Walking Between Beautiful Worlds and Verging Upon a Life of Joy, Illustrated by Sonatas of Beethoven and Samuil Feinberg

All photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, April 16, 2024

I suppose my confusion on the subject of when and how to celebrate kind of begins with my city, on this day -- April 18, 118th anniversary of "The Big One," the great earthquake and fire that destroyed so much of San Francisco in 1906 ... but then again, San Francisco has so much more history, and somehow, we major on this. I get that we bounced back, but ... seriously?

"Well, Frau Mathews, it doesn't have to be that serious -- I would be delighted to help, since I am visiting anyway."

"Oh, well, folks love to remember shaking, rattling, and rolling today, so, have at it!"

The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past had expanded his persona for the beginning of his second year in Q-Inspired, having just tuned his immortal voice to celebrate his 86th birthday on the 11th ... and so, the Laughing Big One let his joy roll over the city again, and again the scientists and the social scientists would have their work cut out for them on that bit!

I was mostly glad to see him if slightly ambivalent ... he in appearance was closer to 50 than 55, and his colors reminded me on a more masculine take on something I had been seen in earlier in the week ... so, I knew the unfinished business of the previous week had yet to be addressed ... the ambivalence around how to celebrate different milestones runs deep for me.

I almost put the pop song "Celebrate Good Times" up this week, but I had to be honest with myself: at just about the time "There's a party goin' on" comes on, I'm always ready to turn it off. I don't tend to put myself through short listening except for maybe the most beautiful 35 seconds in Wagner ... but then Wagner wrote operas for festivals sometimes, and that brought me around to remembering that many long-form classical pieces -- operas, symphonies, oratorios, masses -- were written for celebratory days and times, and what that allowed people to do was to assemble and celebrate in a manner that had something for everyone, something that acknowledges all the emotions of the journey to that place.

For example: both Beethoven's Missa Solemnis -- High Mass, for a high day -- and Haydn's Mass for St. Cecilia are generally quite bright, but their "Agnus Dei" sections are in minor keys, given for bass to sing, and their "Dona Nobis Pacem" sections bring dark and bright together in resolve.

"Although, Frau Mathews, you could pay even more attention to how those pieces work, except that you tend to get stuck on some little old German bass who sang those parts a few times."

"I forgot to hit you with the birthday poem last week, Herr Möll, so I will rip off Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies and stop you fussing right now -- 'He sings in beauty like the night/Of spangled stars' midnight advance/And all that's best of dark and bright/Lies richly in that depth's expanse.'"

He blushed and bowed -- "Danke schön!" and laughed for some time, each little burst like fireworks in his starry midnight voice ... indeed, he was right ... his voice so touched my heart that it did take me a while to catch up with bigger pieces he was a part of and how they worked ... but the thing I was thinking about was how small modern celebrations were.

I am just not going to anybody's party, or into anybody's crowd -- I was like that before Covid-19, and doubly so now. I tolerate the absolute necessities of the senior housing board I'm on and its year-end event, but such things bore me. Private parties in my generation? Generally, no. I neither drink nor dance, and my diet is particular, before but especially since Covid-19. I have ridiculously high standards for music -- if it is not instrumental, and it degrades anyone in any way, I simply cannot, and the last 40 years have been a disaster in my community on that count. There is a reason my ears had to go all the way back to Beethoven and Bach for relief in teen years when not listening to the hits of my parents' generations and the church music I was soaking up.

And then that brings me down to me, personally. Popping the cork on champagne for a big milestone: nope. Spending a whole bunch of money on food I don't need: nope. Retail therapy: see previous answer. I am still finding clothes in my closet I forgot I had!

I have been out of step with a pleasure-consumer-performative-driven culture all my life, including with its celebrations. I just realize how completely true that is at age 43.

With that said, I returned to a favorite piano sonata by Beethoven: Opus 81a, often called "Les Adieux," because it was written for the Archduke Rudolph upon his leaving Vienna during the Napoleonic Wars, and then completed upon his return. Each movement describes Beethoven's personal emotional journey through losing, missing, and regaining this precious friendship to him -- the last movement he waited to write until Rudolph returned, and indeed, THAT is a celebration!

