A Violin In The Wind

Larry Moffitt
February 6, 2010

Shoveling the sidewalk and driveway today. It was snowing like a busted pillow and I went out to shovel, thinking I could keep up with it. I finished one pass and turned around to see the pavement was quickly being covered again. "Hey!" I shouted to heaven, "I just finished this and you're covering it up again."

The only sound was "the sweep of easy wind and downy flake," as Robert Frost wrote. That's okay, I wasn't looking for an answer. I think sometimes God just enjoys keeping company.

It's good to spend time meditating. There are countless ways to do it and all of them work. You sit in silence in a church. In a zendo, wearing comfortable, loose-fitting clothing. Outside in the garden with the sun on your back and insect sounds. On a treadmill in a gym. Chopping wood. Lolling in a hammock. Washing dishes. God transmits on all those frequencies and, if it has been important to you, you have put some work into tuning your soul's instrument to receive that voice clearly on your unique frequency. Maybe you're like Kyle Toffey who prays while driving. I like to have a notebook when God shows up, but that's me. I have never gotten anything done in unison prayer, with everyone screaming and lifting the roof off. Others have meaningful experiences with it.

Orwell said, at age 50 every man has the face he deserves. This is somewhat true in that you have become a vessel made up of your laugh lines and your tears. Both your deadly lies and your secret integrities unknown to others are in there as well. All your deeds, nuances and brutalities, gross motor and fine motor. Your money and how you came by it. These become your face and the frequency that connects you to heaven's inspirations.

A violin held just right in the wind, will hum. You resonate perfectly, so that when you hear God's voice, it is unmistakable to your heart, and only you can hear it. The gal next to you hears God's voice on a different frequency, based on the unique molecules of her existence. You gradually develop a way to hear the unmistakable signature of God's voiceprint on the particular frequency that you have arrived at in life.

All these years I have been talking to God in my prayers. But I should have done more listening instead. A lot more.

Ironically, receiving inspiration is unrelated to happiness or comfort. Some of the most gifted and accomplished artists and the most authentic saints endured lives of constant physical pain and unspeakable heartbreak. Worse is that it's not even about being righteous because some who have done everything right are miserably poor, and there are others in big houses who have children with straight teeth, but who's hearts are blacker than the inside of a goat. This part I've never figured out.

The only thing that can save me is perspective. Perspective is everything. You can either feel you are sitting in a dark room passively watching a television preacher preach and feeling detached, dissatisfied, even angry, or you can be inspired to the mountaintops and find real world revelations you can use in your life. You can either feel you are bowing to heaven before an offering table laden with your material wealth, or you can feel you are bowing to fruit. It's your call.

Prayer-slash-meditation can result in instructing you to build an ark or go there and do that. But the best prayer changes your perspective A change in perspective alters your paradigm, puts more colors on your palette, enlarges your catcher's mitt, so then you can feel confident to take your own initiative to build an ark or go there and do that.

I want to be a violin in the wind. Each person who is one in heart and mind with heaven, is also one in heart and mind with every other person in the world who is one in heart and mind with heaven. And heaven is meant to be here and now.