A Morning Among the Magnolias (Beethoven, Beethoven/Albert Liu, Brahms, Bach, Bruckner, Wagner, Schubert, Mozart)

A portion of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto has just stayed with me in these weeks ... one evening just the memory of the chord change at the end of the opening theme, into the minor, and then back into the major, was putting me in tears, and then the coda to it, with its touches of the minor mode, just sent me even before remembering the piano's entrance and the exploration of this same territory ... peace and extreme beauty, still acknowledging the moments of deep pain, but at home as what it is ...

And, @mipiano, I found a glorious piano solo version of this -- purchasable here! Also do not miss the Brahms quartet movement a little further down -- one of the most remarkable pieces I have ever heard!

I am at home, walking in the light in which I am called, and being in places and spaces where that light is reflected ... obviously outdoors in nature, but I have changed my grocery shopping and my bank, too, and I am meeting more people in general who fit what I am looking for ... and the music within me is coming back up, no longer hampered by deep frustrations of not having support for it. I will find that in due time. I am certain of that now.

Slowly I am finding around me the types of people I desire to be around as I reach for this rare combination in human life: competency to the point of mastery paired with equally deep humility, held with heartfelt generosity in a heart of love. For general association in day-to-day, I love being around people who enjoy their work and enjoy doing it well -- these are spaces and refuges of joy, with no need for anyone to put on airs.

Yet again I am having the lesson repeated: those who have not taken the walk with me to here cannot be here, and also I cannot always bring the blessings from here back to longer standing commitments. This is the agony unique to 2026, and at the same time, the lesson was first given me in the spring of 2024.

Frau Mathews, what bridge? There is no bridge.

In 2024, I dug my heels in. In 2026, I have learned to not even try it. I still will be running whole rescue plans in my head, while making myself sit still long enough to see that folks are still finding reasons not to be rescued ... still chasing will-o'-the-wisps, still looking for their hurdy-gurdy men to play their songs, still wandering around in the winter not understanding that the day will come that they will not be able to go to safety even though they now understand how good it is and how much they want to. But we will not hear my beloved bass singing "Der Wegweiser" in warning today... Schubert's Winterreise is not my story, by the grace of God. I am on a different, milder winter journey ... so, a jewel of Brahms, from between stormier minor-key movements...

In addition to that lesson from the spring of 2024 about there being no bridge, on the fictional side of the fourth wall, the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past also said something that has also taken its time to unfold:

You know well the side of loving, Frau Mathews. I show you the side of being loved.

It took a case of Covid-19 in the summer of 2024 to even slow me down to catch up with that ... of being forced to rest, and finding love was there to carry me ... that was when things really began to change, and it was at last explained this year on my birthday: all that time, it was understanding that I was not just climbing away from those called as I was, but making room to be loved by the One Who called me in a way that the people around me simply could not receive, because they would not turn from the noise, the erring lights, the foolery, and make room. Thus it was that the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, in a moment of ecstatic joy beyond the confines of his very good but still second-language English, cried out of his heart when at last I understood:

Danke schön ... danke schön, meine Herrin, danke, dass du mir Raum gibst, dich zu lieben.

That roughly falls out to "Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me room to love you!" Not that he, in splendid echo of the One behind him, had not been loving to me all along, and patient, waiting for me to understand and be consciously open to experiencing more -- to be ready.

So that was January 15 ... and now February 14 -- Valentine's Day -- is on approach. Of course my grand old soldier and I, weather permitting, did on that day what we did on every other that we had free time for years: walking and talking in the park, making music and fellowshipping in our shared community, eating magnificent meals, and thanking and praising God for His endless love for us while loving Him, life, and each other. February 14 ... August 9 ... October 18 ... all days full of love. Now I walk alone relative to earthly companions ... but still, all days full of love.

Not that on the fictional side of the fourth wall, some big bass-voiced echo of the Love Above was going to fail to take advantage of the occasion this week provides ... oh no ... I had given him room and he was absolutely taking up all the space ... I got to work on February 10 and the boardroom was full of flowers again.

