Pied Piper

I went to a funeral today. It was for my friend Sue’s father, Pete. I really didn’t know Pete that well. We first met at Sue’s engagement party 15 years ago and, as I was a member of the wedding party, I got to know him a little better at the wedding…but not really well.

The funeral was well attended. Pete had a large family - nine kids and an exponential number of grandchildren. There were personal friends, of course, but what struck me, as I met people before the service, was the large number of people who didn’t know Pete that well…but they knew his children and grandchildren, and those mourners were there for them.

Sue delivered a eulogy in which she fondly recalled her father singing “Lazy Bones” to his brood on a Saturday morning to roust them out of bed to eat the breakfast he had lovingly prepared for them. That musical reference struck a chord (no pun intended).

Life is like a song. Everything we learn and experience creates harmony or dissonance in the song that is our life. Good influences create beautiful sounds which draw people to us. Bad influences, like bad music, push people away. And the true measure of a successful song (life) is that the people you meet walk away singing your song.

Pete’s life was a melody. He learned it note by note as he grew. And the melody was beautiful and compelling. And his family and his friends heard it and were compelled to follow along. And they incorporated the melody into their own melodies which became more complex and still lovelier. And we all heard it…and we all followed.

In the beginning...

I guess it is because the poets and philosophers of this world have always looked upon life as a journey, that the “Road” has always been a comfortable and reliable metaphor. The road less traveled, the fork in the road, the road to ruin…to salvation are all familiar to a people whose history is filled with movement. And the road can be a dangerous place. As children we were admonished to “stay out of the street.” When crossing the road we are taught to “use the crosswalks” and then to “look both ways". Looking both ways is important, of course, because the traffic is absolutely polar...one side goes one way and one side goes the exact opposite. Conventional wisdom suggests that a pedestrian who wishes to travel along the road should pick one side or the other and then stay out of traffic as much as possible, good advice, indeed. The last place you want to be is the middle of the road…at the centerline. The world whizzes by you north and south, east and west…right and left. Pick a direction and you are safe. Pick the middle and you risk getting hit from both directions. And yet, that middle of the road, that centerline, is exactly where my life experience has taken me. Over time, I hope to offer some thoughts from what I perceive as the centerline.