PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

September 5, 2021

NO WHERE FAST

Saturday, August 21^st, Diane and I enjoyed an evening of music by the Dave Bennett Jazz Quartet.  They were in Culver, Indiana, for the Antiquarian and Historical Society’s annual fundraising event.  The quartet was scheduled to perform last year but could not because of the pandemic.

Dave Bennett’s primary instrument is the clarinet.  He taught himself to play at the age of ten by listening to Benny Goodman’s records.  As Dave performed, he and his instrument became one.  Dave also played the piano and guitar. On a couple of the numbers he also sang.   The group’s final number with Dave at the piano was a rousing rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’s “There is a Whole Lot of Shaking Going On.”   He had the whole audience standing and some even dancing.

Several of selections the quartet performed were written by Bennett.  One he wrote near the beginning of the pandemic when all of the group’s performances were being canceled.  The piece was entitled “No Where Fast.”  Through music Dave was able to put into music many emotions and feelings that many have had as the pandemic seems to drag on forever.  It seems like we take one step forward and two steps backwards.  Just when it would have appeared that we had turned a corner and brighter days are ahead a new development dashes our hopes.

“No Where Fast” might also describe the Hebrew people during their journey in the wilderness after they left Egypt.  A trip that should have lasted less than a year turned out to take forty.  More than once the people expressed their dissatisfaction with the leadership.  “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.  The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’” (Exodus 16: 2, 3)

The opposition reached a climax when Moses ascended to receive a message from the Lord.  When the people saw that Moses was delayed in his return they cast a Golden Calf and began to worship it.  Moses was enraged when he discovered what they had done.  He ordered that the transgressors be killed and around three thousand people fell. (Exodus Ch. 32)

As we continue to go through our “No Where Fast” days the murmuring and complaining would seem to be increasing.  Opinions have been hardened and differing parties seem incapable of talking to each other.  Protests have become more and more contentious.  Hopefully, the situation will not descend to the point of physical violence.

The Lord did not desert the Hebrew people during their forty years in the wilderness.  In Exodus 13:21 we read “The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that might travel by day and by night.”  As we make our journey through the wilderness of the pandemic the Lord has not left us and gives us signs of His presence and guidance.  By remaining steadfast and not descending to murmuring and complaining we can have the assurance that we will reach the promised land.