"OK, so, whoever is responsible for this here must have gotten the marriage proposal and said yes this last weekend," one of my colleagues said, "because we have gone in the past year from someone dropping a couple hundred to closing in on a dropping a grand on these things."

Roses are not cheap at any time of year...

... but mid-winter is not an easy time to get twenty-four dozen ... pink, orange, lavender (blue), red, and yellow ... this was still a "to new horizons" dawn presented in a different way, but ...

"Someone in this office has a very rich man in this town just wilding out right now," another colleague said, "but he and she are both crazy like a fox, because she's keeping the job for right now and he's not marking her out among us, but away from here there's no telling what they are enjoying together."

Almost right ... as close as one could get the week of Valentine's Day ... for on my desk, there was a note, in German:

"Heute Blumensträuße hier, morgen Blumensträuße dort, mein geliebtes Blumenkind."

Today bouquets here, tomorrow bouquets there, my beloved Flower Child.

I put the note away and worked and watched as my colleagues made bouquets for themselves and others ... some men made runs on their lunch breaks and blessed their valentines that day, and it was all good!

The next morning I got up early -- no time had been written on the note, but it was a glorious early morning and I knew the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past would meet me at the foot of my stairs when I got there -- checked the weather, got ready, and headed downstairs, and sure enough --.

"Guten Morgen, Frau Mathews," he purred, coming down from the corner just as I got down the stairs.

"Guten Morgen," I said. "Which way are we going?"

"Well, it is a lovely morning ... the mundane way would be to go to the corner and take two buses westbound and enjoy the commute, but of course we could step around any corner and instantly be there. I leave you the choice, my dear."

"It is a lovely morning for a westbound commute," I said, and he smiled and reached into his pocket and handed me a loaded bus pass card.

"Danke," I said.

"Gern geschehen," he purred.

Off we went to the corner, and did not step around. I did not ask where we were going, being completely without worry about it, and was glad for the journey. This pleased him immensely. In the still-low morning light, what gold there was seemed to be gathering to him ... already glowing up in his deep blue hiking suit and light jacket. It was a mild winter morning in San Francisco -- as good as spring to a German and really to me as well, in burgundy sweatsuit and ample coral scarf.

"I am glad to see you fashionably Blumenkinding in a mild mid-winter," he said.

"Well, why not?" I said.

"Why not, indeed -- long have I waited for you to be of this mind!" he said. "Long have I waited for you to take the robes of mourning from your heart for all that you have suffered and be transformed in joy! Long have I waited for your Erklarung -- in Liebesleben!"

He had played King Marke, the lone survivor who loses both Tristan his nephew and Isolde his wife as she has her transfiguration, her Erklarung in her Liebestod -- love-death -- for Tristan! Over and over again, Wagner's great romantic tragedy plays out on the stage -- leaving the king in double mourning. I hate that ending so much that twice for Q-Inspired I have extended King Marke's life onward into him grieving but finding peace ... as also a way for me to understand how I could get there and love life again.

Liebesleben ... love-life, become one word, one concept, one name. It is too big of an idea to fit on one day ... in fact, it is so big that a character in Brahms is willing to leave the world and go into eternity when he realizes he will not be able to find such a blending here. I get it -- I understand "Todessehnen," death-longing, in that sense... here we hear Hans Hotter in his solemn glory, getting across just how much the character needs to reach that life, and just how deep the pain of not being there is.

... and also back further in Bach's "Ich habe genug," because one has to consider that Bach lost a wife and eleven children ... at times, the grief must have nearly crushed him, and his testimony that his Savior was enough for him and he was ready to leave at any time to go to the One his eyes had seen in faith has to be considered with that in mind.

But Bach kept on, and kept on ... and the days came in which joy returned to his life...

