Sometime We'll Understand

This is a re-posting of what I originally wrote and published last month. The experience I had at rehearsal that I describe here is what led me to create my second Lamb of God video, this one about Thomas. And when I had such a positive and uplifting experience in creating this video, I couldn't stop creating videos until I had done almost every song in Lamb of God. I even had to go back and republish my original Peter video in a higher resolution and with fonts and a style consistent with each of the other videos I'd made.

I am re-posting this now as a culminating conclusion to the series of videos I've been sharing over the past week. Each video and song has touched me in different ways. But I think that Thomas' sweet song, Sometime We'll Understand, is a fitting conclusion to my week-long thoughts on the Savior and on Easter. There have been many times in my life where I have sought meaning or understanding in some event or trial in my life. And I haven't always found what I've been looking for. I am eternally grateful for my Elder Brother's sacrifice for me. And I don't fully understand how it was possible or why He saw fit to save me. I can't fully comprehend His love. I seek to find meaning in the struggles I am faced with at times. There is so much that I'd like to understand. I yearn to one day be able to look back on everything I've experienced and endured and to know of a certainty that all these things were for my good. But, as Thomas shares from his own experience, not now, but in the coming years--it may not be when we demand--we'll read the meaning of our tears, and then sometime we'll understand.

As much as I'd like to know and understand so many things, I am glad that there are some things that I don't need to understand. Like the prophet Nephi said, "I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." I love those words. I love them because I, too, know that God loves me. And that should be enough. Yes, I may still pray to one day have a loftier perspective on those things that may have troubled me in my life. But for now, I can be satisfied with the knowledge that great and miraculous things were done for me by my big brother. And if He could love me that much, then I can also find greater love for myself and more contentment with my lack of knowledge of the meaning of all things.

If I were able to share one thing with you in the aftermath of yet another wonderful Easter season, it would be that I know that God also loves you greatly. I know that healing comes through the Atonement of Christ our Savior. I know that, even if you were the only child of God to require the sacrifices Jesus made on the Cross and in the Garden, our brother would have still endured what he endured just for you. These are the things I know, and this is my testimony. And, though this faith and understanding of mine may indeed be simple, I can feel content in knowing that it is enough.

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(March 5, 2017) This week marks the sixth year that I've been blessed to participate with a group called Witness Music during the Easter season in performing Rob Gardner's masterful sacred work called Lamb of God, which musically tells the story of the Savior's last week through the eyes of those people who knew Him best. 

Sadly for me as a tax accountant, the Easter season falls in sync with tax season, and  80+ hours a week are an ordinary affair. Despite the little time I'm able to stay away from the office, I am thrilled to spend 3-4 hours each week rehearsing with this group and finding healing recharge in this incredible music.

In the early years of performing this work, it was easy to feel touched by and to relate to many of the traditional characters like Mary the Mother, Mary Magdalene, Martha, Pontias Pilate, and Peter. However, I struggled with Thomas. And I'm not quite sure why. 

I've thought long and hard about this, but the song that Thomas sings just never quite hit me the way I wanted in seeking a closer connection to him and his story. Sure, I can relate to Thomas. My fears and doubts in life are many. And even though I am not blessed as was Thomas to see and then believe, I can indeed be blessed as I have not seen and yet believe. There is a powerful gospel principle of faith and belief at work in the Thomas story. In fact, this principle is one I focused on exclusively in another posting called The Faith of an Engineer. And though I did not refer to Thomas' story in that posting, I did share Michael McLean's Forgotten Carol about the shepherd boy who slept through the angelic visit in the night and did not go with his friends to see the Christ child in the manger. This boy was told a fantastical story about the coming to earth of the Messiah the first time, while Thomas is told a fantastical story about the coming to earth of the Messiah a second time. 

For as much as this shepherd boy's song each Christmas opens the flood gates of the Spirit and truly makes me feel inspired to be one of those of whom Christ said, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed," this song of Thomas in Lamb of God still just didn't quite do it for me. The best rationale for this that I could come up with is that, by the time I've exerted so much of myself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to traverse the musical journey from the raising of Lazarus from the dead to Gethsamane and then on through the Betrayal and Crucifixion to the joyous Easter Sunday morning at the Tomb, I am generally spent. It has been a thrilling ride. And I am so overcome and joyous that the good side has triumphed over evil. But I hardly have any energy left to keep my spiritual, emotional, and mental focus on the aftermath of that glorious victory.

