When Hope Fades - trust the timing

The entries have been a bit inconsistent, there’s just been a lot happening, and the time to document keeps slipping away. But today, finally, there’s time. In this entry, I’m reflecting on timing. Something so outside human control, but something that so profoundly impacts us. 

Last month, I visited Darjeeling - and the memories flooded my being. 

Two years after Creative Hope was formed, I moved from California to Darjeeling to help a school start a music program. Not a year went by before I found a home and deep connection with people who revealed so much truth about God’s love, about the world, and about myself. Together, the students and I crafted dreams, hopes, and plans that drove us to create music together at all hours of the day - before school on icy winter mornings, free time on the weekends carrying instruments through the rain, evening times when we could take breaks from other work. Instrument donations poured in. Concerts and performances brought the community together. The result: not only a vibrant emerging music program, but deep connection with people and deep revelation of the heart of Jesus every single day. 

Nine months of inception and momentum that could fuel 9 years of creating - evanesced when political unrest haulted all activity for a record number of months. Life circumstances, a global pandemic followed by border restrictions - barrier after barrier inhibited my returning and resuming. Hopes and dreams faded, plans released, and prayers changed. 

That piece of my heart went blank, or so I thought…

Returning to Darjeeling after 5 years showed me - the piece of my heart I thought went blank was actually hibernating. Reminds me of a tree in winter, signs of life withdraw and remain hidden in preparation for the rapid growth ahead. 

Last month, I walked into the music room of the school with one of my former students. We picked up one of the old violins, wiped away the dust and mold, found it a new set of strings. While one of the instruments from 5 years ago - a cello - fell apart irreparably, we found most of the instruments salvageable. We picked up the pieces, we’re piecing them back together. 

Picking up the pieces of something I thought was lost - it’s awakened so much within my spirit, I feel a gust of wind, a new breath of air, standing at the precipice of a new phase of creativity.

I look back…

I see God working through time, patiently and thoroughly orchestrating and teaching in ways that are richer and deeper than I can imagine. After studying ethnomusicology in London, teaching music at an international boarding school in the Himalayas, and living in the capital of Nepal, I’ve learned so much in regards to the historical, cultural, and political nuances - still a beginner, but definitely not clueless of the type of questions I need to ask and the position that I am taking. These past years have not been wasted.

I look ahead…

I see the perfect wisdom of God at work - despite my disorientation. 

Here’s what I’m really excited for: Nischal, incredible musician from Darjeeling, is earning his bachelors in music education. He’s got 1.5 years left before he will pilot the music program as a music teacher for Creative Hope in the same school I joined all those years ago. And in the meantime, there are Himalayan music books being written by a team of inspiring music teachers from across the globe - including Nischal.

So, this entry is about the slow and deep process of learning to trust in the perfect timing of our Masterful Creator. 

Here is a song I wrote during the ambiguity, the Holy Spirit teaching my soul to trust and wait:

‘You can feel the wind blow past your shoulder, over the ocean,

and if you rise maybe you will hear, 

Past and future, maybe they will sing for all of the yearning,

before you can believe in harmony

Unforeseen but I know you can witness those shrinking shadows

Exposing golden glowing, open spheres

A sacrifice of love is sweeping over your weeping lenses

Until golden sounds fill your tender ears

The forbearance of your solitude is not the real beginning

Take my hand, rest your soul,

In the forbearance of your heart and the forgiveness of

All the polluted anything, it can really change everything

You will hear it soon'