"Dancing Fireworks, Green and Blue," fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews
2024 ended with fireworks!
My students, past and present, coming around as grateful young adults -- and some bringing their children to become my grand-students -- and I am not yet 44!
A whole entire walking pneumonia scare sent me to urgent care! -- but even that was a blessing even at the hospital!
Relatives of mine, after that, came to me and said: "The Lord spoke ... we see what you are doing for the family and community ... we're going to come through for YOU now like you come through for everyone else."
Work insanity reached a peak of disaster right down to the last hour of business for the year -- but the solution came in the last half hour!
"Firework Full," fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews
It was like the One Who has called me decided in the last five days: "Since you have trusted Me, and since you have endured the discipline I have laid upon you, and since at My bidding you not only have walked away from all that I have commanded you, and since you have withheld your hand from all that what you know that I have granted you in My time, and since you have not burdened others with problems they cannot solve and brought your broken heart and silent tears to Me ..."
"... let Me show you that you may continue to trust Me in 2025 in the path of quiet and peace -- let Me show you the reward of your faithfulness to a second generation already -- let Me show you there is no problem you can have that I will not already have the solution for -- let me show you that I told you: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." For a year I have told you, and you came and kept coming. NOW I HAVE DONE IT!"
The only thing for me to do after all this, being still on the mend but not yet well, the business being done, and me just bursting into tears of joy and praising God in three languages at random -- New Year's Eve found me in no state to go do anything even if I had been inclined to go -- I was not and never am, because for me, drunk people with guns and high explosives are too loud even when not actually dangerous. New Year's Day was even colder, and I had been advised not to go out ... so in a sunbeam I rested and fell asleep in my home...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, April 8, 2024
... and woke here, impossibly so, because there was no way in my condition -- Strawberry Hill in Blue Heron Lake is the hardest climb I took in 2024, because there is no way to find an easier route than the stairs almost too high for my short legs by Huntington Falls.
Still less possible: a table set at one of my favorite views for me to dine -- now, there was a comment from below -- "The stairs have fallen out!"
And one from near me: "And there is no bridge!
Of course, that was the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, who upon laying a huge bowl of fruit upon the table, came and embraced me.
"Frohes Neues Jahr, Frau Mathews," he purred sweetly. "It was necessary that you rest and reflect upon 2024 and its spectacular ending, so I have been permitted to bring you here in your dream as opposed to meeting you on a walk -- you are wise not to be exposing yourself any more than necessary to winter's chill."
"Vielen Dank und Frohes Neues Jahr!" I said. "I chose to seek warmth and rest and certainly I have found it!"
"Natürlich," he said. "I shall echo here, for it is written: 'Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.' Now there are limits to that ... but you have accepted the discipline of the way in which you are called, and you see that of the things that you may have, you shall have them to more of the full than you can imagine!"
I burst into tears yet again ... my heart had been completely overwhelmed ... once utterly broken, filled to bursting with gratitude and joy!
"I have been much in your state of affairs, since we have last seen each other," he said after I had calmed down again. "Ich weiss -- mein Herz jubelt für dich!"
"I do know how your heart must have been rejoicing, for you told me all along, in my hard climb, that I would come to here!"
"But, see, Frau Mathews," he said, "what you know you know, but you do not yet fully understand --."
Quite suddenly he laughed, and I pulled my head back and looked up at him ... he was already across the verge of being overjoyed, his face and eyes glowing as he laughed -- then he looked down at me with such an expression of joy and love that it nearly took my breath away.
"So, tell me this, Frau Mathews: when you were feeling well enough to be up and about, not knowing anything that would happen to you in the last three days of the year, how were you spending your time?"
"Oh, doing the usual things," I said.
"Yes ... seeking the blessing of those to whom you are called ... but you kept expanding on that, too ... should I be worried about a certain big gentle giant you met at the hospital? Should I be jealous -- is mein goldenes Blumenkind going to be taken from me, so soon?"
"Not with you looking at me and purring like that ... you have me at a complete disadvantage! Dazzled, breathless, and because I have mortal knees, they are weak -- you are a terrible man to not have jealous, with all that audacious confidence!"
He laughed uproariously at that!
"No shame in my game as the young people say, Frau Mathews!"