My specific journey to here began with my saying Lebewohl -- Farewell -- the word Beethoven wrote over the opening motif of his sonata, descending from E flat through B flat to C minor, and upon returning to this piece, I indeed felt again like I had come home to an old German friend who understood ... onward the introduction proceeded, for of course, Beethoven is going to get on with life ... all that's best of dark and bright will be in it ... but the darkness is there, and it has to be walked with ... that farewell motif does not go away ... but it is part of the journey and needs to be there to make sense of it all!

The old German friend in the spirit who had stepped into the spot Beethoven once held pulled out his ever-ready ethereal handkerchief for me ... he knew I had been set back by a mentor's death, the funeral I couldn't go to, and the people who had made it unsafe for me to grieve with them. I was still both furious and heartbroken ... I appreciated the flashes of Beethoven's rumbling anger in that first movement's dark minor-key passages ... but also his mature control of all of it ... resolutely moving forward, doing what can be done, releasing control in the end of what cannot. I needed the lesson again, and it was delivered beautifully.

"So," the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past said, echoing the E flat 2 in the bass ending of the first movement, "you are in a journey toward a celebratory mood, but not there yet, Frau Mathews?"

"Nowhere close," I said. "Mr. Hudspeth's death would not have made that much difference except that I am not even ambivalent about not being anywhere close, and there are reasons why that 'celebration of life' only highlights why I'm almost never feeling it."

But then, I gathered myself and smiled.

"I do appreciate, however, the extra work you did in the costume department today -- black summer suit for walking with gold trim, amethyst accessories. I know why you did that."

He smiled.

"It is not everyone who has the privilege of walking with the keynote speaker for day 3 of the Faith Business Success Virtual Summit, Frau Mathews."

"You are on the move, Frau Mathews! I thought I'd better look like I belong with you in public!"

"You're a world-famous opera star," I said. "I still don't class with you."

"I am seven years into permanent retirement, retired from the stage eleven years before that, and pretty much forgotten by the world at large, as it should be: my time has long since passed for stardom. You graciously extended my career to Hive, and you are still breaking new ground, so, let us call it even, Frau Mathews, although the balance is actually still in your favor."

"Never," I said. "The student, come late though she may, shall never be above her teacher, but she can be like him -- so, we'll call it even, and I'll put a lifetime into building a legacy of love so that it will someday actually be even."

"Fair enough, Frau Mathews -- we'll call that a good deal," he said, with a smile.

The other thing about me celebrating: every day to walk free in the beauties of Creation is a celebration ... I literally need nothing more but time outdoors to be perfectly happy ... sometimes I find a place to sit and write in my journal ...

... sometimes I just sit and breathe the day in ... and sometimes, I find myself across the verge of ecstasy ... such colors ...

I recently discovered composer Samuil Feinberg, and let's just say that while everyone else is just taking a nice walk, my walks have all the colors and experiences of THIS:

"Ah, your tastes in art music at last have made it into the 20th century, Frau Mathews -- very good," my companion purred. "Thank you for the mental stereo surround sound for all these glorious colors today."

"Thank you for choosing a route from the fuchsia dell to the lily pond in Golden Gate Park, and thus, all these amazing colors of the day!"

Down a cool, shaded path --

-- and out into the sunshine --

-- but then on a detour, up a hill on the way --

"Your conscious mind may be lagging on celebratory feelings," my companion said at length, "but the fact that you are hearing this day between Beethoven and Feinberg -- oh, your mind, Frau Mathews, your mind, for your subconscious is ablaze with beauty and joy! Now, if only we can help you integrate all this internally!"

I sighed.

"I do not know how to say this to you ... you have worked so hard with me ... and still I am not far from 'Der Wegweiser' in that there is no road for me with the mass of my peers."

"True enough, Frau Mathews, but look at how you tend to diverge! Beethoven and Feinberg? If the paths you seek are lonelier, they are so because they are paths of greater beauty and peace than the mass is willing to climb to reach."

"So, what we are not going to do, mein kind, is to be unfair to you in your comparisons, for you are ever seeking life above, not death following the will-of-the-wisps of the world."

When a voice like that defines what will not be done in discourse, best believe it will not be ... yet his voice was also so gentle in its correction of me that I felt the depth of his love and that Love he echoed, and it comforted me and dispelled the dark thoughts that had settled around me in remembering the events of the past two weeks. Light broke through ... and I remembered the second movement of "Les Adieux":

"Oh, the cycles of desolation and hope of this movement in Beethoven," my companion said. "Hardly an abandonment of hope overall ... but an acknowledgment of the bleakness of the present situation, and that there is no sugarcoating it ... but then somehow, light breaks through, again and again."