I liken this feeling to the sentiment I heard from many critics of the movie version of Tolkien's The Return of the King. Many were complaining about how the ending simply dragged on, that there were half a dozen different "endings" to the movie. As a self-admitted Lord of the Rings fanatic, I was all too happy to experience every extra minute that Peter Jackson allowed me in Middle Earth. And every extra minute in the winding down of that epic story was glorious and beautiful to me. However, I can easily understand how other movie-goers who fall lower on the fanatic scale than I might feel that the movie dragged on through those ending scenes. I don't believe that I was on a higher "spiritual" plane where I could better appreciate those scenes. I simply believe that to the average viewer, the final battle is over. The ring has been destroyed. Good has conquered evil. Jesus Christ has conquered both sin and death. I believe that it is all too easy to move on to the next movie, the next conflict, or the next encounter between good and evil without feeling obliged to worry about the happily-ever-afters (or the not-so-happily-ever-afters) that continue on with the characters we watch in these movies after the main story has been told. 

Whether or not this accurately represents how those critics viewed the cinematic conclusion to Tolkien's tale, I am pretty confident that this accurately reflects how I personally used to feel about the final musical numbers in Lamb of God after Mary Magdalene's beautiful song of joy at the Tomb. Everything else seemed to be aftermath, whose significance and spiritual teachings were partially lost on me. Don't get me wrong. Those closing numbers of Lamb of God after Easter morning are incredibly beautiful and moving. But I can honestly say that part of me had shut down each time we performed this work so that I wasn't as prone to be taught and moved by the Spirit during those ending scenes.

These ending scenes begin with Christ first appearing to the other disciples, and the choir voices a stirring and beautiful hymn of gratitude called Jesus, My Savior. This wonderful scene where the disciples had confirmed to them the reality of Christ's resurrection from the dead, where previously they had to rely on their faith in Mary Magdalene's account, climaxes with these words of gratitude:

Ten thousand gifts could I employ

To show my praise, my thanks, my joy!

All of my life, yea, all of my days

Still not enough to sing Thy praise!

In that moment, I am reminded of a heavenly host of angels heralding the birth of Jesus and I can only imagine tens of thousands of angels, including you and me, singing Hosanna and Gloria in pure gratitude and praise of Him who would save us all. It is hard for me not to feel stirred as I hear that glorious chorus. Then we hear the narrator telling us about Thomas who, like Michael McLean's shepherd boy, missed the action and struggled to come to grips with what he was told by those who were there.

After Thomas is able to feel the wounds in Jesus' hands and side and reverently exclaims, "My Lord, and my God!" Thomas goes on to sing a song called Sometime We'll Understand. Now, as wonderful and profound as this song might seem to other Lamb of God "fanatics" who are able to better appreciate and relate to Thomas' song of introspection after his notorious doubts were forever inscribed into history, this song just didn't seem to resonate with me the way I hoped. Again, I blame it on the Lord-of-the-Rings-multiple-endings idea where I had simply mentally and emotionally subconsciously decided that it had been a thrilling ride, that I had experienced my spiritual high, and that I was ready to move on with my changed-for-the-better life. 

This all changed one year. In one of our final rehearsals before the performances, my mind was wandering. I don't recall what I was thinking about. It could have been the upcoming excitement of March Madness. It could have been the dusty mess of rosin dust that had gotten under my violin's finger board. More likely, I wasn't thinking about anything at all and was just playing on autopilot. I happened to glance at the brother who was singing for Thomas out of the corner of my eye. What I saw immediately sent shivers down my body and brought the Spirit crashing over me in waves. What I saw was a single tear running down his cheek. I froze. I lowered my violin and sat transfixed as I watched him finish his song. 

Not now, but in the coming years, it may not be when we demand,

We'll read the meaning of our tears, and there, sometime, we'll understand.