"Dancing Fireworks in Red, White, and Blue," fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews
So, there had been this intake nurse at the hospital ... a foot taller, just that much broader ... wonderful listener ... incredibly gentle and knowledgeable ... generously dedicated ... he and I had fallen into conversation about improving health and just started blessing each other ... he had to go on to the next patient but we were blessing each other as we went different ways in the hall ... he came back to show me to my room, and we kept chatting and encouraging each other, since we are making parallel improvements ... just kept blessing each other until at last his duties called him away. I was so relaxed by his care of me and our interaction that I went to sleep and thus enjoyed the long wait there was until the person who was supposed to see me finally got a substitute to take half of his or her load, and my number came up.
"Since January 2023 you have been more and more in your element, and men have been ready to change their lives because of your golden presence," my companion said. "Now, there you were in the hospital, still at peace, still pleasant, still kind and generous of spirit, and met a match ... had that man's mind and heart so open that when he makes the changes that have you a bit ahead of him in some areas, he is going to be thinking of you with every improvement because you provided him loving motivation!"
"I need you to stop it, Herr Matchmaker!" I said. "You and I both know I'm never going to see him again!"
This tickled him even more.
"Did you know you were even going to be in urgent care last week? Not that you plan on going back and not that I want you there, but, you still don't understand, Frau Mathews! You will be going to your follow-up appointments, and yes, the hospital is large, and yes, he works hard in urgent care -- but if you are meant to be so blessed, he will find you, Frau Mathews -- he would find you on the moon if he had to! I know a little bit about big, gentle giant men with kind, generous hearts, and the fact that you two just it off ... and that you got so relaxed you went straight on to the Knockout Zone for a pleasant rest and were not even bothered by the wait before they could examine you and determine what was going on -- you were made perfectly well, for the moment!" And by the way: do you remember what voice type he has other than certainly not bass?
"You know I didn't even notice," I said, and then had to sit there and think while he laughed uproariously all over again ... I could have written all of this off except for that nap ... I was indeed all but well when I woke from that nap. I was so relaxed that the next step with the examination and actual diagnosis was also a radiant experience ... my cheerful peace affected the hardworking nurse practitioner who had stepped up to end my waiting ... again, mutual blessing broke out!
"I told you, Frau Mathews: quietude is exceptionally beautiful on you. You are appearing as you are called -- expect the unexpected as others see you and feel confident that they can appear as well!"
Oh, he was having a grand time, and I could not be angry -- but then he stopped laughing, and his face and voice became intense.
"But before that, Frau Mathews ... I say first that now that you have put from your life so many who were not for you, those who are for you revealed themselves with power ... they also have appeared ... yet while you were suffering to the point that they would insist on you going to the hospital ... while you were getting to that point, all the while, having no clue what was in front of you in terms of you being blessed, you just kept blessing the children ...
Suddenly I realized ... he lived in Q-Inspired ... probably did not yet have a Hive account because mortals younger than him sometimes struggled to get that all figured out, but because of that great intellect, by this time his curiosity would mean he would be exploring Hive's content and reading, especially in his first language.
"I expect you will always be doing for the children of your community, and the more that is shared with you, the more you will share with them ... the more you are loved, the more love you will pour out ... New Year's Day was the first day of Generation Beta, a whole new generation that you will bless like their Generation Alpha elder siblings, like you blessed the younger Millennials from being the oldest of them, who are with your peers bringing their children now to you ... but Frau Mathews ... you did not withhold your hand from blessing other children in the side of your adopted German family!"
Indeed, he had been keeping up his reading on Hive ...
"I know you would prefer the attention be given to the work itself, so others may be blessed ...
German craftsmen go to work for children with cancer
Hive Helps gives to children who have to overcome the WORST
" ... but, Frau Mathews, that you would, and you did!"
"Well, it's like this," I said. "When I was a child, of course my grandmother and my parents educated me in the long legacy of love our own people have left ... but in that time, Haydn also taught me that I could speak and sing in German ... I knew Genesis 1 and 2 well enough to understand the first part of the Creation. Then came Beethoven, and Bach ... and of course long before then, Martin Luther inspired a minister to rename himself and his son, with whom I share a birthday: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and whose accomplishments for African Americans need no introduction here, although in two weeks with my birthday we may well discuss it.
