dear jesus,
i pray to you not as one of your followers.

in fact, i pray to you as someone who holds many of your followers in contempt. i pray to you as an ancestor, a predecessor, as far-fetched and unlikely as that might be.

because today, you showed yourself to me. as i sat, writing music of praise as part of a piece about profanity and pain, you arrived. you saw that i was using words meant for you, and you helped me birth a piece. a finished piece.

bars and bars, not left languished and forgotten. but bars cohesive and devout, and most importantly, punctuated with double bars.

double bars! how long has it been since i've drawn double bars!

yes, it is only dots on a page. yes, it will need to be reworked, edited, rescored and polished. it is not perfect. and it is so simple, it might have even been written by someone else before. but it is done. and it came from me with the ease of a sigh. and i was in it. i listened to every note, i felt the timbres of my creaky piano. i actually let each tone wash over my body and into me and listened for the praise. listened for the pathos. listened for you.

perhaps the reason why your followers are so devout is not because you are the only begotten son. perhaps it is because you are the muse, the mentor, the spirit of creativity and making. perhaps it is because you have sat with many before me, writing, drawing, scribbling notes and just at the right moment, you have whispered, inaudibly, "yes, that's the one."

because that is what you were to me, today, just over an hour ago. setting old text written by old men, men who would probably never even deign to sit next to me, you knew that it needed your guidance.

and so.

alleluia.
laudate eum in sono tubae.
hossanna in excelsis.