Jesus and the music of Cuba

George and Martha are good teachers about the importance of truth.  But so is a Cuban musician, whose name I have forgotten, whom I happened to catch on a PBS documentary.

This musician had left Cuba and re-established himself in Paris, France, smothered by the overly repressive nature of the Cuban government's hold on everything, including the life of artists.  What he learned in France is what interested me:  "Your music [he said] has to sound like you.  It has to sound like how you talk, how you think, how you walk.  It must resemble you in every way."  In France, he had to remain a Cuban musician, because that was and is who he was, and only the Truth can set you free.

We have to create a life that resembles us; otherwise we are miserable.   We may be pressured by money or fame or fear to take another path, to live so that others are comfortable and approving.  But it will never work. It is He that has made us, and not we ourselves, and the call and key to mental health is to be what we were made to be.

The Cuban musician needed to sound Cuban.  The musician from the Detroit suburbs, who grew up on Beethoven String Quartets and Motown and Presbyterian Church music, needs to sound like that, like a patchwork of sounds and ideas, like she has a foot in heaven (the string quartets), another foot in Motown (some the greatest music ever created, IMO), the whole thing washed in the stability and conservatism and understated joy of the Presbyterian ethic.  I am speaking of myself.

In addition, I have to sound exactly like the granddaughter of atheist/agnostic FDR-adoring Democratic secular humanists (on one side), and Midwestern Methodists, openly appalled at what FDR's policies were doing to personal responsibility (on the other side). This is why, when it comes to quilts, I favor the crazy patchwork variety. It is who I am.  And it is what my music must sound like.  Nothing but authenticity will do.


When you find this authenticity, it rings true in your inmost being, and nothing else satisfies.  This is how the truth sets you free.