkst du -- so you think, Frau Mathews?" and then laughed all the way up into his glorious high range ... a preview of a coming vision! But then for the moment, he composed himself.

"Bring dein Leben in den Griff ... get your life together, old man ... I do have a lesson plan, and, Frau Mathews, how I intended to begin was to say to you how happy I am to see you recovering and well-contented. The song was supposed to come a little later ... but, sometimes the current takes us, and since we are blessed, we may trust that it is as it should be!"

"That has to be the most amazing minute of singing in bass I have ever heard," I said. "A little under a minute, actually -- so deep a message, so little time, so compactly delivered, with every light and shade! I expected from the title for that to be slower and more relaxed -- but what a shock, like the bright blue and gold morning of the Pacific after days of fog, then suddenly into its sunset, and then again, at morning!

"I thought also of the Pacific while considering the message of the song ... the Pacific islands are spread so far apart that drifting to safety is a tough proposition, but then I had to think again, because in a blessed world, there would be no danger in its grand size. It is not the presence of an island, but the blessedness of the world at issue."

"You indeed were listening, Frau Mathews ... and you have so walked, abode, and adorned your soul so that you could hear to understand.

"Corollary A, Frau Mathews: you were wondering just how big abundance is under common grace ... bigger than the Pacific, relative to your ability to explore it in a lifetime. You have even seen how close to your home there really is to explore -- common grace is much bigger than anyone ever thinks, enough to overwhelm the heart of anyone with gladness at least for a time, especially if one senses, back of it ... ."

... that there must be One Who is extending all of it in goodness, and so we are not alone, or the plaything of cruel deities after all."

"The heavens declare the glory of God," I said. "Psalm 19:1, I think ... and Beethoven expressed his understanding of the matter in the Ninth Symphony by rejecting Kant with the words of Schiller: 'Brothers, above the stars, surely a loving Father must dwell!"

"Thus far, Frau Mathews, all humanity is permitted to enjoy ... we may think of all the fights over human rights and civil rights in light of mankind seeking to enjoy what is, in fact, our human birthright, versus those members of mankind auditioning to be said cruel gods who would deny all others what they cannot get credit for creating.

"I will go further into the depth of this, Frau Mathews. Why the push in the last 160 years in both our nations to bring so many from the country to the cities to make automatons of them, looking all day at the repetitive work of their own hands in places where they cannot see the sky, to house them where they cannot grow their own food or even walk to their work, to keep them at work until they can see no light but artificial ones, to have them breathe nothing that is not tainted with the exhaust of all these things, and then to have them die fighting among themselves -- scale not at issue, though at last, twice, that scale imperiled the world -- for the resources necessary and the products thus made, as if that were all there is!"

"I understand what you are saying," I said. "Corollary A is deep."

But then he noticed that I was shaking a little ... like his Count Monterone in Rigoletto shakes me. Everyone knows "it's not what you say, but how you say it" -- the importance of tone in communication is well known. People who master speaking and singing have mastered tone in order to communicate effectively, but what most people don't realize is that an empath with that mastery combined with a huge intellect and colossal voice is practically a projecting telepath, because his or her ability to both feel and influence all the emotions around them is so big. The great responsibility, then, is to be self-aware.

"For you are recovering, and you must be handled ever so gently, mein geliebtes Blumenkind -- forgive me," he said, his voice having dropped in intensity and volume all the way back to gentleness.

My grand old soldier and had I learned by each other, both being of low, deep, mighty voice, gentle and intensely loving of temperament, small of ego, but with the same weak point: injustice toward anyone we care about, including humanity at large, will set us all the way off. Forget a scale of anger from one to ten. Drop the scale, cover your ears, and run, because otherwise, at the least you are getting Level 1 in which you just experience as a hearing, feeling witness what happens or what we think should happen to the offending unjust parties subject to our Level 2. I'm not going to even get into what to expect should you ever get evil and stupid enough to experience Level 2, because Level 1 alone can mess your life up. I've been on both ends of that, and so I know a challenge in any kind of close relationship between any two such people is not to damage each other at just Level 1 ... but there has to be allowance made for the learning process.

"Forgiven," I said with a smile, and he sighed with relief.

"Let me close Corollary A, Frau Mathews, for both our sakes, in saying this: you are wise not to let yourself get lost in politics and Web 2, and to return as soon as you were physically able to Creation's beauty and its deep realities of common grace. Thus far you have come by wisdom, Frau Mathews, and here grace and love already are meeting you."

"Corollary B, Frau Mathews: you have understood that even this time of illness and recovery, and the much slower pace of even life outdoors that you must live, will teach you more of the side of being loved. I will say this in fairness to you: you do understand the side of being loved in terms of reciprocation, because it fits your natural inclination to carefully observe people and then take action. For you, this may be a proper bridge to understand being loved more. I did not realize that about you before today ... but I also am learning ... ach ... mein Herz, mein Herz!"

