“All of our dreams are laid out and measured
Arrows and pins and a rainbow of threads
Like hope on a string, sewn into the linings
For the courage to face the unknown ahead.”
~Mary Chapin Carpenter

Last night we went to hear Mary Chapin Carpenter in concert at the Minnesota Zoo. It was a simply gorgeous night, not too hot, not too cold. There were no bugs and people were in the euphoric state Minnesotans get when the weather is exceptionally nice. People had those looks of “Well, aren’t we just the luckiest people on earth?” on their faces. It was a slice of summer that will live long in my heart and one that will, I’m sure, be remembered when winter turns our skin and spirits cold. The music was lovely and Mary Chapin’s easy going, relaxed manner gave me a glimpse into this song-poet I have long admired. Her humility shone through in both her older music and in the new song she referred to as a ‘walk out onto the edge’ to sing it for people. Her lyrics are filled with depth and metaphor which always hits me square in the solar plexus.

But another person on stage captured my imagination in a fuller way. In a semi-circle around the back of the stage were several guitars, some six string, some twelve, which Mary Chapin switched to for each song. Those guitars were gently handed to her by a man whose job seemed to be tuning. He would hand her the next guitar after having placed his ear on the body of the guitar and turning the pegs to get the strings just so to produce a tuneful strum. Sometimes, if the music happening on stage was fuller, louder, he would need to step behind the tall stacks of speakers and sound equipment in order to hear the quieter sound of guitar strings. His title was Tuner.

As I first began to watch him my thought was ‘I want a tuner!’ I want someone in my life who waits in the wings to make all my work play in tune, someone who moves in the edges to hand over whatever it is I need to make my own personal version of song. I want someone who fixes the strings just right so I can play, sing, in the manner I’d like to think I can. Of course, this two-year-old near tantrum thought made me laugh. At myself. At the pretentiousness of it.

This morning with clearer eyes and the dust of the magic of last night still hanging on me, I am still thinking of this tuner. What a responsibility! To be the person who has each guitar all ready and set for the ‘star’ to do her thing. I wonder about the times it has not worked out. But I also have been thinking about all the people in our life that do this work. Those folks who throughout my life have been moving at the edges of my fumblings, encouraging, informing, creating, challenging, inspiring, so I can do what I know to be my life’s work. There have been family members, teachers, co-workers, neighbors, friends,strangers who have provided the tuning needed for the moment when my particular music is being made. Can you think of the folks in your life who act in these ways, allowing you to sing your song?

A fact we often forget in our daily living is that none of us do anything alone. None of us creates even the simplest movement without the benevolent sacrifices of others. Our food? All gifts of earth and faceless workers who labored to feed us. Our movement from place to place? Brought to us by the back-breaking labor of construction workers, engineers, those who dream vehicles and understand how chemicals cause asphalt and roadway materials to work. This is to say nothing of bridges and safety workers all tuning on our behalf. And these invisible lines of connection only point to two of the acts we employ each day on the stage where we play out our lives.

The Tuner was never introduced by name. He did his work with grace and elegance moving quietly in and out of our line of view. But I know, and I am betting Mary Chapin knows, she could not have done her work, the work to which the Holy has called and blessed her, without his work. May each of us, no matter the song we must sing, give thanks this day for all the tuners that move in our lives.