CREATED, CREATING
Jason Christopher Hackwith
The scene is etched indelibly into my mind. If I think about it hard enough I can still smell the piano.
It’s about 10:30pm on a balmy evening in 1997 and I have snuck into the practice rooms at Beall Hall again. I say ‘snuck’ because it’s more fun to remember it that way. In reality, they knew I was there and I had permission.
My pursuit of study was music ministry at Northwest Christian College (now Bushnell University), a music performance degree with an emphasis on ministry. I had to pick a primary and secondary instrument. Primary was voice, secondary was more difficult to decide on but I ultimately settled on guitar, simply since I had been playing it the longest. After a rather disappointing interview with Don Latarski, then head of the guitar department of the College of Music back in 1996, it was clear that what I was seeking wouldn’t be found at the University of Oregon. I had learned too many bad habits teaching myself on the guitar and he placed me at the very beginning of the jazz guitar school, which stung a little bit since I had been playing guitar since age eight. While I like jazz, I wanted to keep my own sound and not necessarily be limited by the constraints of a formal jazz instruction.
It all worked out for the best, and I ultimately ended up getting private guitar instruction, theory, history, aural skills, and other classes through Lane Community College: which worked out perfectly. But the great thing about the connection I did have with the University of Oregon was that I got to use their practice rooms. That was just amazing to me. To be able to ‘sneak’ into Beall Hall and use a good piano almost whenever I wanted? I spent so much time in those practice rooms playing into the night.
This particular evening I entered the practice area to find that my favorite room was unoccupied. It was my favorite because it held a baby grand that had a warm, buttery tone reminiscent of my own piano (which sadly sits in storage at the moment since I don’t have anywhere to put it).
I sat down at the piano, lifted the key cover, and then it happened. I began to sob. When I say sob, I was blubbering all over that poor piano. I couldn’t help it.
I was suddenly and completely overwhelmed with a story that filled my mind so thoroughly I couldn’t think about anything else. It was the story of a young woman dying of cancer and struggling with her faith. How she condemned God for all of the pain and nausea and sleepless nights. How He met her where she was, and changed everything; not by taking the cancer away, but by giving her His unyielding, perfect strength even in her weakness. How indescribable Peace transformed her life. How that Peace changed the life of everyone who had the privilege of knowing her, and at the end of her life she saw the Father waiting for her with open arms.
I didn’t know her. Until then, I had never met anyone named Angela who was dying of cancer. But I knew it was a true story. And I wrote as fast as I could.
Fifteen minutes later, the song was done, and I was exhausted. I laid my head upon the keys and thanked Angela’s God for meeting me in my own pain and suffering with the same Peace that passes all understanding.
I’ve written several hundred songs, most of which will probably never see the light of day. That kind of songwriting experience, where I feel like I’m just the instrument that Someone else is playing, isn’t common. But when it does happen I feel like I catch a glimpse of the creative Fire that built the universe coursing within me. I’m humbled and grateful.
Follow me on this journey I’m on to the river Beautiful. Created, I create as I walk along this road.
“Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.”
There is a hope that still is found,
Within the heart, beneath the shroud;
Upon the seat where reason rests,
Deep, deep within the dreamer’s breast:
A burning brand of fire.
It pulses, waiting for a sign;
Awaiting deep within the mind
A touch, a stroke from beauty’s breath,
A taste of life, a taste of death,
Despair and deep desire.
He knew it could not be contained,
And so he stooped, accepted pain;
Cupped in his hands the secret light,
And on the wind his soul took flight:
In dying, rose up higher.
As on the breath of God he soared,
Now past the jagged, weeping shores;
His wounds dripped freely, without shame;
His mouth, wide open, clearly sang
The song, now born in fire.
Copyright © 2001-2024 by JCH
“When I wrote The Last Dove’s Flight, the melody for the orchestral piece was playing in my head even as I wrote the poem. I had to scramble to finish writing down the poem so I could go compose the music.
I have a theory that at key events in our lives, whether they are impossibly traumatic or filled with utter joy, the Creator of the universe thins the veil and grants us His own creative fire. Created, we create.
What do you think?”
“Then I felt something inside me break and music began to pour out into the quiet. My fingers danced; intricate and quick they spun something gossamer and tremulous into the circle of light our fire had made. The music moved like a spiderweb stirred by a gentle breath, it changed like a leaf twisting as it falls to the ground, and it felt like three years Waterside in Tarbean, with a hollowness inside you and hands that ached from the bitter cold.”
Photo by the amazing Aarzoo Jacob, courtesy of Unsplash.
