Weekly Message from Rev. T. J.

Something About Love

“It’s not about the notes. It’s about the groove.” That is the thought that came to me as I listened to a recording of Knocks Me Off My Feet by Stevie Wonder in one ear, listened to my own voice and piano playing in the other ear, read the music in front of me, and tried to decipher the notes on the page. It is a practice of mine lately to try to improve my playing by playing along with original recordings of songs I love, and playing along with Stevie Wonder is also a deep lesson in humility. Damn, he’s good.

I realized quickly that having my hands in the right spot, fingers flying across the keyboard, was not only deeply challenging—it was missing the point. The pattern, the rhythm, the shape of the music I loved is what made it jump off the page, not making sure every little note is where it’s supposed to be. And this wasn’t news…especially to the composer. For Stevie Wonder, a written note on a page is merely conceptual—he’s never actually seen one since he lost his sight at six weeks old. I wonder what he’d think of a masterpiece of his strewn out like so many pieces of laundry hanging on lines for all to see.

So many of Stevie Wonder’s songs are like prayers. Some actually are prayers. They ask questions of the universe, of the divine, and also help us to answer some of the world’s hardest questions to face. Some teachers tell us that any truly sacred texts, texts meant to change the world or the heart, are more divinely inspired in how they are lived than how they were written. In a way, this is saying that as helpful as the written word is at times, making of it an idol, the sole or primary way of knowing, can hold a student back.

“There’s somethin’ ‘bout your love that makes me weak and knocks me off my feet.” To read this might make you wonder critically at the childlike (maybe childish) way that one person is speaking to another, but listening to the way Stevie expresses it, with little fills here and there, followed by a barrage of aria-esque soaring lyrical lines, might make you wonder achingly at the power of what the singer feels. At once what seemed a childish notion (notation) becomes a surge of awe-struck love.

In the holding of a hand of someone in pain, in the tender touch of a parent for a child, in the shelter we give to those in want—in all of these ways and in so many more, there is much more divinely inspired about these actions than any words can truly tell. The rules, the notes we learn, guide our lives. The patterns, the rhythms, the shapes of kindness, compassion, justice, and love are our lives. And there’s just something about that kind of love, in whose presence I feel perhaps wanting or weak at times, that if I’m not careful, might knock me right off my feet.

And may it ever be so,
Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org