That little quote from Schubert's "Die Post," in which he sang as if his heart would indeed burst from the anguish of love that could not be fulfilled ... but instead, I thought I heard the sound of the surf not as far off as it should have been ...

"But beyond that, you still have to learn to rest in love, Frau Mathews. Because you are such a dynamic person, and because you have worked so hard in your life, it is harder for you to recognize this as a choice, not just a matter of circumstance. But, relative to the One Who called you, you are practicing this well, and as you continue to practice in that direction, you will feel safer in practicing toward others as He directs."

"Now then, we come to the advanced material, Frau Mathews ... we set our boat out upon waters we have not been in before, here ... good thing we know these waters are of the blessed world!"

"Indeed," I said.

He paused ... and I was certain now ... somehow, the Pacific was again quite nearby...

"Before we advance, Frau Mathews, there is one other aspect worthy of explanation here -- call it Corollary C. I am still a man, in the spirit, so I know that any older man, should he come to truly love a younger woman -- and when I say love here I mean true love, be it paternal, platonic, or romantic in form -- he will know that physically, he will not always be able to protect her. In fact, this is true of every man, simply because he cannot be in all places at once.

"Therefore, Frau Mathews, if a man is wise at any age, he knows that he must primarily protect and provide for the woman he loves by the use and sharing of his wisdom, not his physical ability. But this is a vulnerable matter, for this means it is up to her to judge whether she considers his wisdom sufficient to walk, abide, and adorn herself in. You know from your own deep studies of Scripture ... wisdom is ever calling out in love ... but one must choose to answer."

I considered this for a long time, also in light of having been minding my own business on YouTube and one day hearing a Commendatore with a difference ... the most beautiful male voice I had ever heard, but also a noble manner that fit his mission ... in a role so many just think of as a ghost's revenge, it is often missed that one who had truly dined in Heaven would not have come on revenge, but as an agent of mercy ... and thus even if the same hand and voice were slightly miscast and thus had to be the very one to take action assuring judgment when mercy was refused, there was still that element of sorrow, for it is not the will of the Host of Heaven's table that any should perish. So even though that Commendatore was not quite as "stony" as he might have been, and even though actually miscast, he still understood and communicated the complete assignment as Heaven's messenger. He stood out like a beacon light ... and even if Don Giovanni refused to hear, I didn't.

"Indeed, you did not, Frau Mathews," that particular Commendatore said softly in his role of the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, "and, oh, you deep and studied believer, who listens for that pure and peaceable wisdom from above, and responds in trusting love wherever and to whomever in which you find it ... you must be loved, and others will develop the maturity and wisdom they must have to love you as you must be loved by them."

He was very composed, in voice and aspect, but meanwhile, surely the Pacific was down the street and around the corner ... or not ... I looked behind and up, and up, sparkling in the sun, was a wave towering so high that its foaming top seemed like a cloud -- but so that foaming top was left in the stratosphere for a cloud as he, with a profound effort, let that wave pass and settled completely into his master teacher mode.

"Speaking of heights and depths, Frau Mathews, it is true that Everest is the highest mountain as measured from sea level, but is it Earth's highest mountain as measured from its base, Frau Mathews?"

"No," I said. "Mauna Kea is the highest by that measurement, but about 60 percent of it is under the Pacific Ocean."

"Suppose Mauna Kea stood at sea level, Frau Mathews? Do you think it could be climbed naturally -- of course people would find a way to bring oxygen and such -- but do you think, within natural human limits, that it could be topped?"

I had to think about that for some time.

"Your homeland's own Eiger and my own Denali are well beyond most people's limits. But if you are asking about the absolute human limit, Everest is already right at the verge because there's so little air pressure, and people are slowly dying from lack of oxygen from Camp 4 to the top and back -- that's why that part is called 'the death zone.' Even accounting for taking oxygen: one is already in the level in which weather actually happens, atmospheric protection from the sun is much minimized, and when the sun is not shining it is always cold that high up. Mauna Kea would represent another mile or almost two kilometers added to that specific issue -- so even at its own Hawaiian latitude, no. Time in the death zone would just be too long."

"So then, the world is already blessed that Mauna Kea is where it is and Everest is where it is," he said.

"It is indeed," I said, "because the death toll numbers on Everest and K2, the second-highest from sea level, are already heart-breaking enough when you consider human hubris connects to families of survivors."

"Your heart is so very tender, meine Töchterlein ... it is true that what risks we choose for ourselves we choose for others also, so we must be wise -- a Corollary D worth a whole lesson for another day."

"But, to return, Frau Mathews, answer me this: are the dangers of Mauna Kea inconsiderable, when compared to most of human history in travel?"

I had to think about that for a few minutes.