"But back to me ... so, Germany's ancient music and Reformation blessed me as a child as my own ancestral music did ... but back then I only knew Brahms through his lullaby, and hated that ... but in 2021, at my time of great need, Brahms too was given to me ... through the voice of a great bass named Möll, though he would never have made himself fourth in such a list of German musical greats as that. But I will, always! It is my prerogative to so!"
The spirit of said bass, come through the portal of imagination into another year in Q-Inspired, blushed wildly at this ... now he had already been overjoyed but now started up into the realms of the kinds of moments I had been having from joy and gratitude at random moments all week ...
"So, being folded into that legacy of love, it is no hardship to extend the blessing Hive permits us on your side too ... I cannot do as much for Germany's children as I want even as I cannot meet every need that I want on my own side ... I'm just one person ... but I will always do what I can, on both sides, for I have been loved and blessed from both sides, right down to 2025 ... your voice, and your legacy of love, might as well go back and bless your own Volk through me!"
I forgot about the safety element ... now, Huntington Falls is not an inconsiderable flow of water ... not that it will ever overfill Blue Heron Lake barring some very heavy rain ... but see, if ever you mess up and open a second cataract because someone in his ethereal state begins laughing and weeping from joy at the same time, and those tears start pouring in there ... you may find yourself in Schubert's "Selige Welt," on a boat with no rudder but laden with all kinds of good things from a blessed world -- a boat converted at instant from that banqueting table -- as that water gets on up!
He had known me for three years and been walking with me for close to two ... and we had been happy in blessed worlds in 2024, in winter... New Year's Day last year ...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, January 1, 2024
... spring ...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, March 26, 2024
... summer...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, August 20, 2024
... and the autumn that had just passed ...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, November 16, 2024
I had hundreds of photographs ... so many memories of life, love, and learning ... and of course he had sung through all of them and had introduced me to Bruckner and his gentle, warm wind through his Benedictus ... his lines are few, but his radiant joy in singing them, and then listening with a better than front-row seat to one of most beautiful passages ever written ...
So many memories ... and on the non-fiction side of the fourth wall, I had dared to be mostly alone with my Creator all year, listening to music and thinking of the messages in what was coming up on YouTube for me to find, walking and thinking and praying and journaling, eating from His hand, resting in utter bliss, learning how to walk, abide, adorn, and appear as called with Him, a year past the struggles of every year before it ... a year blessed at the very end such as to fully mark out that I had been, all along, on the path of blessing.
And yet ...
"Of all the companions of imagination you might have had on such a magnificent journey, you chose me ... you needed no one ... but you chose me, to fill the place your grand old soldier can no longer ... a basso profundo beloved ... to walk past grief, through healing, into joy, and twice now, into a new year! I am a little German villager whose fame was not enough to even keep my beloved village on the map ... who was born at just the moment that my nation was choosing to be a terror and a grief to the world and itself ... who still was permitted to grow up in love and led to choose to leave such a legacy ... to which you were added!"
"I choose that which ... and he whom ... was chosen for me," I said to him, "for have you not been a good and faithful echo of the One Who has called me, from the first moment to now? In a year, do you not think I had people who might have added themselves to my walking? But I listened to their conversation and their lives ... just not a match with me! If I were to talk with anyone, if I were to imagine talking with anyone -- do you think I would ever bring anyone into my time out here with whom I cannot enjoy the way in which I am called to walk? "
"I would hope not!" he said with sudden gravity. "I would hope that you, having come through 2022 and 2023's agonies into the peace and beauty of 2024, would not be lured from your steadfastness! Stay far from the edge, mein geliebtes Blumenkind ... for from such great height if you were to fall ... ."
The sudden pain in his face, followed by his resolve -- then he shook his head as if to dismiss the entire idea.
"Nicht auf meiner Uhr! -- of course I will continue to warn you," he said. "You have called me the good and faithful echo; so I shall be!"
"And shall be appreciated, dear faithful Echo Watchman, for I cannot see what temptations lie around the turns and corners of the year, and over the little hills," I said.
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, August 15, 2024
He nodded, and now, being in graver mood, closed his eyes for a moment, and we settled again at our table on Strawberry Hill.
