The First Instrument

There is a quiet line in Genesis we read past too quickly. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. The very first sound a human ever made was a sound that did not originate with him. It was a borrowed exhale, given by the One who knows what to do with breath.

If we think of music as something that begins on a stage, we will misunderstand sound healing. Music begins in a chest. The lyre is a borrowed shape; the body is the original.

When David picked up his harp for Saul, he was not introducing something foreign into the room. He was setting one resonant body next to another and letting the steadier note do its work. Then Saul would become refreshed and well. The harp was the second instrument in that exchange. Saul’s body was the first. So was David’s.

This is why I am unhurried about technique. Forks and bowls are useful. They are not the point. The point is to put a steadier note next to a tired one and let the older instrument — the one made of dust and breath — remember itself.

Come tired. Bring the first instrument with you. We’ll see what it remembers.