On waiting, pure and magical

Today I begin my teaching off with a pair of hilarious,
high energy, so-extremely-musical twin boys.

They love to make music in my living room.  

They also love to wreak a bit of havoc,
when I've barely turned my back.

Before they come, I hide all of my precious things, 

or else I find them standing precariously on end.

Within moments of their arrival, 

every piano-lesson related item finds itself in mid-air

before it rests, scattered across the floor.

And we make music that is complex and brilliant and wholly fun, as they beat their drums and sing with noisy gusto, as they lean on each side of me while I play or drape their feet all over my chairs,
as they scat rhythm patterns to beat the band and fling their finger puppet friends from key to key in coordination with the intricacy of our ensemble.

It is loud, and it is not for the faint of heart.

But today, as I danced around the room to the music on the stereo,
I gradually came to notice:

One of them, standing in the corner, waving a scarf slowly through the air in quiet and concentrated adoration;

the other, curled silently on the floor underneath the piano,
his arm draped over the pedals.

Listening.  Enraptured.  Still.

They didn't move, for a few extendedly pure and magical moments.

I could barely breathe, but they wouldn't have noticed if I did.  

And I thought of the quote my dear friend blogged about yesterday:

"A waiting person is a patient person.  The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us." 

[Henri Nouwen]

These insanely active boys, for a moment that felt like a century, were willing to stay.  They were listening for what was hidden.  They were in the moment, and nothing could remove them.  They were living it out, to the full.  What did they believe they would find there?  What was it that they needed to know?

The moment passed, and the rest of the students came and left, 

and I cleaned up the mess and put back the precious things.  

But that moment of magic laid itself down on my mind as a picture I cannot shake, a reminder I need to cling to:

I am willing, to sit in the places of difficult waiting. Enraptured. Still.

Believing that each moment is held in the hand of God, because there's something in it that I need to know.  Something pure and magical.