what a musician taught me about excellence.
I think of artists and entrepreneurs I admire. How they have acquired the clarity and discipline and loving ruthlessness needed to whittle down their many passions to focus only on one or two things.
I want to be an excellent mother. An excellent wife and maker of home. An excellent artist. Writer. Listener. Pray-er. I want to be excellent with finances and business. Friendships. Plants. I want to be excellent in the kitchen and the bedroom and the garden and in comment sections online.
And then I watched this.
It came up in a YouTube recommended feed late one night and I watched, transfixed, at what excellence—true, pure excellence—looks and sounds like: years of craft and passion concentrated into a singular point of intense focus that results in jaw-dropping skill. Skill that brings beauty and transcendence. Skill that reaps the rewards of satisfaction and transformation and mastery. Skill that makes something so intricate appear natural and effortless. Beneath those fingers and those closed eyes are moments and hours and years and years and more years of mistakes and practice and possibly frustration, but also immense dedication and love.
I want to mother my son with the same kind of excellence that is shown by Calum Graham as he plays Farewell on his harp guitar.
I want to organize my cabinets, nourish my family, and stand at my easel with the same kind of excellence that is shown by Calum Graham as he plays Farewell on his harp guitar.
I want to write, illustrate, and publish lifegiving children’s books with the same level of mastery and skill demonstrated by Calum Graham as he plays Farewell on his harp guitar.
I want to sew and craft and write poems and paint and bake and love with transcendent excellence such as we see Calum Graham doing while he plays his harp guitar.
Yet I don’t have that kind of time.
I don’t have enough lifetime left in me to master all of these vocations, much less the hundreds of other needs and desires and interests that I have.
This is the ache of the renaissance woman. I can be good at many things, by God’s grace, but excellent at few, if at all. I think of artists and entrepreneurs I admire. How they have acquired the clarity and discipline and loving ruthlessness to whittle down their many passions to focus on one or two things. It is impossible for me to fathom, yet this is required if one longs to be excellent (and even profitable) at them.
The reality is, I cannot get the sleep I need AND the quiet, rapid-fire-question-free hours required for my brain to untwist itself from the heat of the day. I cannot make a beautiful creative mess and clean it up at the same time. I cannot teach my son sound doctrine and run a “six-figure business” and illustrate a children’s book and keep the kitchen sink sparkling clean and re-finish the vintage play stove I bought Solomon for $15 at the thrift shop and organize my cabinets and bake a cake and list two hundred books on Ebay and research the effects of magnesium for a weary, headed-for-a-heart-attack husband, spirited & volatile four-year-old son, and my own peri-menopausal self.
{I am falling apart.}
“Whatever you hand finds to do,” Scripture tells us, “do it with all your might.” And, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.”
Yet I am beset by inertia, paralyzed with overwhelm and the needs of life. I am not doing things heartily. Most of the time I am filled with guilt, and doing them guilt-fully because I spent money that we don’t have to acquire them. I stare with wide-eyed dismay at the amount of art and craft supplies I am not using, art classes I paid for but have not completed, books (good books!) I’ve added to my library but haven’t read yet, because I’m in deep time-debt. I have borrowed against my own life, committing myself to an impossible calendar and to-do list of very good things that will bury me.
Because I will run out of lifetime first.
The answer, of course, is not a pendulum swing. Oh well, since I can’t do everything, I won’t do anything. Since I can’t be excellent, I’ll be sloppy. Since I can’t be perfect, I’ll strive for mediocrity. Since I’m already in debt, what’s a little more? No, no, this is not the way.
There IS a more excellent way.
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. 1 Cor. 12:29-31
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 1 Cor. 13:1-3
Though I mothered my son with perfect wisdom and gentleness, though I never left a sink full of dirty dishes overnight, though I had no financial debt, though I had no wasted financial investments, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Though I cooked perfect, healthy and delicious meals, though I had a wise and obedient son, though I never reacted poorly as a mother, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
Though I become an accomplished artist and writer, though I teach deep theological truths in a simple and beautiful way, though I were the modern virtuous wife, but have not love, I am nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor. 13:4-7
This is the wiser lover’s list to aspire to. In my weakness and frailty, I am excellent at failing at it. But I am heartened to remember that every day His mercies are new, and that the perfect unfailing one has already given me His righteousness,1 which He will never take away.
And maybe, eventually, the excellence of wise and seasoned love will resonate through me as a sort of transcendent song, strummed by an eternal master, that would lift eyes and souls toward heaven in the dark and deep of night.
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Cor. 5:21