Imagine a room filled with all kinds of instruments.
Society might suggest that we should make a beeline toward the electric guitar.
Because that’s the star.
The one that gets all the attention.
The one that stands out.
The one that gets the long and intricate solos.
Look at those fingers!
Listen to that wail!
Inhale.
Exhale.
Many of us want to be the electric guitar.
It’s the instrument that gets all the chicks and lives the life, baby.
Rock on, dude.
But it recently occurred to me that a better choice in that room of instruments might be the accordion.
The squeezebox.
The instrument that some might dismiss as preposterous. Ridiculous.
It’s big and bulky.
It wheezes.
It’s what grandparents listen to as they putz around the dance floor and polka.
Or let’s be honest, maybe it’s only old men sitting on a bridge in Paris who ought to play it as we stroll past Notre Dame.
Consider the accordion.
It is solid.
Complex.
It has keys, buttons, and bellows.
It breathes in and out.
And from that center pours music.
Music that pulsates.
Music that invites all who are gathered around to rise and move.
For whom among us can resist its beat?
The electric guitar is amazing, don’t get me wrong.
But consider the accordion.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Be the solid and breathing thing, the surprising and unique thing that steps into a room.
That people gather around.
That connects.
And brings an odd and insistent delight with its happy beat.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Oom pa pa. Oom pa pa. And live light, y'all.
Guitar solos are cliché :-) thanks for this