Jun 15, 2009

Mozart, Tiger Woods and Me: Gift 1 1/2

Sam here. Welcome back. Okay, slow motion; I’m sticking with the Introduction, then we'll move into Chapter 1 next time. Here are my two cents for this week.

In the Intro, Hyde writes, “The spirit of an artist’s gifts can wake our own.” For example, “Our sense of harmony can hear the harmonies that Mozart heard. We may not have the power to profess our gifts as the artist does, and yet we come to recognize, and in a sense to receive, the endowments of our being through the agency of his creation.”

Personally, this means Mozart wakes me, yet I don’t go directly to him for musical inspiration because he’s in another solar system of talent. Similarly, when I watch Tiger Woods, something wakes in me. I don’t golf and don’t want to golf, but he gives me something. Yet I don’t use Tiger as my role model, because he's too far out of my league. So I find people closer to me, people who exhibit Mozart-like and Tiger-like gifts in more attainable measures.

Mozart’s inspiration is a gift, but I used to learn how to profess my musical gifts from a friend down the street. Tiger inspires, but I learned athletic discipline and sportsmanship from a teammate in pick-up soccer. Folks at this less-stratospheric level give something to me and I am “grateful that [they] labored in the service of [their] gifts.”

My mentors probably won’t end up as poster-children for inspiration, but they aren’t slackers either. They learned from somebody who learned from somebody who learned from somebody who learned from Mozart. I won’t make the poster either, but I’ll keep the gift moving.

Solar System photo by L.L. Barkat. Used with permission. Post written by Sam Van Eman.

OTHER BOOK CLUB POSTS:
LL's When Did You Labor? (or, Will Sabbath Help Your Gift Go Viral?)
Laura's The Gift: Forcibly Taken
Liz's Increase and Sacrifice