First Love

I heard a story on NPR about first love...the first time a person fell in love with classical music.

This story informed listeners about the launch of NPR Music's new classical music blog, they are calling Deceptive Cadence. Even the name caught my ear (and will now be added to my blog reader!).

For Marin Alsop, she fell in love with classical music was when she was 14 years old at a summer music camp. She heard through a closed door this music and was awe-struck in the hallway. (Brahms: String Sextet in B-flat). She wrote on that blog, "...I gradually sank to the floor outside the door and found myself unexpectedly weeping." It was at that point that she "she fell hopelessly in love with becoming a musician."

For another man it was when he was 8 years old. He had been playing piano for four years already. Then he heard a recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor. It struck him - he had to take up the violin. For two years, he begged his parents for a violin. They finally asked why the violin? He told them how he had been listening to this Mendelssohn Violin concerto and they went silent. He got his violin and first lesson that week. It turns out he was descended from the Mendelssohns.

As I listened, I thought about the first time I fell in love with God.

I never had one of those "walk by the closed door, hear the music and know" kind of fallings in love. As a kindergartener, my Nana had shown me a very important verse from Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." But I didn't really fall in love then, it was more like I knew I was loved. Kind of one-way.

As an adult, I was an attendant at the wedding of two very dear friends. In the tiny chapel, we stood very close together and sweated on a hot June day. Dozens of friends and family members along with each of their two kids from a previous marriage, we witnessed their deep love for each other. I wept unexpectedly with joy and with a knowing that just came over me. The really weird thing? It was in Holland. They all spoke Dutch. I could not understand a thing. And, I knew, deeply, that this was sacred ground and that something greater than any of us was alive in that space. Now I have a name ....God - Spirit - Love.

When was the first time you fell in Love?

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:13