Expect the Unexpected

Sometimes life is so funny.

In a recent post I mentioned how some of my piano students sing me their own gruesome versions of Christmas carols. One student in particular, a certian 10 year old "Johnny" we'll say, sang me a version of Joy to the World last year. I guess I felt especially downcast about his state of affairs, because the carol had turned into "Joy to the world, Claudia's dead...", Claudia being a girl in his class who no one liked. He seemed to think it quite funny- I felt very sorry for Claudia and kind of disappointed in my student (but maybe I just don't understand 9 year old boys?...) More recently this year, I've been feeling downcast about the state of his practicing affairs, and have felt there's little else I can do to change them.

Tonight, after he played his newly learned We Three Kings (the quality of which kind of surprised me) he was choosing a second carol to start learning. Now, to my knowledge (and limited apparently) his family doesn't go to church or anything like that. But he turns to me and says in his cheerful matter-of-fact way, "I'd like to choose a carol that's from my religion."

"Oh," says I, "Sure! What religion is that?"

"Christian," he says, like he's telling me his favorite color.

"Well of course you can. There's lots to choose from."

"Yeah," he says, "My family is Christian. Well, my dad's mom is Christian, but my mom's mom is a Holy person. So I'm Christian/Holy. But I'm more on the Christian side."

"Wow, that's really cool. So what does that mean to you, being on the Christian side?" I asked.

"Oh, like there's God and Jesus and Jesus came to earth at Christmas time. Yeah. And I read the Holy Bible. It's good. But some of the parts are so long!"

"Hey, I read the Bible too. What's your favorite part?"

"Well, I'm just at the beginning," he says, leaning back on my chair and crossing his legs. "I tried some of the middle parts, but there's like all these confusing parts you have to read and it's really hard. So I'm at the beginning."

"Well," I said, "I guess the beginning is always the best place to start."

So we choose God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, which he looked at and started playing with little help from me. "I can play it pretty well," he said, "I just need to work on my technique." He grabbed his books, told me how he's been practicing 20 minutes each day ("15 in the morning, 3 minutes after school, and 2 minutes right before bed") and went on his merry way.

These moments in a piano teacher's life seem few and far between. But when they do show up, they are priceless.

God bless "Johnny" and all his beginnings...