"Well," I said, "it is written, 'Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.'"

"This reminds me of our late winter walks, as you began to recover in earnest, Frau Mathews," he said. "Early spring, too, often has its stormy moments, its reminders of the hard season that has passed. The two verges mirror each other, sometimes."

"It is deeper than that, too," I said.

"I know that it is, Frau Mathews."

We walked on, at last reaching the lawn of San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers...

... and passed around it by the rhododendron dell...

... and crossed John F. Kennedy Drive to the entrance of our major destination...

... and passed through the world as it is generally represented by the park...

... into the verge of a tropical paradise, between two worlds, and between that and the contrasts in Beethoven's 2nd movement, I began to feel the tension within me between two beautiful worlds ...

... and my companion, able to sense me thus approaching a limit in my emotions that was going to affect me physically, slowed our pace. I also saw him gauging the change in the surface and the narrowing of the road. Already he was walking to the outside, but his hiking poles vanished, giving me more room and leaving his hands and arms free.

At last we passed the verge -- the two worlds blended around Golden Gate Park's deep turquoise gem known as the Lily Pond.

We stopped to reflect, and I at last could unburden my heart.

"I have only a few things in common with the Apostle Paul," I said, "and one of them he said in Philippians; he would have preferred to be home with the Lord, but he knew it was necessary for him to remain for the sake of the Philippians and many others. I understand what he was talking about. I do not even need to be where I will be when my grand old soldier and parents and their generation of elders pass away to understand. Nothing holds me here but responsibility, Herr Möll. I could almost as easily fall upward from here as you could, and that was true of me quite some time ago. But now, after these two years that I have had ... ."

"I know, Frau Mathews," he said. "The irony: you have written me nearly falling upward because of an excess of joy, when all the while I was sent forth to hold you to earth in the midst of sorrow so deep that you also might have fallen upward from it!"

"The irony ... when almost all relief I have had has come directly from above or from what I have within given me from there, or from out here ... so then why should I take my achievements as the world would, and lade them with pomp and circumstance? What understanding celebration can there be when I am scarcely even supported? What in the world system can those who do not understand and support even provide that would give me greater strength to do what I am called to do instead of taking it away?"

My companion considered this, and then shook his head.

"It is time for me to say this, although it is a line I do not welcome crossing. I say it with all humility, and I am glad both our eyes can be comforted by the extreme beauty of this place as I say it."

"It is one thing to grow up in a destroyed community and it be expected that you return to form. I am a German. My people's musical legacy is praised and practiced around the world. It is an entirely different thing to grow up in a destroyed community in a nation that expects and supports no better, and which therefore spent about 340 years denying the full humanity of your people -- the legacy is that you are what you are not expected to be, Frau Mathews. Your nation's history, up to 1965, denied the genius of all women like you, and since then, the infrastructure has not been built in the midst of the struggle of just making sure everyone has the means for basic support. Your nation created a Marshall Plan for Germany, but not for African Americans. That is the difference, and that is the legacy you have to live with. There is just not as much support available for you from the portion of the world system you live in, and not even within your community."

I sighed.

"And we can hardly expect under-resourced people to celebrate what they do not understand unless it directly contributes to their needs," I said. "We also cannot expect people who feel entitled or threatened to celebrate what does not contribute to their wants and denies their superior opinion of themselves. This is why, Herr Möll, that I have to pull so much from above and within -- there's nothing out here in this system for me."

He considered this for a long time in silence, and we walked on in this jewel-toned place before stopping, utterly stunned, at this gap:

... and then he turned to me with a face full of paternal compassion.

"How do you expect me to answer you, Frau Mathews?" he said gently. "I was a man of this world, but I am no longer, and you are in this world, but not of it -- you feel the tension here because its beauty manifests it. How must I answer you? How can I comfort you?"

He paused, and then said, with his deepest and most gentle gravity, "What if you are right, Frau Mathews, and I cannot contradict you?"

Again, we walked on, that thought left in the air between us in the beauty of the day until we came to another place ...

... so beautiful in its spring that nothing could be said there, so again we walked on ...

