more goodbyes

The last song I played on my old Bentley piano. And I wrote it today at the Bentley, for this evening's service.

In the morning the removal men will come & take my faithful friend away to a new life with Owen & Liz Smith & their kids, and I am glad to pass it on to such a lovely family, and to people who will take enormous pleasure from my old piano.

I learned to play on this. My old Gran bought it. I learned to hear chords and to play scales, I learned Bach and jazz on these keys. I worked out my first choir arrangements, first orchestral parts, first band parts sitting here.

I've written more songs at this piano than I can (or should) remember. I've poured out my heart, and laughed, and worshipped and simply had fun.

I thought it was going on Friday; I sat and played the songs I played when I was 16. The first songs I wrote. The songs I learned for school CU. The first hymn I played in school assembly (I'd been playing about three months when I volunteered to do that...) and which I learned so well I can still mostly remember it now, a million years later.

But the removal men had made a mistake, so I've had an extra weekend with my piano, and instead of leaving with old songs, I sat and wrote something new. Much more fitting. This was what I did here. I sat and wrote. Imagined. Felt. Sang my heart.

Thank you Jesus for such a gift.

And whilst I'm at the goodbyes - the drama group that has emerged from our work with older people at church put on a Variety Show on Saturday afternoon. I added a little piece of my own to surprise them - a Victoria Wood-esque number about theatre etiquette. And at the end they surprised me, with a bit of communal singing to express their feelings towards me as I prepared to leave. And of all the things I am doing right now (so many for the last time - last wedding, last Cafe Church) this one suddenly, surprisingly caught me and in its simple direct emotion brought a tear to me eye. Goodness. Enjoy.