An amazing gift

After the holidays, when the kids had left and the house was forlorn, Shawn and I rattled around in a mild depression for awhile.

Then I had an idea.

I cut up about 50 little slips of paper, almost one per week of the year, and divided them between us.  We sat across from each other at the kitchen table and wrote out things to do on the slips.  It could be anything: "Invite somebody over for dinner in a week; plan the menu and start preparing today."  Or:  "Go down to the basement and empty two packing boxes."  Or:  "Go shopping and buy each other a gift."

We filled out our slips, folded them in two, and put them into a container.  Every Friday, we draw one.  If we are too busy, we do not have to draw a slip, but that has not happened yet.

Last Friday, this is what we drew:

(Shawn wrote it, and it says, "Sit, Relax & enjoy a complete Beethoven Sonata or Symphony")

I knew immediately which Beethoven Symphony I wanted to listen to.  The Beautiful One, of course, that draws you in and takes your breath away.  The one with the melodies that intertwine and swirl around each other, stroking your heart and making you hope it will never end.  The one with the second movement I call, "The Broomstick Dance."

I'd borrowed it on a CD from the Liverpool Public Library many long years ago, when Shannon, David and Lu were very small and Jonathan not yet even born.  We lived in a little white cape in North Syracuse, and I would play that CD and dance around the small living room with the babies, pretending to sweep like a dreamy Cinderella during the second movement, and galloping madly in circles through the last movement, until we fell in an exhausted heap at the end.

When the CD was due at the library, I returned it without noting which number the Symphony was.  Thus began a search over many years to learn what it had been and recover it.

All I knew was that it wasn't the 5th Symphony.  So it was a long search.  Finally, one day I bought a CD through a classical music club we'd been sucked into.  It was Leonard Bernstein's final concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra: Four Sea Interludes by Britten, and a Beethoven Symphony.  I put it into the CD player and it was the one!

Last weekend, we couldn't find Leonard's final concert CD.  We went through all our other Beethoven recordings, hoping to find our beloved symphony on another one, and ended up listening to the 6th Symphony, I believe, which--although a very good symphony--was not the one I was hungry for.  Unsatisfied, we continued our search for Leonard, and finally found him buried deep in a compartment in Shawn's car.

We listened.   We loved it.  I said, "I don't have a bucket list.  But if I did, I would put on it that I would like to hear this symphony live!  Someday, will you take me to hear this live, Shawn?"

I was thinking it was Symphony 2, so I Google searched it, and found that the LA Symphony Orchestra is performing it in March at Disneyland.  Shawn said we probably wouldn't be able to make that performance.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday I went to a brunch with some Bible study friends, and one of my friends invited me to a Mozart Birthday Bash at the University of Illinois this weekend.  At home later that afternoon, I went online to peruse tickets for Mozart, and happened to see that the Minnesota Orchestra was going to be here at the University on Thursday, performing Beethoven's 7th.  I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow I thought to go downstairs and check the Leonard CD, and sure enough, it was not the 2nd Symphony.  It was the 7th Symphony.  Here.  In town.  The very next day.  And two perfect seats remained in the second row of the balcony, left of center.

Since Shawn and I hadn't given each other Christmas gifts, he was more than happy to purchase these two tickets.

So last night we went to this concert at the Krannert Center, and it was so good.  So good.  It was so good, I could not believe it.  Usually with a classical concert, they do something unfamiliar or obsolete first, and then finish with the familiar thing that people really want to hear.  But last night's concert was amazing from start to finish.

It began with Sibelius, En Saga, Opus 9.  While not as renowned as Finlandia, it was completely lovely.

Then, oh then.  The second number was Tchaikovsky, Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor for Piano and Orchestra Op. 23.  Inon Barnatan played the piano solo.  This was absolutely amazing, and would have made for an ultimately satisfying evening even if it had been the end.

However, it was not the end.  After intermission, the orchestra came back and played Beethoven's 7th.  I was so excited, I thought I'd burst.  It was absolutely thrilling.  I cannot imagine a better concert.  The only bad part was that it ended.  I wanted them to play it all over again.

It is astounding to me how this all came together.  How did it happen that the symphony I have always loved best would surface in our minds just in time for us to discover (randomly!) that it was in town, and buy tickets to see it?  It was very well attended.  Why were our perfect seats available?  The seats were perfect right down to our view of the solo pianist, which I had not even thought to consider.

God does the most outrageously amazing things sometimes--before we even ask.  I wouldn't even have thought to ask for something like this.  Oh, He is such a good planner.  He even took care of logistic details.  It was a twenty minute drive, in light traffic, with free parking beneath the center.  The parking spot right next to the elevator was open and waiting for us.  Can you believe it?  Why do I ever doubt Him?  If He can plan something like this, pure beauty and joy simply to thrill my heart, how could He not work out the salvation of souls who need Him?

Psalm 4:6

Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?"  

Let the light of Your face shine on us, O Lord.

Amen.  Thank you, Lord Jesus.  Thank you.