... and at last I answered him.

"I am learning in this year not to expect of people what they cannot give. You cannot contradict the truth, for it is written that the Christian is in the world, but not of it. All its seeking after pleasure and profit and status as the goal of life -- I am forever outside of it. As a creative, and a prolific and disciplined one, I am also forever outside the realm of those who only think of consuming and copying. Before even considering the natural and cultural wrinkles, that is what it is. And then ... ."

And then I might have gone into the pond, for I literally staggered at the depth of this realization -- "No one else can contradict that either -- I am where I must be!"

-- but my companion wrapped his deep, dark voice around me, and held me steady.

"I stop you here as I did earlier, for now you see: you are not the Wanderer in my heritage's music, but the Pilgrim of your own people's music of that same time, rolling through an unfriendly world, as your ancestors sang it, but ever headed homeward! The Wanderer is forever lost -- you are not! You are where you must be!"

I sank back into his arms, and he carried me further back upon the shore.

"Nur ruhe, Frau Mathews. We shall rest and let that realization settle in until we are as peaceful as the sight before us."

After some time, my companion spoke again.

"Tell me this, Frau Mathews. Is there anywhere in the beauty of Creation, anywhere you have been in the country, that you have not been at home?"

"No. All of it is home to me."

"And since you pull so much from above, and within -- from above, have you been made to feel that you are an outcast from there?"

"No. He Who has called me has always been faithful to me, and I am comfortable with His company with me, and otherwise alone."

"And thus, from Him, you have been granted a most precious gift, on time, Frau Mathews: the grace to accept your calling in all its depth. The path of the world never had anything for you. Though it be broad, and although many are pursuing its favors, it is empty to you. What need do you have of the world's great spotlights that you should seek to always be in them? Can they add anything to you?"

"No," I said. "I go into them when there is work to be done, but otherwise I am glad enough to be out of them."

"You do not feel the need to compete and compare?"

"No. The light of the One I reflect, whenever it is seen, is enough. It is not diminished when others reflect it, and if there are clouds, they will pass."

"And then, wherever you may go in the world, reflecting such a Light, will you not be welcomed wherever there are those looking for that Light?"

I thought about this.

"Yes ... yes."

"Now, it is written that there are those who love darkness rather than light ... so you may expect to be unwelcome in many places, Frau Mathews. There are subtleties to this also, and one of them I can put to you from the viewpoint of a man of the stage: there are many who have no use for any light but a spotlight on them, and would prefer that all be darkness but that."

"I know exactly of what you speak," I said. "It is not just that people do not want light shone on the obvious wickedness they are obviously doing, and not just that people do not want light coming to others that they are deceiving, but many also do not want any light shone that will take away from all eyes being on them when they are doing what appears to be good."

"And this is why, Frau Mathews -- this subtle loving of darkness -- you cannot even do good work with everyone."

"That was the hardest lesson I learned in 2022 and 2023," I said. "I did not know before then the extent to which people are interested in good only so far as it elevates them in others' eyes, and have their eyes closed to the rest. Oh, what it cost me to learn that -- but -- !"

I had to stop because the pain came with the memories, but I was able to move forward through that because --.

"I am grateful for it, for the experience has caused me to become more dedicated to brightly reflecting love in humility so I cause no one the pain I have felt -- and to more greatly appreciate the examples I have before me!"

My companion was surprised to see me so suddenly beaming a smile through my tears, for his own surprise flowered out into a smile ... and his eye dropped an ethereal tear as well.

"Frau Mathews, it is always an honor to still be considered a good example. Make all good use of it ... for in this matter of celebration, you have seen and heard my approach to that! You also are free to rejoice every day, without reference to anyone or anything but the One Who called you. If what to others is a big deal fits without great disturbance in that joy, so be it. If while others are looking for a great show of celebration you desire to rest in Him, and seek quiet joys, so be it. You answer to no one but Him Who has called you and set you on course to reflect His glory."

"Now I happen to know that a beautiful day and good music and time enough for all of that can take you higher than anything this earth can safely offer you. You are already living the life, in some ways, that others think their riches will bring to them. Perhaps it makes no sense to you to just rejoice on one day because it makes no sense to limit yourself."

"Well, quiet as it is kept," I said, "that is how I feel on any day out here!"