"Not even now, in modern terms, because even though there is a flight going that way every hour, it's still in the middle of the Pacific, and there are days when no flight can get there. One still has to contend with the weather over that tremendous distance. But before air travel, one had to deal with all conditions while on the Pacific itself for that tremendous distance. I would say that the dangers are parallel across human history -- we don't see it, measuring from land at sea level, but getting to Mauna Kea before you ever climb it means you have to navigate some things Everest and company do not offer you as difficulties."

"So then we see there are some heights that can never be scaled unless one is willing also to cope with the depths around them, Frau Mathews."

"I've never thought about it that way, but it is certainly true."

"Consider all of the opportunity slowly moving toward harvest in front of you, and reconsider what you have just been through in light of that reality -- in fact, you may even roll your reconsideration back to 2022. I will give you a smaller height to scale this understanding by, Frau Mathews -- why is there a sinking and leaning tower of San Francisco?"

I laughed.

"Oh, you mean our infamous Millennium Tower," I said, "where they will be giving condos away in a little while? What happened there was that they were supposed to put down 210-foot pylons -- 65 or so meters -- to be sure the foundation reached the bedrock at the bay shore there, but instead they put down 90-foot pylons -- 25 or so meters. So, in essence, the foundation is drifting through the bay shore mud, because the top is too heavy and is also shifting in the wind here, leaving the building to sink and lean at the same time."

"Madness," he said, "but we shall call it folly to hark back to Corollary C: how do I say mature masculinity provides and protects?"

"By wisdom," I said.

"So then consider the life coming to harvest in front of you, Frau Mathews. About how wise do you consider the Captain of your soul, He Who has called you?"

"All-wise," I said. "Goes with almighty and all-present."

"So then, considering the terrible depths through which you have come obediently by faith, do you see, Frau Mathews, do you see why I came overjoyed, singing 'Selige Welt?' Can you now glimpse how high that peak before you must be, though still hidden by the heavy weather of circumstances you are just coming out of? I say again: there are some heights that can never be scaled unless one is willing also to cope with the depths around them, Frau Mathews ... so, you, willing, and so lovingly enabled from on high to pass through dark depths in which most would not see the least bit of light, do you now see why you had to pass through?"

Quite suddenly I remembered all the light of love by which I had been led, ever upward ... like climbing Mauna Kea from its base, seeing glimpses of the light from above it ... and now, breaking the surface in a blessed world ...

"Continue to rest and recover, Frau Mathews. Your boat is sure; the Builder is your Captain and the Master of the sea also. You will come to land, and it will be a mountain so high that only those who understand great depth, and even what it is to have seen the light of Heaven shining on one, all the way, will even realize and recognize you and what your reality is. You are blessed ... gesegnet ... whether you were able to feel so or not, for that is granted you from on high and cannot be changed ... and now, you are blessed ... selig ... for now you are resting in contented joy in your blessedness, not worried about the future ... and yes, you are right, Frau Mathews ... of course where I am from now, I am ever blessed, but in your learning of these things, I am more and more at home with you even here, so indeed, we are blessed, both gesegnet, and, now, selig."

I thought about this for a long time.

"The only man in his mortality I have ever met who could have grasped that is my grand old soldier," I said, "but ... I must cling to no blessed isle of the past ... the only man in his mortality I have met yet, rather."

My companion remained silent, observing that moment of grief and loss and release of the past with me, waiting as I settled in my heart that while that which could not be would not be even in a blessed world, in said world there was abundant room for all that could be of good and right in love ... and to add more, for there was an old quote: "I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly."

"It is a lesson for another day," I said, "but I realize now that love is never lost. It just has to find its proper place."

"You have given yourself your own lesson there, Frau Mathews -- but call it Corollary E, for now you are beginning to learn how to navigate in the waters you are truly in, in which you and all the love around you will find its proper place. You are blessed -- gesegnet -- and as you learn that you may rest and rejoice in the fact, come what may, you will more often than not find out that you are blessed -- selig."

"I see German has me surrounded," I said, and he laughed.

"Nein," he said, "but German is just giving you more insight to the actual situation you have been in for a long time, Frau Mathews, in this world, but not of it, a citizen of a blessed world, in which light you have walked, abode, and adorned yourself, and now may learn to rest, recover, and be loved."

The bell rang on Lone Mountain, and he started up with a smile.

"I must get you home and get to work, Frau Mathews."

"Wait, what?"

"This old singer is due in the park to sing up a storm of travel money, for even if the summer adventures of Herr Altesrouge and Frau Blumenkind must be delayed through August, that does not mean the late summer and all of the autumn adventures must be denied!"

I opened my mouth, and then realized ... this was Corollary F, and there was no need for me to flunk now.

"Danke schön -- thank you so much," I said, and he smiled warmly.

"Indeed, Frau Mathews, you have learned your lessons ... rest, recover, and have the wisdom to be loved while you do it."