... and I understand that too ... when one walks in love, it sustains, and as one keeps going in faith where hope is not yet present, hope will be met in the way, and the three -- faith, hope, and love -- will cause the path to rise upward from despair and lift from beneath. One of the finest examples of this in music is the Agnus Dei of Bruckner's F minor mass -- halfway through, for the Dona Nobis Pacem section, he transforms the music of the opening Kyrie to F major, and takes the listener on a journey of greater and greater light until suddenly Heaven seems to open ... and all prayers are answered with mercy, grace, and peace.

Of course, this was a lot for standing at the bus stop, but just enough for the ride ... my companion quite accidentally charmed some of our follow passengers, softly singing the choral bass line in Bruckner in his lovely voice, into missing their stops, and we all had a good laugh about it as we got off and they either started walking back or headed over to the opposite bus stop!

"What is the expression in English -- oops?" he said, with those vowels so musical he turned heads yet again...

"Oh, you must really have something lined up for me today," I said, "because you can't utter a sound without it sounding like singing!"

"I am just a little excited," he said. "Just a little ... I have waited half the winter ... look ahead!"

We were coming up to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens ... and it is magnolia blooming time!

"Oh!" I cried.

"I am so blessed to have what you would consider in English a photographic memory, so that I can enjoy the look on your dear face for all eternity, mein Blumenkind," he purred with a huge smile. "I thought you might enjoy a morning among the magnolias."

"Danke schön!" I said. "What could be better -- and here long before the midday crowds!"

"Enjoy it all -- among your fellow blooms, mein geliebtes Blumenkind."

"Danke schön -- danke schön!"

Thus commenced me running around like a kid in a candy store...

... while he with his longer legs effortlessly kept up and oohed and aahed and glowed with pleasure at my delight, looking like Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll" was playing in his head... a sweet, peaceful victory...

"Now, I promised you bouquets -- more than one flower -- here you are, my dear!"

There were so many utter wonders ... magnolias and more ...

... and while traveling parts of the garden that were not yet in bloom because magnolias are earlier than a lot of flowers, he did have a bit of a lesson...

"Ein bisschen," he said, "because in this place of delights ... I am still just a human man, and to me as a German, it is practically a spring day and spring is special ... but also, to see you here in such joy ... long have I waited to see you freely enjoying places well suited to you, without the burden of the past! It is easier to teach when I am not having to concentrate so hard to remain in gravity and not walk up to the tops of these trees!"

"If you do feel the need to do that," I said, "take me with you!"

He laughed uproariously.

"Don't tempt me, Frau Mathews! I intend to get this lesson done before dancing you atop these trees!"

"Yet in the present, Frau Mathews, you have learned a new version of a hard lesson this week. You see, you are here because you are growing, growing deep enough to make room in your life for new experiences that are good for you, growing deep enough to be led further in love while still managing your responsibilities and thus honoring love there too. You are learning the balance in growing in both loving and being loved... you have come a long way from 2024, step by steady step. Mein Herz jubelt fuer dich ... my heart rejoices for you!"

A bush not a magnolia could not stand it any longer... the golden warmth of his voice caused it to burst into golden bloom.

"That bush and my heart understand each other," I said. "Growing through a cold, lonely reality, blessed with the beautiful warmth needed then to get through until spring finally comes ... this bush and I are now here, and I thank you!"

"You would see yourself in that bush, lovely though it humbly is, and not in these stately magnolias, blooming in their perfect time ... Frau Mathews, I still have so much work to do ... but as for the rest ... ."

He bowed deeply before saying, "You are most welcome, Frau Mathews -- my duty, my honor, my pleasure."

Then, he melted, doing his entire "Old Blush" glow up as he took me into his arms.

"How could I have known or dreamed that anyone would find such encouragement in my life's work, and that years into my permanent retirement, my voice could still be used to comfort, encourage, and teach anyone so much ... when on high I think of it on top of how blessed I was across my mortal life ... I still do not have voice enough and eternity will be just long enough ... your English hymn 'O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing' expresses my feelings! Your willingness to receive through my legacy of love has blessed me so much, Frau Mathews -- I thank you! You have my eternal gratitude -- du hast meine ewige Dankbarkeit, meine liebe Dame, mein geliebtes Blumenkind!"

