Looking
through the notes accumulated over the years in the planning and thinking that
go on behind these columns I call “HOME COUNTRY”, several thoughts come into my
mind that might be worth sharing with you who are the faceless but ever-present
friends who read it. Sitting here at my computer keyboard reminds me that this,
the actual writing, is the “easy” part of the job I love. The long and often
lonely hours of thinking, weighing and listening for a whisper of inspiration;
of fighting the nagging “voice” that tells me I don’t have another story left
in me, that the “mojo” is gone. That is what is hard. I was thinking about this
exercise when I wrote the column titled Appreciating
Moments of Mindfulness back on November 2nd 2015, and the month
before with Listening to the Still, Small
Voices.
It is usually in the early morning
hours, when it is quiet and peaceful and I can be alone with my thoughts that
the “magic” happens; when it does. I was born into and grew up in a home where
music was as ever present as the furniture, so I suppose it’s not so unusual
that I should often turn to a background of selected song to enhance these
searching moments. Not just any kind of music, but notes that speak to me of
thoughtfulness, and the harmony of life at its most meaningful; soulful,
peaceful and often haunting in its honesty. I confess that in recent months I
have settled on the works of a particular composer, arranger and recording
artist as a consistently dependable resource of inspiration of the kind that
“speaks” to me when my heart is listening.
Paul Cardall has been writing and
performing music for close to twenty years and is well known across the country
and especially in Utah and the Rocky Mountain West. He was born with only one
half of a functioning heart, one of the 40,000 infants born with congenital
heart defects in the U.S. each year. He endured numerous difficult surgeries
and then experienced the long anxious wait on that now near- mythical list
waiting for a replacement heart, upon whose beating he continues to write,
arrange and perform today. Out of this came a unique awareness of the unfulfilled
needs of this segment of U.S. health research and development, and the creation
of the Saving Tiny Hearts Society the
Cardall’s support. Even before I became aware of this charitable part of the
artist’s life, I had noticed a quality to his music which imparted a sense of
sympathy and appreciation of life that touches the very hearts of listeners.
When I seek an hour of careful thinking and considering, I go to one or another
of my half-dozen Cardall recordings.
My favorite for setting a mood level
which never fails to carry my consciousness away from the common and mundane
and into a world where exposed hearts may be touched is a 2014 CD album titled
(not surprisingly) Saving tiny Hearts. Each of the 14 titles which come together
in this grouping contains the musical telling of a story, beginning with a
personal favorite titled Gracie’s Theme,
inspired by the true story of a much-loved little girl who, after all the
preparation support and agonizing wait by her family, died during the heart
transplant operation. A haunting quality which always speaks to me comes from
another selection named simply Voices.
The listener can write whatever story one wishes, but for me I always imagine
I’m listening to the chorus of thousands
of tiny voices of cheery, happy, hopeful kids who had to leave us all-too-early
because of childhood health events for which there is no available answer. Miracles, Our Love and Coming Home are titles on the same disc
which tell their own musical stories.
I and my family will always remember
an evening long ago when we knelt together in our living room after being told
that our four-year-old son would probably never live a normal life due to a
heart defect. Then came our Miracle. Today that son runs marathons,
travels the world, and is a grandfather
two
times over.
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