There is a book that has graced my bookshelf since
my late teens. It made the take-to-Budapest list, which meant that it was worth
its weight in luggage. Several years ago I decide to make it an “annual read”
during the Easter season. It is simply called The Singer. It’s the first in a
Trilogy - The Singer, The Song, The Finale.
The Singer is my
favorite.
Over the weekend, Dennis and I met with the British
Isles District leaders for a weekend leadership retreat. When I packed for the
trip, The Singer went into my bag.
On Monday, I was sitting in a hotel room
in London. Dennis had stepped out to get an afternoon coffee. I picked up the
book knowing I could read it within the hour. All alone in the room, I decided
that perhaps to read it out loud would add greater impact to the words. And, so
I began.
When he awoke, the song was there.
Its melody beckoned and begged him to sing it.
He knew its lovely words and could have sung it
all, but feared to sing a song whose harmony was far too perfect for human ear
to understand.
I marvel at the way author Calvin Miller
metaphorically captures the life of Jesus. The Singer is Jesus who sings the
Ancient Star-Song. Earthmaker is God. Terra is planet Earth. World Hater is
Satan who plays his silver pipe luring earthlings into his trap.
The Star-Song never changes. It is a song of love.
World Hater’s pipe only plays one tune; it is a song of hate.
The part of the story that I love most is that of a
little girl with twisted legs begging by the roadside. The Singer notices her,
as he is so good at doing. It isn’t long before she is running and skipping
through the field, restored by the Singer’s love song.
But, World Hater gets the best of the Singer, or so
he thinks he does. If he can hold the key to death, surely he has won. His
mocking laughter penetrates the darkness on that fateful day the Singer has
been hung. L-I-A-R etched into the Singer's forehead, so foreign to who he was, used on God from the beginning of time by none other than
the silver pipe player.
But by the next morning the tables have been
turned. World Hater panics. The key to death has been broken. The Singer is not
found amongst the rubble.
The little girl enters the story once again. She
had watched the Singer’s death and now lies despondent along the road certain
her legs will become twisted again. But then she feels someone beside her as
she lay on her simple mat.
You worried about your legs for nothing, said a
voice.
. . . She threw herself into the Singer's arms with
such a strong embrace it all but knocked him over. You're alive - alive.
Then the concern for her own legs turned to his
legs and his hands, mangled and wounded by the mallet and the spike. He
reassures her that though they are scarred, there is no pain, only the memory
of it.
But, then she notices something else.
But the word . . . the word they wrote upon your
face is gone.
The Singer reached up to his forehead where the
searing iron had left the accusation of the council. The word was gone indeed.
It is, he said, because Earthmaker cannot bear a
lie. He could not let me wear the word for He is Truth. He knows no
contradiction in himself. So learn this, my little friend, no man may burn a
label into flesh and make it stay when heaven disagrees.
But did the Father-Spirit agree with all the other
things they did to your hands and feet?
He wished they had not done it . . . But, yes . . .
he did agree that without these wounds Terra could not know how much he loved
her. You will find, my child, that love rarely ever reaches out to save except
it does with a broken hand.
The Singer stretched her small philosophy,
And if they should brand you with a name across your face .
. .
It cannot stay, if heaven disagrees, she finished
up his statement.
She placed her little hand in his and found his
wounded hand to have a healthy grip.
Your hand is firm and strong, God did not leave it
broken long, she said,
He never does, he answered.
They walked hand and hand on the day the sunlight
brought the brightest day the world had ever known. And she skipped and danced
like she did the very day they met.
Dennis returned to the room just before I finished.
"Honey, I'm reading this out loud. Do you mind if I finish?"
"Not at all, I'm just sorting through things."
And so, I continued on, both of us feeling the passion of the final sentences.
And those who know the Ancient Star-Song watch with singing for the sign of footprints in the galaxies through which the little planet rides in routine cycles of despair. But Joy seldom sleeps for long. And someday in a lonely moment mankind will shake an unfamiliar hand and find it wounded.
From Tallinn we drove on to Riga, Latvia's capital. I was amazed at all the stork nests along the drive. Huge nests most often seen built on the top of electric poles.