He was so close to going into complete ecstasy that I just went on and pushed him over.

"OK, so you're tall -- you go on and be like the tall, stately magnolias, defying winter and blooming right on."

He laughed himself and me clear up to the treeline and danced me around up there, as he said he would!

And then, just in case there were any magnolia trees ready to bloom but being a little shy, he just sung their blooms clear out into the still-growing sunshine as we went by!

The fountain in the middle of the gardens was dancing and waving as we floated by ...

... and came down at the foot one of the gardens' hills ...

"Because it cannot be that you are satisfied with any walk without a climb," he said.

"You are so right and thank you!" I said, and started getting up those stairs and to the views thereof ...

... until at last at the top we found a nice seat ...

... there was a bit of wind, but with his arm around me that was not a problem. So there we sat in deep delight for some good time before he remembered...

"I was trying to teach a lesson ... octogenarian memory problems ... I thought I would be finished with just enduring septuagenarian memory problems in my last decade of mortal life, but a man never does know what his afterlife will hold!"

I was gone laughing, and every time I looked at his immense grin I was gone again!

"You don't forget how to be ridiculous, dearest basso profondo buffo!" I said.

"Never -- nie," he purred, playfully caressing a B flat 1 just to be doing it.

"Showoff!" I cried.

"Natürlich!" he said. "I do not mind an audience of one! As a matter of fact --!"

And he started singing again, reprising "Aus Heliopolis 2"!

After that, he sat down again, even more dramatically glowed up -- singing did not calm him down, but --

"But sometimes it helps me clarify my thoughts. That song is really where I left off trying to express, Frau Mathews, for you can be here because step after step, by steep paths through storms of unbelievable power, you have attained to the place in your life where you are, and you are beginning to find those who should be with you in this surroundings. In the same manner, you have deepened in the ability to rest and be loved, step by step -- you have grown so much since 2021, Frau Mathews, and my heart is rejoicing more and more and more for you!

"Yet at the same time, there is a lesson here, and I will provide you an illustration: as I was scouting out future adventures for us this week, I passed a jewelry shop. On display there was a great golden necklace, studded with onyx, sapphire, and jade, and I had an experience I did not expect: the sight of it took me back to our journey to Mallard Lake."

"I am still a human man, and I had a human moment, meine liebe Dame:I thought about buying that necklace for you, for when you breathe, it would have rippled like those waters that day with all that light upon it ... I had a moment! But I know how to love you in accord with your own humility and wisdom: you have chosen a life of simplicity, and such a gift does not accord with that. So, I needed to withhold my hand from that expression -- yet also there was a necklace set delicately with pink garnets in white gold, and I thought of the colors of magnolia, and I knew I could see what that would do for you in accord with who you are!"

"Indeed I have enjoyed this morning," I said. "Thank you again -- danke schön."

"Gern geschehen," he said. "But you see, Frau Mathews, I can love you in accord with your humility and wisdom because you actually have developed them, and so we are aligned in that. There is the lesson: the expression fits where there is alignment. What you have learned this week is that you can love people ever so much, but where there is no alignment in wisdom to receive a particular expression, you must withhold your hand."

In the next moment he handed me his ethereal handkerchief.

"You handled that so beautifully, and took all the pain out of it for me that can be taken out -- thank you, danke schön," I said through my tears. "Instead of a golden necklace, a trip to the Botanical Gardens -- that's a scale for the lesson!"

"One is a vast outlay of capital that you cannot get the best use of, and the other is a much-lower cost activity that suits you better -- the scale is exact, Frau Mathews. You serve in your community in a way that costs those involved very little, and that is the level to which you can bless some, but no higher, because there is not higher alignment, and now you have seen it. It is not that your love is not immense, and cannot do much more than people know. But loving others in accord with wisdom -- your own, and theirs -- means that when there is not alignment, you must withhold higher expressions."

