The hopeless thing, the unexpected thing, the third-rate thing becomes ‘The Thing’
There is a TV advert that has remained with me since I first saw it when a young teen. It was advertising a car though with little interest in models of car it was what the advert conveyed. The guy was driving home from a mountain area. The weather was bad and it was dark yet the car provided him with protection sheltering him from the extremes of the outside. He had music playing as he drove. Often as a drive now I remember that ad as my car coasts along particularly when the weather is as it is at present.
I listen more to the radio while I drive more than any other time and audiobooks too. Often I switch all the sound off and drive with my thoughts. My car seat is one of the most comfortable seats I know. Yet my car is no more part of me than my body. That is not to say I don’t appreciate it I do and so too my body but they both are vehicles.
This morning as I drove through the snow I was listening to Desert Island Discs. The guest Minouche Shafik chose Keith Jarrett’s The Koln concert as one of her pieces of music. She told the story of how he had arrived at the Koln Opera for a concert to find that the wrong piano had been delivered. It was out of tune and third rate. He initially refused to play though was persuaded. He took what he had and improvised. The music he played became his most popular.
If you know me you will know that I love this type of story of how the hopeless thing, the unexpected thing, the third-rate thing becomes ‘The Thing’. We can snarl, we can dismiss but what we have is what we have now, “Get on with it!” If we treat our vehicles well who knows where they may bring us.
You see Keith Jarrett is not a piano, Keith Jarrett is a spirit endowed with the gift of playing any piano. What should come from us is our spirit whatever the vehicle. When we express our spirit the piano will play, the car will drive, the body will dance and indeed should it fall away our spirit will still be expressed.
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