| Matt Wessel will perform his fifth Concert for Life next Sunday, March 13, at 3:30 P.M., here at Saint Paul’s. I admit that I am planning to attend with a small measure of trepidation. My mom attended the first and second concerts with me. She loved live performances of theater and music as much as I. We both have enjoyed the ability to enter into plays, movies and music as though we are a part of the story or melody unraveling before us. Even when she was very ill and struggled with bouts of dementia, my mom became completely absorbed in the offerings of the “big screen.” Each year, when the time for Matt’s concert arrives, I relive those precious moments with her. Matt’s music inspired me during the final months when my mom was confined to a home where hospice staff oversaw her care. Every day, as I drove the tollway to see her, I listened to Matt’s CD. Inspiration saturated my spirit and fortified me for our visits. Just a few months later, Matt’s music set the tone of my mom’s wake service and funeral. Each year since, as the concert approaches, I contemplate my response to the familiar melodies that I know Matt cannot resist playing and singing again. I did not cry when my mother passed because I truly rejoiced in the new life she had begun. Now that I have spent the past two years reflecting on her life and missing her, uncertainty reigns. Will I spend the entire concert in tears? Maybe... I write about Matt Wessel’s concert this Fourth Sunday of Lent because Matt’s music is the fruit of a journey that resembles the Lenten journeys we begin each Ash Wednesday. You see, Matt punctuates every concert he performs with a litany of cancer heroes who have touched his life. Rather than lamenting the passing of those who did not survive, Matt draws strength from their courage as they struggled with and then accepted what lay ahead of each of them. From those who have survived their encounters with cancer, Matt draws hope and a hunger to embrace life as the treasure it is. From those who face the uncertainty of current treatment that may –or may not– bring a cure, Matt draws the passion to engage in the present as though everything depends upon it, for, indeed, it does. If you can attend this year’s concert, please do. Matt’s spiritual journey through loss to renewed hope will drive his fingers up and down the keyboard. The more his fingers dance, the more difficult it will be for any of us who are present to hold onto our loss or regret. Truly, it will be impossible to resist an ascent back to joy. I promise that you will leave, truly inspired by the joy, truth and resolve that resound in Matt’s compositions. It seems to me that cancer is a physical manifestation of pain not very different from the pain that wretches our souls in our darkest moments. Matt Wessel’s willingness to face the presence of cancer in his life allows him to deal with the disease and to make it an opportunity for growth. If you listen, you will find it obvious in his lyrics that Matt does not face this presence alone. Perhaps I would have faired better during my mom’s illness if I had faced the doubts that threatened my peace of soul with Matt’s resolve and with the Companion Matt so eloquently acknowledges. My mom planted the seeds of faith within me when I was a little girl. She nurtured my faith through word and example all of my life. For fifty-four years, I have remained faithful –for the most part, Mom– to all that she taught me. Yet, in the weeks and months after her passing, second guessing and doubts arose. The wonderful death for which I thanked God when my mother passed began to puzzle me and to cause concern afterward. Was it really just as it should have been? I was once convinced, but now…? Fortunately for me, God worked through Matt’s music then, just as He will next Sunday afternoon. I found myself embraced and drawn back to God during the months after my mother’s passing. I will find myself embraced and drawn back to God once again during the fifth Concert for Life. I invite you to experience the same. |
| mattwesselmusic.com |
| letters (read what people are saying about my music) SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT by mary penich | march, 2005 |