"And if there is continuous misalignment, another departure must be done," I said.

"Yes," he said gently.

I put my head in the handkerchief.

"I am so scared right now," I said.

"I know," he said, and put both arms around me.

"Like, what do you even do?" I said. "You said something to me last year that really stuck with me -- there is personal affection between me and many involved, but also back of that is the love God has for them, that has counseled me to endure so much for so long with so many. But twice in a week, in two different spheres ... what do you even do when you just can't?"

He sighed.

"There are several things to discuss here," he said. "The first is, patience and wisdom to love people where they are is a great gain that you have made, and realizing the limit instead of throwing every resource across the line is another great gain. The fact that you know and have found the strength to withhold your hand is great growth."

"It is written that the rain falls on the just as well as the unjust. Without judgment, the blessings of common grace are available to all, so, anyone who makes ready for that abundance -- plants a field or garden, puts out a way to capture that water, goes out to sing and dance -- can get the most of it. But it also follows that those who will not plant the field or any of the rest of that may not receive the fullness of the blessings that go with those activities -- for some, the rain is something to be hidden from in the house, or something to be commuted through on the way to something else.

"This also requires that you recognize, even while living under the pressure of wanting to share, that sometimes what is being given you is for you. You are generous in inclination, and that is beautiful in your character. However, there are times in life when you must plant your field or garden, select how you will collect water, or write a song to sing in the rain, and if no one is available to do that with you, then you must sit alone in the blessing that is for you and be a good steward of the flowers and fruits and water supply and the song that result for you."

"You see, Frau Mathews, you belong here, without regard to how others do or do not position themselves to be blessed through you or with you. And, I rejoice to say that in a week -- not a year, or two, or three -- you have understood and honored the requirement to love and yet leave those who cannot be among the flowers and fruits you are cultivating in your life right where they have prepared to be."

His voice was so beautiful, and his way of putting the matter so gentle, that the pain was dampened a great deal, enough so I could explore the ideas involved.

"I can see light and joy and freedom from difficulties as possibilities for so many that they just cannot see," I said, "but I realize they must open their eyes and see and go forward for themselves if they are actually going."

"That's it, Frau Mathews," he said. "That's it. Until then, you are wasting any effort above their capacity to receive right now -- it cannot be received in a productive way."

He sighed.

"I must tell you this, just now," he said. "Many times, in the course of my long mortal life and career, I faced the same issues that you do. There were moments in which I wished that I could use my voice to turn people off the paths to destruction they were committed to ... but you know, when I turned from the futility of that, do you know that there was often a colleague or student seeking to be blessed and ready -- or a family member? But if I found myself completely alone, do you know that sometimes it was me who humbly needed to just go back to the practice room and attend to the gifts I had been given, and there, it turned out that the person who was going to be blessed, who had made ready, was me?"

"It helps that you can sing yourself happy," I said. "I've watched you do so many times."

"And, it helps you to come out and be in beautiful places in sunshine," he said, "or get on the piano. But this is also a form of practicing patience, for as surely as you are sitting here in this lesson, others will receive theirs, and at such time --."

My phone rang as it rarely does at that hour.

"Vergib mir, bitte -- Hello, good morning! WHAT?"

On the non-fiction side of the fourth wall, I did get that phone call while on a morning this week in the park, and I thought just what I am going to write on the fictional side: "Well, I am behind events -- the lessons have commenced -- YIKES -- Lord, have mercy!"

My walking companion closed his eyes in the same expression of poignant pain that I had just done before telling him, but then added this thought.

"This is never what we desire, Frau Mathews ... but you see, your discipline and patience to now means that, in the crisis at hand, you have resources at the ready should there be need."

"And there may well be -- I see now," I said. "Not how I would have set this up, but --."

"But the rain falls on the just and the unjust, and sometimes, there are storms," he said. "But since you are in a safe place, you have means to help ... which goes back to why there are times when you must tend to your own garden. In due season, you will thus be ready."

"Right," I said.