"I had in mind a New Year's recital for you, to review the previous three years in five songs -- the first four, where we began in 2021, are Brahms's Four Serious Songs and last January's winter's end-of-halcyon song from Schubert's Winterreise, 'Der Lindenbaum.' In this way I shall give you a review, and also show you how to make the right decision at all of the turns to come. For your friends in Q-Inspired, it will be necessary to listen to the first three songs of Brahms, then 'Der Lindenbaum,' then the fourth of Brahms's songs. There will be a surprise guest artist also!
"For a program and a lesson, I merely remind you, Frau Mathews, and it is sufficient to begin, that the Four Serious Songs are Brahms's own response to grief, and death ... in the first song, personal loss, irrevocable, sparing no one no matter how beloved and valued, including, in the end, the lamenter, for Brahms knew his own end was near... in the second song, the view of death and grief as it comes from the injustice in the world, and how the poor and needy have no help and their tears are shed in vain. Brahms quotes here Solomon's realization that who has never been born to see those things under the sun is happiest of all!"
"I have heard many sing that second song," I said, "but I feel that your interpretation benefits from you being born when you were, and having made the decisions in life that you made."
The German villager born at the peak of Nazi Germany's power, whose earliest memories would have included the destruction of nearby Cologne, who waited two-thirds of his mortal life to see that Berlin Wall come down, took out his ethereal handkerchief again.
"Now, I have to sing, Frau Mathews, and if you listen carefully I scarcely made it all the way through that second song as it was!"
But then he smiled through his sudden tears.
"When I am here on Earth, I must still remember this sorrow ... but you touched me where that memory lies and soothed that pain, Frau Mathews."
"If you have to go through this on my behalf, I have to do what I can to make it easier for you," I said.
His eyes lit up as his smile grew larger.
"You know how to inspire a man to keep doing for you, Frau Mathews -- be careful! We big gentle giant type of men get excited about this type of treatment! Life is often painful, and a gentle man already has to deal with his fellow men thinking he is weak -- he often fears that the woman he loves might see him as the same -- but if a gentle and strong woman can honor him where he is weak because of the pain of the way, and touch his heart and ease that pain with her affirming love, she may find that he may find his greatest strength for her!"
That was sort of what happened at the hospital, just in the course of conversation ... the outline of it, anyhow.
"Now, I was supposed to be programming this recital ... I do not even remember what I was about to say!"
"You're ready to sing now, eh?" I said, and he laughed.
"Mein goldenes Blumenkind," he said, "I was about a second away from hitting some notes Brahms never wrote -- it is a good thing I am a sedate old octogenarian with a home in the great beyond who was a professor! I have to call on my old reflexes and pull this lesson together!
"The third song, Frau Mathews ... the bitterness of death to those who still think upon gaining and enjoying the things of this life, but welcomed by those in misery this world can never cure ... in light of the first two songs, this necessity and even mercy can be seen! Yet here is the thought: what does the grieving one for whom death's expected visit is still far away do in light of not yet being permitted this relief?"
Then he sang those first three songs -- did he ever!
But then, the detour into Schubert's "Der Lindenbaum" was a lesson built on that of the previous winter.
"There are some interpreters who look at the story of the man passing the linden tree as actually a good thing, for they remember he is in Catholic Austria, and a tree would be a temptation to hanging -- "In me, you would have found peace" is somewhat sinister to them. This also carries over to Mahler's song cycle about lost love, 'Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen' -- in the end the man chooses to lay down and sleep, and the linden tree sheds its blossoms over him, and when he wakes all is all right again, though he does not know how -- "Love and sorrow! Life and dream!" are the last four words, and that is a hint that he might have died and is now traveling the earth as a shade!"
"Oh," I said, "because silver linden blossoms are known to poison bees, so, then, perhaps."
"But the problem with that is the prevailing myth around linden trees in the German-speaking world," he said. "'Der Lindenbaum' gives hints: it is the tree of love, truth, and life, under which in joy and sorrow the character of Winterreise has taken refuge many times before. But now, he shuts his eyes to all of that, even though the wind itself presses him backwards to the call."
"Wait a minute ... love, joy, and peace ... ." I said.
