Jeremy L. Berg

I am on a solo retreat at the Pepin Forest Treehouse cabin Keri booked for me for my 45th birthday this week. “Tiny but mighty, this 480 sq. ft treehouse has been designed with nature and relaxation in mind,” boasts the owners and our friends Jennie and Anthony. “Slow down in the private hot tub up high in the trees, cozy up and read in the stair nook.” Check! (Book this place for your next getaway!)

Feeling a bit nostalgic and retrospective in the treehouse this morning, I stumbled across an old journal entry and poem written by a 23-year old Jeremy just after college. This led me to thinking about aging instruments and Willie Nelson’s guitar. On April 5, 2003 I wrote:

The sweetest melody is a life composed and performed in a harmonious partnership with God.  We can tune our instruments—our hearts and minds—to the perfect pitch of God’s will or we can satisfy our human curiosities in prideful improvisations ….

Lord, by your Spirit, write your loving ballad upon my heart, that I would never dance to another tune.  And Christ be the loving arms that lead me gracefully across the dance floor of this eternal ball.  Lead me, spotless and pure, to the rhythms of the Song of the Lamb, to the wedding banquet table, arm in arm, hand in hand.  Amen.

Then comes my attempt at poetry:

THE SONG OF MY LIFE

I have a song,

It tells the story of my life.

From fair weather ponds,

To cascading rivers of strife.

I have an inner orchestra,

They strike the chords of my fate.

When tuned by the sovereign hand,

One sweet melody they make.

I have a tendency to play out of tune.

To entertain my curiosity and

shed my Maker’s cocoon.

Amid life’s cacophonous chorus

One Voice rises above the rest.

His song brings salvation,

All who join in shall find rest.

The Lord is my melody,

Other voices lead astray.

My life is a divine symphony,

But whose song will I play?

Twenty-one years later, the (almost) 45-year old Jeremy is still  learning how to live inside that melody. I’m still trying to play His song, and not get lured away by Sirens of the latest sound or pop hit of the moment. The cultural cacophony bangs a political drum—“a noisy gong and clanging cymbal” that never rests.

I’m still missing notes, singing out of tune, and losing the tempo at times. But I’m still an instrument in His hands, learning slowly to let go and let God spin a magnificent melody out of my manifold messes. (Years ago, I wrote a little book called The Father’s Song that traces the plot of the entire Bible through this theme of a Divine Melody.)

I’ve noticed instruments can become warped and difficult (if not impossible) to tune as they age. The neck on my dad’s 1970s Sears catalogue guitar is bowed beyond repair and now decorates the wall of our library. Its playing days are over, despite my repeated attempts to fix it and get more music out of it.

On the other hand, a well loved and maintained instruments can become playable collectibles and still carry fresh tunes into old age. Willie Nelson’s famous guitar “Trigger” comes immediately to mind.

The 91-year old country star has been strumming his beloved Martin N-20 nylon-string classical acoustic guitar since 1969. Fifty-five years of melodies has worn a hole right through the wood where the pick guard should be. “Till death do us part,” Nelson says of he and Trigger. Like Trigger in Willie’s hands, so I want to be a responsive instrument in God’s hands until my last breath and swan song. God, don’t let me become warped and bent with age, unplayable and irreversibly out of tune. 

Just as Trigger has literally been made “holey” by all the country melodies brought forth by his master’s hands, so I want to be made holy by all the Kingdom melodies the Master brings forth from my warped and weathered life. 

“Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus.”  Romans 15:3

P.S. My faithful guitar “Red” turns 27 years old this year, and has never sounded better.