The Groaning Cello

“And the Lord said to Aaron, ‘You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them.  I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.'” (Num 18:20).

The second story window of our apartment stands level with the crook of a magnolia tree, making our apartment something of a tree house.  I love that tree and I love our window.  There is a special comfort in feeling that you live in a forest while in the midst of a city.  As I was looking out the window yesterday, I noticed that the magnolia tree had a single blossom, nothing more than a shock of white amidst the green.  That single flower was a promise, a token of more to come.   The tree, though beautiful in its own right now, was made for more.  I plan to watch the tree continue to bloom, to watch the flowers appear over the days.  I have a great yearning, a holy ache, to see the tree in its fullness.  The single flower in all its beauty is a only promise of the fullness to come.

I’ll put it another way.  There is a certain kind of music that I have come to love.  Some call it post-rock, some call it ambient. It is easier to describe than label.  Imagine making a landscape of sound.  Songs emerge like mirages, shimmering on the horizon.  In the midst of the drone and swell there faintly emerges from the dripping wet reverb a faintly chiming of melody or the moaning ache of cello as the bow strains against the strings.  Layer upon layer the landscape begins to fill up but still it remains as elusive as the mirage. These are songs that build toward something, songs that reach for more than they can express.

The single blossom.  The yearning music.  They express the ache, the longing I have to fully inherit God.  He is my inheritance.  He is my portion. Yet, these are phrases that reach for more than they can express because I don’t yet possess their fullness.  I only see a blossom now.  I only hear the echo of a song.  In the here and now, I groan like a cello for the inheritance to come.  And creation groans along with me (Romans 8).  The melody strains with the melancholy beauty of all that is hoped for in the midst of all that is broken.  It is the Spirit that groans within, rattling our ribcages.  But more than that the Spirit keens our eyes to see single blossoms and ache for home.  As temples of the Holy Spirit, his presence is the guarantee of the inheritance to come.  His fruits and gifts are simply foretastes of fullness unknown.  They are the single blossom whose beauty promises more beauty. They are notes from an echoing guitar that suggest the symphony to come.