The Mountain Beyond This Mountain
On the 16th of May, the month of Ramadan began. The people of this land and many other lands all around the world engage in a period of fasting (roza in Dari) from sun up to sun down. Many will rise as early as 2AM to prepare an early meal while it is still dark before the sun rises, before the full day of fasting commences. I just found out today that one of my most diligent students would wake at 2.30AM and come to school as early as 4AM – with special permission – so that he can practice his piano music in the early hours before school started at 7:30AM. (Can you see my jaw drop?) I was so amazed by that level of discipline and dedication; I’m not sure if I’ll find it anywhere else. Of course, music-making is a most unconventional activity in these parts of the world. None of my students have the luxury of owning an acoustic piano at home. If they have some means, they might have a keyboard, or a digital piano, at best. Needless to say, their hard-work and commitment to music astounds me. Some of them come early in the morning to practice, others stay back late after school. I think about the privilege I’ve had growing up to own an acoustic piano. My family isn’t ‘rich’, but my parents were willing to work hard to give me a music education. They saw the importance of music-making in intellectual, spiritual and social life. I had the opportunity to go for piano lessons, and later, study music at a conservatoire; I could come home and spend hours practicing on my piano in the comfort of a home. Some of my students don’t have a home, a family they can return to. When I think of them I often feel this deep sense of responsibility – and my eyes fill with tears – as I think about how hard it must be for them not only to risk their lives doing music, but to fight this uphill battle to be the some of the first ones to wage this fight in their generation.
One of my wonderful students came to give
me a fresh rose again today. I can hardly bear the sight and feeling of such
sweetness! Each day, I feel such a synergy of hearts as I have never
experienced before. Because of this synergy, I do not feel weary. I may feel
tired, but that’s just from simple things like a full, busy day or a sometimes feeling
confined to my room, thanks to the volatile security situation. I define the
feeling of tiredness differently from weariness. The state of the latter is
something like being so bored or burnt out to your bones that you have no means
of being energized by anything else except to escape that situation. On the
other hand, tiredness is a good thing, because it shows that you have simply enjoyed
a good, hard day of work in a challenging environment – filled with moments of doing,
being, and engaging with the world – so much so that when you get home, you are
happy for the stillness, a hot cup of tea, simple cooking, good reading, and talking
to God about the beautiful moments you dare not forget… then finally, for your
head to fall into a restful sleep at a nice, early hour. (For me, it’s
something like 9pm here! Quite unbelievable, considering I used to stay up past
midnight back home.)
A day filled with good work is just as much
a day filled with new learning. I had a memorable jam session learning the
Afghan ‘dal’ drum on one of the days when I walked past a room of six young percussionists.
They looked like they were mucking around when they should have been
rehearsing. I stepped in and they immediately straightened up with their cheeky
smiles. I asked for all of their names. I echoed back their names to make sure I
got them right and began to address each of them repeatedly by name for the
entire session. None of them spoke English. So I motioned for them to position
themselves to play me a percussion work they’re supposed to be practicing and
gave them a count-in in Dari: Amadast? Yak,
du, sey, char! (Ready? One, two, three, four!) After that I asked one of
the boys to teach me how to play his ‘dal’, a resonant Afghan drum you placed
on your lap as you sit crossed legged with one leg firmly tucked over the other
knee. Each student turns to demonstrate a rhythm for me to drum in return. It
was so much fun and a lot of hysterical laughter as we tried to understand each
other in few words but many musical rhythms. These moments are eternally
special for me.
In one of my group classes this week, I could
see tired restlessness in their faces and felt I needed to bring some
inspiration to their day. On the spot, I wrote down four qualities I wanted
them to bring to my class:
1.
Focus
2.
Smiles
3.
Creativity
4.
Respect
The smiles on their faces were priceless in
that moment when I asked them if they understood what I was asking for – they
did. Some of the students who were better at English helped me to translate
those words into Dari.
Sometimes I wonder, is it possible to
become accustomed to an absurd reality if you immerse yourself in it for long
enough? I believe it is not only possible, but dangerously inevitable. Against
an unrelenting tide of ruthless oppression, it requires no small measure of
courage and a heck load of moral fortitude to remember who you are and why you
were placed somewhere for the unique reason that you were created for. But what
happens to the ones who are born into such an era of suffering and hostility?
They have known nothing else. For an outsider like myself, I have the benefit
of safe-keeping memories, lessons and treasured moments of better times and
places that I’ve dwelt in before this time. I know what Hope feels like; I have
experienced simple freedoms; I understand the power of Truth, because I have
held it in my hands and my heart. But what if you have never seen the vast
ocean, or the faint light of dawn? What if you have always been caged in the
four dank walls of unjust treatment? What if you have ever only read history books
re-telling generations of vengeance, and urging you to perpetuate it? What if
you have never heard the Truth that you are
not a forgotten speck, but you were created for a purpose? How would you
stand up in protest against an absurd and otherwise unacceptable reality if you
never knew the possibility of this other
infinitely better reality?
These are questions that I am in the
process of working out as I live, make music, and ponder daily in my space of
solitude here. I know I am being prepared for far more difficult places and
circumstances. Sometimes I feel that after this season of my life, I really am
ready to go anywhere else I am called. I’m boundlessly excited and at the same
time slightly terrified. I feel a weighty yet promising burden of
responsibility being laid upon my heart. It is not a regrettable burden, but a
burden of high privilege that requires an expansion of heart for a deeper
capacity to love, and a spirit of humility to serve. My prayer is that I will
be forged in a furnace that expands my heart and humbles my spirit to love
others in the depth of despair, wherever and whenever I am called upon to
respond in grace and truth. This calling to be who we really are is not
reserved for any special kind of people, but for you as much as it is for me
and anyone else. Oh what an invitation and challenge to embark on an odyssey of
faith with our God that takes us not only beyond our door, but over this
present looming mountain, and into the deep valley – where the foothills of the
mountain towering beyond this mountain await!
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