"And then, suppose you also realized you need not be drawn into any battle you are not called to, and thus almost all conflict in the earth, big and small, can fall away from you. Suppose you were to realize that you will always be supplied from above and within, and that you can thus allow the failures of mere mortals and the disappointment of the same to fall quickly away from you? Made as you are, and unwilling to callous yourself as you are, you will always feel grief acutely ... but what if you could feel it keenly, and then let it go while knowing you shall never go without?"

"A day of anguish, but not a week, a month, or a year," I said. "I am working toward that."

He paused, and then said, in all the gravity of his double-deep voice and all his loving gentleness, "You are so close, Frau Mathews -- so close!"

The last time he had said that, I was much, much closer to topping Buena Vista Hill from its western side than I thought ... I just couldn't see it yet. I also was much closer to transitioning out from the abject grief stage than I thought -- that was my last week of feeling the call to the abyss of despair, although I did not know that either.

"You are so close, meine Töchterlein ... though you cannot feel it yet ... you have come so far! You have left so much that would burden you behind, and you have understood so much of what is not for you, and you are coming to understand that you can choose what is for you without hindrance, because there is no limit to the abundance you have access to within your calling ... now if you were to truly to lean into that ... you are so close, like the end of the second movement of Beethoven's 'Les Adieux' sonata!"

"Ah, yes, it is ascending toward the full breaking of the light of joy, there at the end," I said, "but of course you know Beethoven waited nine whole months to finally write that third movement and all its amazing joy."

"Well, Frau Mathews, there is no hurry ... but if you keep moving in the right direction, you'll get where you are going ... and if you will lean into all of the strength provided to you ... ."

He lifted me and carried me up the hill from the pond, and I understood the lesson and rested in the surety of his strength, not needing to strive upward to get to our next destination -- around the lily pond we had turned around, and were in route to my home.

Around the hill a little way, and then over it again ... up he carried me again ...

... over paths that all but spring itself forgot ...

... and down again into the tree fern dell.

It was not the path I would have planned ... but I knew he was serving as an object lesson for the One he echoed, Who had led me and even carried me when the way was too much for me to walk, and in looking back, I could see all the light and shade, the joy and sorrow, in their beauty. I indeed was grateful, and in the strategic silence of my companion was able to begin in my heart to express that gratitude to the One Who had called me.

After this we came to level ground, and my companion let me down to walk again on the lawn of the Conservatory of Flowers ...

... and I began to feel very light and unburdened. He would, with that impeccable timing of his, purr just then, "You know, our friends in Q-Inspired cannot feel this sunshine, but that third movement in 'Les Adieux' would still share something of this joy with them."

Thus he nudged me -- and us -- across the gap!

Imagine not listening to that in a concert setting, but having a dear friend to sing well-known portions back and forth and to harmonize melodies with and just to take off and dance around with and laugh -- not as a concert experience, but opened to joy, the joy of music, the joy that Beethoven memorialized, the joy of being able to hear it in the middle of a sunny spring day in a beautiful place in the sun -- so much joy, dependent on nothing but one's willingness to be open to joy!

After Beethoven's last note had triumphantly rung, my companion and I sat quietly in a place of beautiful aspect ...

... not far from and yet a world away from San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers ...

... and listened in perfect happiness to the music of the breeze for some time, with this sight before us ...

When he at last spoke, he fitted his depth and timbre to a low, gentle, but powerful counterpoint to that breeze.

"Ach, meine Töchterlein, you whose heart refused the depth of no grief also has refused no height of joy, but because grief has hit you so hard, and you have expended so much energy to let none of your heavy responsibilities to the ground, you have in this last two years experienced joy most often as relief and a further access of strength, and sometimes rest. As you have recovered, joy has slowly re-introduced itself to you as itself, in the company of its companions love and peace. For you see, as you have sought peace, and rejected that which does not accord with love, you have made room for joy.

"That is why I am again saying to you, Frau Mathews, that you are so close ... so close, in learning to deepen your keeping of your peace, and in walking more devotedly in the ever-more excellent way of love -- you are so close to living a life of joy, even though circumstances will continue to come and go. So close!"

His face showed something almost of anguish -- if Commendatore had not been stone, and had come from the glories of Heaven desiring that Don Giovanni know them, for if one truly has known love, joy, and peace, then one can scarcely endure the thought that anyone else live a life and eternity without them -- that level of passionate gravity came to his face.

