The First Baptist Church of Redlands
TA PE S T RY Woven Together In Love: Colossians 2:2 OCTOBER 2014
ISSUE No. 10
A LETTER FROM THE INTERIM
A fellowship that showcases God’s music
A
mong the stories I have collected I found one that likens the study of a photograph to what a church should be. It is about a photograph that was taken by the late Yousaf Karsh who was famous for taking photographs of some of the world’s famous people: John Steinbeck, Mother Teresa and Albert Einstein, to name a few. The photograph is the only one that Karsh ever took of a person’s back, the back of Pablo Casals in a small French Abby in 1954. He wrote that as he was setting up his equipment, Casals, arguably the greatest cellist who ever lived, began playing his cello. Karsh said he was so enthralled by the music he almost forgot why he was there. So he took his portrait of Casals with the little baldheaded man bent over his cello, frozen in time against a plain stone wall of the chapel. Karsh said he did it to capture the loneliness of the truly great artists and especially this artist who was living in exile. Years later, when the portrait was on exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, an elderly man went day after day and stood for long periods
of time in front of the portrait. The curator of the museum noticed him and one day when his curiosity got the best of him, he tapped the man on the shoulder and asked why he stood so long before the picture. The man with obvious irritation turned on the curator and said, “Hush, young man! Can’t you see I’m listening to the music!” The portrait was so vivid that the man looking at the picture could hear the music.
A portrait of Pablo Casals in the Abbey de Cuxa in Prades 1954. Taken by Yousuf Karsh.
That story reminds me of the early church right after its Pentecost inception. It was a fellowship of believers who stood together with their message of God’s love, not letting differences get in the way, loving, encouraging, supporting, and putting other’s wishes ahead of their own, so that those viewing it could experience what I would like to call “God’s music.” During this short time that I have been here, I am pleased to say I sense that kind of fellowship and what a blessing that has been. In a time when there is so much division in many areas of life, including church life, it is a joy to come to a place where one can sense a warm and inviting spirit that demonstrates “God’s music” almost immediately. But, isn’t that what the church ought to be? A fellowship where differences are dissolved in God’s love and all people are valued as brothers and sisters in Christ; a place where “God’s music” is clear. May God help us to continue to be that fellowship. Blessings, Richard