"Soon enough," he said, "you shall return to a more difficult day than you anticipated ... but rest with me this while longer, meine liebe Dame, and take with you more of the peace and beauty and calm of this place to bless others."

So I settled back, and made ready by calming all the way down, and then we took our time leaving the gardens when it was time to go.

"Thank you for this beautiful morning," I said. "I loved it, and I needed it more than I knew."

"I have therefore done what it is my duty, for which I am commanded ... and also my pleasure ... to do, Frau Mathews," he said. "You are going now to swing into the mode that you do so well ... you desire to show love with all your might, and you miss no opportunity. Yet you are not to forget love's might is for you, and with you, as well. I'm just the echo, and I will be faithful in my assignment."

He kept his long arm around me as we went eastbound again, and I was glad to rest there and listen to him humming very softly ... he was not trying to have people miss their stops again ... nonetheless, he did not miss a single note in one of his favorite Mozart arias ... and mine ... the holy halls where no one will be harmed are everywhere that those who are holy and determined to do no harm are...

"Danke schön," I said as we rounded the corner to my home. "That song truly seals up the matter -- I rest in love so that I can make safe space for others to also find rest. That's it. Danke schön!"

I do not think I will ever forget the look that came over his face ... the gentle chagrin followed by the tender affection, with a widening smile.

"Frau Mathews ... you are resting in love because you are called to rest in love. You have only been three years missing the whole point: let's please not do a fourth, because we can still give you room to just run on and love everyone else: when not resting, yes, you can make space for others to find rest, but the point of you resting is not for others to find rest. The point of you resting is that rest is for you. Love is for you. Peace is for you. You are not robbing anyone else -- there is plenty to go around and if we could just get you to sit down long enough so that other people have more incentive to stop waiting on you and get to know what you know --!"

"Oh, right," I said, and he put his head in his massive hand.

"Well," he said when he raised his head again, "it's nice to have job security. See you on the 14th, Frau Mathews."

"Wait, what?" I said.

"Oh, you thought today was what I was doing for Valentine's Day? Oh, no, meine liebe Dame, we are not going through 2026 missing any opportunities for you to get the point."

The problem with a big basso profondo with a voice just that beautiful is that he can have me convinced that he is making sense about 90 percent of the way ... and if I were not the Iron Flower Child, he would have gotten 100 percent of the way without pushback ... but I am a contralto profondo, and I went right on down into our shared octave...

"You can do whatever you want for Valentine's Day, but you haven't asked me what I'm doing."

His mouth fell open at my last note.

"My word -- a B2?"

"Well, you know it's already allergy season in San Francisco, and since you had the bright idea of bringing me to a whole blooming winter garden ..."

He went on and fell out of gravity and was in low earth orbit causing reports of thunderstorms around the world, he was so tickled!

"Let me try this again," he said when finally he was able to touch down with me in San Francisco. "I should not have assumed ... I apologize and I will ask instead if I might take you to an evening concert of Bach on the 14th, during which I will present to you some thoughts about holidays and other externalities that might be of interest to you."

"Yes," I said. "I do not observe the holiday, but Bach on any day is wonderful."

"I will see you then, Frau Mathews," he said. "I will be here at 5:30pm."

"OK," I said.

Then, his eyes twinkled.

"As a thought for costuming: think that you are going with King Marke!"

"See, I knew you were going to work some foolishness in on me!" I said.

"Natürlich!" he said with a merry laugh. "Your favorite basso profondo buffo has standards to maintain!"

"I'm going to put you right back into orbit!" I cried.

"We should probably discuss that at some point, Frau Mathews," he said in a sudden touch of seriousness that I should have known was a setup. "Just know when you hear the evening news, and the discovery of the precession of he equinoxes has precessed a little further than expected, you have to send me into orbit laughing in the opposite direction next time so the Earth's axis can get right!"

"What!"

He left me thus hilariously confounded, laughing hard enough as he departed to set the Earth's axis just right again!

"See you on the 14th, Frau Mathews!"