Testimony of Healing August 14, 2017 Issue

Relying on ageless capabilities in a chamber music performance

Paul Garritson

I was invited to perform, with three other professional musicians, a challenging 20th-century chamber music work—“Quartet for the End of Time” by Olivier Messiaen—which I had performed on several occasions over the span of a career. The invitation came two years after I retired from full-time work as a musician and teacher.

My strong desire was to revisit the work even though my musical activities were significantly fewer; and to be honest, I had a lingering doubt regarding my ability to perform at that point. I’d been turning to God for direction, and after several days, I woke up one morning and had a clear answer.

I did not want to avoid the opportunity because of fear—fear that I might have lost something, or in a belief in diminished talent because of age, or in a seeming loss of the necessary skills needed to perform well. I was alert to the fact that the source of these arguments was not our divine source, God, and therefore they could not be actual and valid. I further reasoned that since I had such a clear inspiration that morning to “go ahead,” I could trust that God—the only Mind and source of inspiration, strength, and faculty—was my sole provider of everything that I needed.

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