"We know from the fourth song, 'Erstarrung,' that he has already decided to kill his heart in his grief, to keep her picture in it -- to make her, and his grief for her, and his railing against a God he thinks is inconstant and unjust, as his idol. Did you know that in German and Norse myth, one cannot tell a lie under a linden tree?"
"Oh, no wonder he has to pass it," I said.
"Genau -- precisely," he said. "You know more even than Schubert and Mueller might have, for you know from Ms. Mahalia Jackson what the tallest tree in Paradise is."
I smiled ... what a lovely choice of guest artist!
"From 'How I Got Over' -- indeed, the tallest tree is the tree of life."
"And upon that tree, Frau Mathews, although Scripture says nothing about its height, how many types of fruits does it bear?"
"Twelve," I said, and about then I noticed: there were twelve kinds of fruits he had brought to the table, and they were the very best I had ever seen.
"And what are the leaves for, Frau Mathews?"
"The healing of the nations."
"So then, Frau Mathews, listen again to 'Der Lindenbaum,' and consider what this character does, and what you did, over the course of 2024, and therefore know what you must always do in 2025, no matter the turn in the path."
He sang with the gentle earnestness of that gentle giant nurse in urgent care -- still gentle, yet urgent, for my life might well have depended on it!
Afterward the great bass came to me and took my hands, and I saw the tears again in his eyes.
"Listen to me, mein geliebtes Blumenkind. It is so simple and yet we must never lose a chance to reinforce it -- walk opposite this character. There will be times in pain and grief that will be dark, and finding one's way will be difficult. But one must not close one's eyes and stop one's ears to the tree of life calling one back to its healing and nourishment, that will not refuse you in joy or sorrow so long as you walk in truth about it, For what else is called the tree of life?"
"Oh," I said. "The cross of Calvary, for there, Christ in His death gave redemption and eternal life to all those Who believe in Him."
"Can you kneel there, in pride, in bitterness, in railing, in a lie, in lack of faith, and there be redeemed?"
"No, sir, that cannot be done ... and I think Schubert was aware of that possible meaning, for his character is denied Christian burial by implication ... he cannot be interred at the churchyard, and the crow is following him while the hurdy-gurdy man's hungry dogs are before him."
"All while, in his own accounting, the voice of the tree of life and love and truth is calling and calling and calling to him: 'In me, you would have found peace' -- not so different to what is written to you and those called as you are: 'These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you shall have trouble, but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.'"
"That's John 16:33," I said, "and with that we might as well add the verse of 2024, Matthew 11:28: 'Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST."
He gently turned with me around to view that table again.
"Of course you are dreaming, and of course this is not what the fruits of the tree of life are like," he said. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor is it even lawful for me to tell you about anything of that -- but because you have listened -- because in your years of grief you heard 'Come unto me,' and went to love, truth, and life, demanding no trinket for your trouble, setting up no idol in your heart that would cause you to stop your ears and shut your eyes, the fragrance of these fruits, and all the joys that surround them, though they be out of your physical reach, are coming down into your life, more and more, and the hearts of others are being changed around you because all this is coming in their lives as well and they see they can do what is right.
"On your dark journey, you went to the tree, not past it, not away from it -- just keep doing that, Frau Mathews, at every turn. If you find yourself disoriented and you listen, you always will be able to find your way -- and thus you shall ever more be finding that Brahms's very last song is correct!"
Then he went back and sang that fourth song... now that was the stuff of dreams, for doing Covid when I wondered how I would find the strength to care for my parents and myself, that is what I had heard that first night in my dreams ... he had sung over me ... strength through love, the greatest of all.
The stuff of dreams ... he had wrapped me in his long arms, and just held me while he sang, and then pulled back, and looked into my eyes and sang the reminder straight down into the bottom of my heart: "Die Liebe ist de Groesseste unter ihnen -- Die Liebe ist de Groesseste unter ihnen!" Love is the greatest of all!
As the last notes played on the piano, he dazzled me with his smile as the sun came around the hill, and kissed me on my forehead with the last note ... and thus I woke up in the sunbeam I was sleeping in, at home, in the last of its warm embrace and sweet forehead kiss that had caressed my headache away ... and felt well.
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, January 8, 2024