Why what we long for most of all eludes our open, pleading hand;

Why ever silence meets our call, somewhere, sometime, we'll understand.

Sometime, we'll fall on bended knee, and feel there, graven on His hand,

Sometime with tearless eyes we'll see what, here, we could not understand.

So trust in God through all thy days; Fear not, for He doth hold thy hand;

Though dark thy way, still sing and praise; Sometime, sometime we'll understand.

This brother of mine had a beautiful and flawless voice. The emotion in his voice was not forced. His gestures while he sang were simple and subtle. In all ways, he was a model and a star performer who immediately sucked me into his character. But there was that single tear. And as I watched this brother, I could clearly see that there were dozens of tears being held back so that he could stay true to the role he was exuding to portray as a stand in for my other brother Thomas. I was truly taken aback. How could he be having such a different experience with the message of this song, however beautiful the words and melody, in stark contrast to that I was previously having. In that moment, the message and the spirit of that song didn't suddenly dawn on me. I was no closer to having my own personal breakthrough that would transform the "multiple endings" of Lamb of God into something so much more meaningful to me. But I left rehearsal that evening with a commitment in my heart that the next time I accompanied this brother in his song, the song would indeed have greater meaning to me.

Over the coming days, I spent some time in the scriptures studying Thomas' short story. I spent some time on my knees. I read, and reread, and reread again the lyrics of Thomas' song. I don't know if I'll ever be able to internalize and truly feel the emotion that the composer intended to create for Thomas in the same way that this brother felt and feels to this day after acting as proxy for this disciple of the Savior. But ever since that rehearsal, I personally feel changed. I feel like I am now truly a Lamb of God "fanatic" who can truly appreciate every minute of those "multiple endings." To me, the aftermath and the ever-afters of Thomas, of Mary and Martha, and of Peter and John mean as much to me as the penultimate action scenes themselves. Every year, one song stands out from the rest to be my "favorite" for the Lamb of God season. More than once has Thomas' song of sometime understanding claimed that favorite designation.

Sitting at our final rehearsal tonight, I found that a single tear was running down my own cheek as we ran through Thomas' number. This year, a different brother was singing the role of Thomas than that brother whose musical testimony had changed my perspective on this song. But I happened to see this Thomas from several years ago sitting in the background watching on. And I watched him closely, or as closely as I could while trying to keep playing my instrument, as he was focused so intently on the brother singing. I could tell that he was remembering singing this song himself and that he forever would share a close bond with the disciple Thomas. When he lost it and buried his face in his hands, being overcome with emotion, I voyeuristically felt like I was peeking in on a private moment between our 2016 Thomas, this former Thomas, and the Thomas of old. And as out of place as I should have felt in spying such an intimate moment, I too felt like I was sharing in that connection for a moment in my own way.

Last year, I was especially touched by Peter's songs and Peter's story, and I decided to put those songs with some footage of Christ and Peter from the LDS Bible Videos. I was very pleased with the resulting video as I felt that some of the visuals helped to capture the spirit of Lamb of God that much more strongly for me. There's something incredible in hearing Peter's agonizing song as I watch the footage of Christ being led to see Pilate as Peter watches on from the shadows remoursefully intoning, "What have I done? Denied Him? What have I done? So now am I no different from the men who take Thy bread then turn again? And when Thou lookest for a friend, Thou findest none, for I have fled! Oh God! What have I done?"

As I got home tonight, knowing that I had a busy 80+ hour workweek ahead of me with many sleep-deprived nights, I felt compelled to sit down at the computer and to again put video footage from the Bible Videos to Rob Gardner's beautiful songs, this time telling the Thomas story and showcasing his beautiful song. I know that there are many days when my own understanding is so shallow in some ways and that there will come a day when I will be able to look back with tearless eyes and see what, here, I could not understand. But for now, I glory in that understanding that I have been blessed with. And I glory in the Spirit of God that gives me hope and reassurance as I make my way through life. If you haven't yet been able to experience Lamb of God, I hope you take the opportunity to do so someday. This music truly has power to change lives. From experience, I can declare that it has changed mine.

May you have a wonderful Easter season as you remember the life and the fulfilled mission of our elder brother. 

God Bless!