Nostos : Fri Aug 16 2024

A Living Mystic

Dear Friends,

Have you ever attended the Ocean Grove Children’s Show? For kids ages 8—15, it was performed this past Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and will be performed tonight. Its plays are written specifically for the children of Ocean Grove.

The writer of the Children’s Show’s plays is a living mystic. His name is Mr. S. M.

Yes, I just said that: he’s a living mystic. Take a breath and wait because I’m going to say it again. When you are in the presence of Mr. S. M. you are in the presence of a living mystic. A mortal human being in touch with Someone Else, creating words and melodies from Somewhere Else.

The words and melodies of the OG Children’s Show — if you have ears to hear — are from Somewhere Else. Oh friends, how do we get there?

Mr. S. M. and I have been dear, dear friends for 20 years (and no, I’ve never used the word “mystic” around him because mystics don’t think like that).

He sat in my tent on Mt. Carmel Way six weeks ago at golden hour and over the acoustic guitar in my lap I asked him, “What makes you write, and write so meticulously?”

“To bring the music of heaven to the children of earth” is all he says, and he is all here and all Somewhere Else too and I am silent.

Note the absence of the personal pronoun “I” in his answer. He didn’t say, “I hope to bring” or “I want to bring.” He just said, “To bring.” He’s too self-effacing to talk about himself. Plus, he believes that his music comes from Someone Else, as if it already existed forever, and it’s just his job to listen and to give it earthly form.

Just whisper that to yourself: the music of heaven to the children of earth. After Mr. S. M. dies scholars will write dissertations and monographs about his plays. We who witness him and his work in real time are witnessing a living Homer, an Aeschylus, a Sophocles, a Euripides. 

A living mystic writing music from Somewhere Else — does that statement make you uncomfortable? If so, I understand. But then, how do you explain any created thing?

Plato’s Dialogues, Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, Beethoven’s Fifth, the Golden Gate Bridge. Where did these things come from? Not the laws of nature.

For that matter, how do you explain Odyssey Coffee? Where did that come from? In 2018 when I was designing Odyssey I was a classics professor, not an entrepreneur.

But: an idea arises. An idea from somewhere. An Idea from Somewhere?

Maybe all Ideas come from Somewhere Else.

Tonight will be the last performance of this year’s Ocean Grove Children’s Show. It’s Peter Pan. The only year in which all three Lipp boys will be in it together: Isaac plays Captain Hook, Hayden plays the pirate Webster, and Eli plays the pirate Plankton. 

Listen as it begins with young voices, sweet voices, singing in the Youth Temple off Pilgrim Pathway in Ocean Grove:

Come with me to Kensington where the gardens are alive

Breathing soft the air at twilight

Making music unforgettable in the cool of night

In the cool of evening, misty waterfalls dance their wonder

While the moon is shining down

Painting whispers on the ground

Painting whispers all around

—
Come with me to Kensington

Feel the evening breezes blow

Moving to a rhythm timeless

Played before, and now, and long ago

Calling like a dream

Dancing to the laughter in the waterfalls

Singing music none have ever heard before

Mixing starlight with the sound

Trailing echoes all around

If Mr. S. M. really is a living mystic in touch with Someone Else in Another Place yet totally grounded here on earth, then I’d like to be a member of a community devoted to curating a refuge away from the noise of this place so that the weary humans here can have a fighting chance of hearing the music from There.

To that end we work,

Joey