Real Fakes

When we watch the Beatles Tribute band tonight in the cool blue mountains of NC, I will be paying close attention to the strumming fingers position. That is because during Asherel's work with me yesterday on my guitar, she told me I needed to see a video of myself playing. I protested, but she insisted it would be helpful. I could tell by the way she was laughing too hard to speak that there was something to be revealed on video that I was not going to like, something about how I was strumming.

I noticed a major problem immediately as she played back the video of me playing the one song I am struggling to learn.
"Some one has replaced my face," I said, "And stolen my smooth skin and stretched out my neck like an old rubberband."
The angle Asherel had chosen to video tape me was looking up from the floor, right into the wattles of my chin flapping around and the dark slits of carvernous nostrils.
"I look like a parrot," i said glumly, "Don't you think you could have found a more flattering angle?"
She studied me carefully, and then said, "No....but just focus on your hand."
"It looks like a claw," I said.
"Exactly."
"What should I do?"
"Strum with your fingers open, like this." She showed me.
"Ok, but delete that video."
"I will, later."
"No, now!"
I snatched the camera and deleted it myself with a shudder.
I just don't remember transitioning to ....this. When did all this disintegration happen?

"Try it again," said Asherel, "Keep your fingers open."
So I sang my one song and strummed with my fingers open as best I could. Asherel played back the video. The same face that had scared me on the first video still taunted me. The fingers were still clawed.
"Why don't other guitar players hands look so awful?" I asked.
"Here, maybe it is the guitar. Try mine. It is easier to play."

I know this sounds like an excuse, but honestly, my small hand doesn't easily span the fat neck of my good guitar, so I use the $10 3/4th size guitar we found in the trash. My fingers can get around the thinner neck, but the guitar is hard to play otherwise. Asherel has a good guitar, signed by John Lennon.
"Is it his real signature!?" asked her friend Josh, amazed.
"Yes," she told him, "It is a print of his real signature, so it is a fake real  signature."

There is a lot of fake realness around. The Beatles we are going to see tonight are fake real Beatles, in fact.
There are fake designer clothes and fake Rolex watches sold for $10 in NYC that are indistinguishable from the real ones. There are fake plants in our homes, and even one homeowner in a nearby neighborhood that plants fake plastic flowers around his mailbox. Most of the beautiful people in magazines have fake body parts surgically altered to perfection. The promises of the blaring commercials for total happiness if only we would just buy that are all fake, all empty, all moth wings that crumble into a puff of dust when you examine them closely.

Remember that child's story about the toy bunny that wanted to be real? He was admonished to wait....eventually, if he was loved enough, he would become real. Of course, since it is a tale meant to soothe children to sleep, he does become real in the end. I like the moral, but the story is fake. Toys don't become real no matter how much you love them. Believe me, I have tried.

The master Faker is disguised as an angel of light. He promises a world that is not his to give, and fills our hearts with deceptions and lies that ridicule the only Reality worth knowing. In Psalm 144, the psalmist recognizes that by praising the One who defeats the Faker, he can sing a new song.... a real song....an original song.....and he does so with a stringed instrument. I'll bet his fingers are not clawed as he makes the only music that lasts forever.

I looked at the video Asherel had just shot of me. I still had clawed hands, still had dripping skin, and still missed half my notes, even with the good guitar.
"It's better, said Asherel, "But maybe you should try a new song."
Maybe I should.

Psalm 144:7-9

⁷ Reach down your hand from on high;
   deliver me and rescue me
from the mighty waters,
   from the hands of foreigners
⁸ whose mouths are full of lies,
   whose right hands are deceitful.
 ⁹ I will sing a new song to you, my God;
   on the ten-stringed lyre I will make music to you,