Listening to Gabriel’s Oboe by Enrico Morricone tonight, I think of the wistfulness of the music and how it inspires me to remember my life and to reflect on some of the opportunities I missed. The Mission soundtrack was one of the first CDs I owned, and I was deeply influenced by this composer at a time when my life had little of beauty in it.
After two years of fecklessness in college, I lost my ROTC scholarship and decided to join the Army to pay back the scholarship funds and earn new money to finish school. In early 1987, I found myself stationed at Fort Bragg, NC, after having completed Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training, and Jump School. January is cold and rainy in that part of North Carolina, and I was often lonely and prone to despair.
My life had abruptly and disastrously departed from the tidy track of service in the Army as an Officer that I had planned, and now I didn’t know what would become of me, or how I would survive three interminable years as an enlisted man.
After all these years, this CD still remains one of my favorites.
After several months, I bought a CD player and a handful of CDs (they were still somewhat bleeding-edge in those days – lots of people still had music on cassette tape, or even on records). Most evenings after work, I would sit in my barracks room and listen to my small collection of CDs, over and over. Around the same time, I met another Christian soldier in my unit; the two of us became fast friends and roomed together for the next two years. I’m sure poor Jimmy-T got really tired of listening to this CD, but it still packs a powerful memory-punch to my ear and my soul.
Now, almost three decades later, this tune in particular drives me to reflect on the years that have passed, and on the many blessings that have been granted to me, in spite of my foolishness and disregard for God’s goodness. I have many regrets, and this music draws them out of my soul like a tea bag in hot water — not a terribly painful process, but strangely haunting and full of bittersweet longing.
- I wish that I had been more kind and courteous.
- I wish I had always been honorable and true to what I knew to be right.
- I wish that I had been steadfastly honest in everything.
- I wish I had been faithful to always redeem my promises.
- I wish that I had paid more attention to my children.
- I wish I had cherished my wife more.
- I wish I hadn’t been so lazy in so many ways, for so long.
- I wish I had been a better friend to the people God has placed in my path.
The song is only 2 minutes and 40 seconds on the soundtrack CD, and a good 15 seconds of that is introductory. Before you know it, the song is over – much too soon for my pensive and thoughtful mood. Perhaps this also is a metaphor – in much the same way, my life will probably be over too soon, before I have completed all the things I want to do, or positively impacted all the people I want to love.
Tonight, listening to the achingly-magnificent strains of the oboe, I feel as though I am part of the song, stretching and reaching for the exquisite high notes with my yearning for the best and most glorious godly things, but always falling short, returning to the earthy lower ranges of the melody in failure — and a strange, bittersweet and paradoxical contentment.
Project 365, Day 161
Tim
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