The Goya

Goya

I don’t know how long this will be and I don’t know how to start it…

When I was an early teenager I discovered my passion for music and learned to play guitar. I was part of worship teams and a worship leader from that point on till about my mid 20’s after which my guitar started collecting the dust of unused gifts. It sat there at different times on a stand or hanging on the wall. The beautiful Goya by Martin. A very low end budget guitar that was divinely blessed with the sound and perfection of one that cost 5 times the price at least. A gift from my mom that had the hand of God on it from the time it was a tree until this very day. Traveling across the globe, never a scratch. Was handled the most by me when I was a teenager, leaving only a chip on the corner of the head. Not warped, not cracked, and still playing as it did 30 years ago. And as I said, sitting on a stand or hanging on the wall collecting the dust of gifts and passions being wasted in selfishness and alcoholism. Not that light kind of dust you merely blow off, the heavy dust that is damp feeling. The dust you have to wipe off with a towel. The kind of dust that contains the smile of evil and death when it has wrapped its sinister fingers around the neck of something that has life until the light has been completely extinguished.

When there is a void left in time it does not stop passing, it is filled with something else. When the hollow D style body of the divinely blessed Goya stopped resonating the vibrations of its strings, and death’s dust began to build, the time of its owner was left with a void. The clock on the wall that often was above where the guitar sat continued to tick. Tick… tick… tick… tick. The shadow of the boy who was now a man passed in front of it, gazed at it, longed for the past, hated himself for the layer of dust that grew on it, and with a sigh reached over next to him and picked up his whiskey for yet another drink. He finished it, getting up with another glance of guilt and walked to the kitchen to refill that which had become the thing to fill the void that the unused gift from God had left.

I imagine it sitting there in silence, the weight of the dust pushing ever more on the lacquer that covered the wood that my Creator, God grew from a seed into a tree, was milled and shipped to a factory, and with joy He watched as it was assembled piece by piece knowing the songs of praise and glory that would resonate from it. As the lacquer was applied, coat after coat, He also knew the sinister laugh of victory the dust would emulate year after year as it strangled the life out of the gift that the Goya was. He knew that the last layer of lacquer was just enough.

Just enough of a shield to keep the dust and decay from penetrating the life of the wood until the dust could be cleaned off and life breathed back into it. The chip in the headstock, a reminder that nothing is perfect but even imperfection can contain life, healing, and glory to its creator. The shadow from the boy turned man no longer passes by it to go to the kitchen with sadness and longing, he walks towards it, picks it up, reaches for the pick and the Goya sings once again with life. The vibrations of the string resonating in its D style body once again and gives glory to the creator of the universe. The ticking clock on the wall no longer ticks away time that has a void being filled with alcoholism and death, it ticks the steady rhythm of gifts being reborn.

As I sat and wrote this, I wept. Sadness pouring out of me for the lost time. Something I never expected. As the writing came full circle I wept more but no longer from sadness, but with a grateful heart. A heart of thankfulness that there was just enough lacquer to protect it. The chip on the headstock could serve as a reminder of our flaws, but the body could be cleaned, re-strung, and sing with praise again.

I, also, can clean myself off, restring my mind, my heart, and my body, and sing with praise again. Everyone has their version of my Goya. Everyone out there has a gift that has been overseen and created by God. Maybe it too has been sitting in silence and abandon while collecting the dust of death. I now know, after almost 10 months of grueling pain and change, that whatever it is in your life that is collecting dust can be reborn. It can sing again. It can praise and glorify the one who created it. You and I can sing again being re-strung and redeemed.

And with that, I will take another 24