06/16/2019

“Summertime, and the living is easy.  Fish are jumping and the cotton is high.  Your daddy’s rich and your mamma’s good-looking so hush little baby don’t you cry”, begins one of the great jazz classics.  Our extended family was having High Tea at the Canterbury Hotel in Indianapolis for a special celebration.  We were the only ones that afternoon in the tea room as a jazz pianist was playing.  He was quite accomplished and we were admiring his skill and he asked us if we had any requests.  There are many musicians in the family, some with real interests in jazz.  The requests were for songs like Brubeck’s “Take Five” and other classics like “Rhapsody in Blue”.  We gave him quite a work out.  Perhaps trying to for an easier song he asked Christy, then still a youngster, if she had a request.  When she requested “Summertime” his expression was a bit shocked and he said, “Who are you people?”  How often we might be shocked to learn just who the people are who are listening to us.  One time Abraham was sitting in the doorway of his tent when some men approached him.  He invited them to share his hospitality.  As he talked with them he realized that they were more than what he had first expected.  As a later scripture put it, “some have entertained angels unaware.”  When we speak who know who might be listening.