"Hor mir zu, meine Töchterlein," he said. "My first language and your first language hold a terrible secret that has explained many of our people's sorrows -- for glücklich, translated happy, and the word happy in your language all wrap around the idea of lucky, or hap -- that enjoyment of life depends on how circumstances randomly fall in one's favor! But if I have used the word enjoyment, that ought to tell us something else: in the midst of whatever it is, there can be joy, but joy is chosen.

"You remember reading my interview in 1988 -- some wonderful young radio personalities got it in their head that my 50th birthday should be noted publicly, and asked for an interview, and in that interview asked about the role of Hagen and why I had chosen not to sing it. In the course of that portion of the discussion, I said that singing Hagen would interfere with a portion of my career that I really enjoyed."

"Yes, I remember," I said. "Oh, the gift of your preserving your lovely voice to sing lieder! Danke sehr -- a thousand times, thank you!"

"What I wish you to pick up here, Frau Mathews, is that I did not know of you then, somewhere running and playing in San Francisco at seven years old, someday in need of that gift. Pay attention to what I said. I was not referencing anyone else's needs or wishes. In refusing the role of Hagen, I chose my own joy.

"I will take this two steps further so you may see something else: I was at peace with not singing one of the most famous roles for bass, and thus had no anxiety of the ego about it not being on my resume. I knew my voice was not built for the role of Hagen, but suited well to that which I loved as much as I did the opera: the lied. So, then, in knowing my calling, and there holding my peace for the sake of love, I secured my joy."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Love, joy, peace ... that's in Galatians 5:22 ... they are a group!"

"Der helige Akkord," he said, "as we learned from Schubert's 'An die Musik' -- the holy chord and accord of three does seem to emerge again, doesn't it?"

"So, in holding my peace, and in walking in the more excellent way of love to which I am called, I will find that joy will meet me in the way," I said.

"Of course, and it will suit you to the companionship that you desire in all aspects of your life. Think, Frau Mathews -- why am I here? Why, of all the basses there are, again, why me?"

I thought for a moment, and then smiled as the memories began to roll.

"Your joy," I said. "Your joy carried my heart right off ... and it was what gave me the first clue that you were also a loving, humble, gentle man."

"Because there are three accords of three that you know of in one place that are the holiest accord of all, and joy is second in the list," he said.

"You're right -- the fruit of the Spirit, back to Galatians 5."

"So, of course, you would go looking, given that first clue -- and Frau Mathews, do you not know there are others looking and will find you? Your friends on Buena Vista Hill: are they not people who have chosen their joy? Is not your grand old soldier also of that same type? And even you: by what means do you seek to engage your young choir?"

"Through joy," I said. "In that latter case, music is as near as their phones. Joy certainly is not."

"And so also the other two triples of accord of triples also come along: gentleness, goodness, patience; faith, meekness, self-control -- and with those, safety for your students and a true sense of lebensraum -- living room -- in this world. I use that word with all gravity, Frau Mathews, for you know how it was being misused when and where I was born, so we are redeeming it, now!

"If only my countrymen had known the secret we speak of here today ... if only yours knew it now! The strength and room to live does not come through dominating and manipulating other things and people, but through joy, and all that comes with it! Now, happenstances will sometimes be unlucky, to dispense with those concepts in both our languages around mere happiness. Losses are inevitable; the time for all things runs out. Conflict, even if kept to the necessary minimum, must come, because evil is in the world. But when they come, then you choose ... and when you choose the more excellent way of love, and to hold the peace as far as it lies with you to do so, then you have made living room for joy, for you, and everyone in your proximity!"

"There are those of us still living in all that room you made, Herr Möll," I said. "And, in the end, that is why you are here. I will never be a musician of your stature. I might at least learn how, where I am, to make that room for others."

"Frau Mathews, you still are not fully understanding. In terms of making room for other people, you are doing very well. But hear me now, and it will settle into your heart in due time: joy is also for you. It overtakes you in outdoor places where you are at peace because you are walking in the more excellent way of love and thus in all the accords joy must have with it. But you are carrying far higher responsibility than I had in my career, and you are still not fully healed from all that just ended a mere six months ago. So, joy may continue to make itself known to you primarily as rest and relief, and you may continue to not want the responsibility or the entanglements of current ideas around celebration -- and you have the latitude! After all, why are we here -- I mean, here in Golden Gate Park today? There are many other things you could be doing!"

