On the day of the concert, Margie and I drove to the Hopkins
Center for the Arts hoping to have dinner with Kenny at 5 pm after the band’s
sound check was finished, two hours before the concert was slated to begin. As
we drove through the final stretches of farm land the surrounding the southern
edge of the Twin Cities Kenny texted us: sound check was running long, so it
would be at least 5:30 before he could get free.
The day before our conversation had ranged freely across
life. When Kenny plays he seems lifted away by the music, able to flow with it
body and soul. His playing seems born of the moment, not calculated but known,
as if his fingers are able to take what he knows and give it a heart-felt life
of its own. Rather than the polished repeated-no-note-different-than-before
style of the classical musician, Kenny plays with musicians who honor the
age-old melodies with honesty but dance around it with melodies less composed
than lived.
Kenny told us, carefully and with great circumspection, of a
disappointment he has recently faced in his musical career. We were safe people
to be told of it because we are far from the music business. He spoke
carefully, treating the people involved with respect even as they had
disappointed him with a decision they felt they needed to make. He wanted to be
forgiving and generous in return, accepting apologies when offered, refusing to
hold grudges or to allow bitterness to take root in his heart. His attitude was
one of reality—disappointments are real and have real ongoing consequences—and
one of grace—the disappointment couldn’t be allowed to have the final word. Such
authentic faith, shaped by a quiet determination to, by grace, be like Christ,
is powerfully attractive.
I thought of that when the Old Testament reading in church
yesterday morning was from Daniel 8. It was as if the ancient prophet was
describing the callous businessmen who raked in fortunes on the backs of
ordinary people who first lost homes, pensions, and jobs, and then had to stake
the banks with billions of tax dollars.
He shall grow strong
in power,
shall cause fearful
destruction,
and shall succeed in
what he does…
By his cunning
he shall make deceit
prosper under his hand,
and in his own mind
he shall be great.
Without warning he
shall destroy many
[Daniel 8:24-25]
I realize it seems likely that Daniel here is catching a
vision of the career of Antiochus IV, who reigned for a tumultuous decade
(175-164 BC), minting coins with his likeness on one side and the phrase, “god
manifest” on the reverse. The deeper truth is that a taste for power,
self-centered avarice, and an ability to rationalize evil soon cauterizes the
conscience and smothers virtue. The need for regulation on Wall Street is
self-evident (the free market, though undeniably preferable to a centrally
planned one, is run by profoundly fallen people) but hardly sufficient. Virtue,
keenly nourished over a lifetime in the decisions we make, both large and
small, is also necessary.
Making virtuous decisions, wherever and whoever we are,
allows us to be a presence of faithfulness in a broken world. This is what
Kenny is demonstrating in the face of his disappointment, and it matters.
Those who respond that this is just one person and so is too
little to matter are mistaken. They do not know the power of virtue, the
interwoven reality of human community, and the explosive power of the gospel
when it is brought into a human tower constructed of hubris and fortified by a
profusion of idols. There actually is no real contest.
As I sipped my Bulleit bourbon and listened to the music, we
were fortuitously seated on the side of the stage where the musician closest to
us was Kenny. I watched as he wove harmonious flights with his guitar around
the melodies of the songs, carving sonic sculptures in the air for us to rest
in while the music lasted. His playing seemed to come out of his heart, not
merely his head, and in that heart I knew was a deep yearning for virtue and
goodness. He is a man I am proud to call my friend.
(to be continued)
This entry was posted
at Monday, May 10, 2010
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Kenny Hutson,
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