For a moment I was confused, and then it came to me what he was saying.

"I am choosing my own joy," I said, "and trusting that, in doing so in accord with my calling, I shall not lack for the things that I need in addition to the need for joy in my own life."

"And out of that choice, you will create from and share with others, and will be supported in doing so," he said. "That is the story of my amazing career, in miniature, and already, much of the story of yours. When you fully internalize that you within your calling have already been granted the latitude to order your life in this way, regardless of happenstance, then, Frau Mathews, oh, then!"

We walked on a little while further after that, and it seemed joy was dancing and even rolling over us in waves, still above me, but just a little above me ...

... and it dawned on me: the height of my companion who was at eye level with the light, and his being exactly twice my age ... he had figured these things out at about my age now, and thus became a conduit for joy for audiences big and small. To some degree I had already figured it out enough to be that conduit for many others, and to some degree I had figured it out for myself, because I had arranged the middle of my days for walking ... it had been April 26, 2021 that I had returned to walking during the pandemic.

"Next week marks three years, Frau Mathews -- and guess how we will celebrate that?"

"By doing more of what we're doing!" I said, and laughed, and then gasped as the realization at last hit me.

"So then ... given that joy must have all its accords ... what if I just look at my whole life, and choose all of those accords ... well, wait a minute ... that's a command anyhow in Galatians 5:16 ... walk in the Spirit, and so in all nine things: love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, patience, faith, meekness, self-control ... that's what I'm supposed to be doing ... that's what I have permission and have been given power to do in every aspect of my life ... and I am not to do anything that does not accord with that ... so then I do not have to do anything or be involved with anything that does not, but I can live fully in everything that does accord with that, ... so then ... ."

"Like I said, Frau Mathews, you are so close -- in fact you have it, but you just have to grow and heal just a little more so you can settle into what you have! Just how much room is there for you to live fully in accord with a calling such as yours?"

"Gee, that's a lot."

He held out his hand to me.

"Let me show you, Frau Mathews, a picture of just how much living room you have."

"Eccola!" I sang from Don Giovanni as I took his hand, but his grip was not ice cold to me, but as warm as his dazzling smile as he danced me up along the golden treetops --

-- into the height of the heavens above, with the expanse of the Milky Way before us, the Solar System beneath us like a twinkling set of jewels -- and then, the face of the galaxy itself, like a dancing floor of jewels beneath us, while other galaxies shone nearby like suns and twinkled like stars far off!

"In light of eternity," my companion purred, "this is how much living room you have, Frau Mathews, and even more."

"Thrilling but also terrifying!" I said. "I know you're not going to drop me!"

He just laughed, and out there, that laugh had some room to roll!

"Mein kind, recall the hymns of your youth -- you literally cannot be dropped! I am just the echo, remember?"

Then I realized my companion was providing me an object lesson of the everlasting arms. I had known that hymn "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms" since early childhood, and had played and sang it in church, but I had not before thought about it fully in its own terms -- "What a fellowship! What a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms!" -- and how much room that gave me in life, forever! The hymn, too, was inspired by the same kind of promise, in Scripture ... so, the hymn was an echo, too, so then ... at some point, I was supposed to get it!

"I'm still not fully getting it, but I see it now, and since it is true, I'll get there if I walk in it and toward it."

All the music of the spheres seemed to start ringing at that moment -- one grand harmony. Yet that triggered Knockout Zone physics, for my ears are still mortal, and cannot handle more than a moment or so of that. So, I came to myself gently descending through Earth's atmosphere in my companion's arms, to land in that same lovely spring day in a quiet, sunny place.

"Now, Frau Mathews," he said, his voice still thrilling just a little with that grand harmony, "you have seen and heard what it is I speak to you of in terms of how you may have your life. You are not yet fully ready to handle all of it, but as you walk toward it, and in it, you will increasingly and ever find it is true. Our lessons in this second year will help you, and oh, my dear ... ach, meine Töchterlein, mein Herz jubelt für dich! Oh, my heart rejoices for you, that you have now attained to this portion of your journey! I shall carry you home for the day, but really, just now, we are beginning!"