The Wizard And The Minister Of Music

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” - Winston Churchill. Nothing is as hard as seeing the future from the past, and nothing is as rewarding as seeing the past from the future. Life at The Bat Cave was filled with precursors to and causes of my adult life. Last week, I talked about my future career as a non-prodigy physicist. This week, I'll tell you how my future as a minister of music looks through the crystal ball of the past.

Children learn from watching what people around them do, and then reenacting what they see in play. When I was a kid, I “played” everything. I played war. I played baseball. I played Batman - which was easy since I was Batman. I played “Work” - which was a boring game since I didn't understand what Dad did when he went there. One day, a friend of mine and I cast around for something to do; and we decided to play church. It was a reasonable thing to decide, since we spent hours every week sitting in church. The pastor, the minister of music, the choir, the pianist, the organist, and the Sunday School director all got up on the platform every week and did things that we didn't always understand; but that we could always predict. The pastor stood up and talked forever. The Sunday School director went to the pulpit and told how many people had been in Sunday School. I remember being very excited when my Aunt Gloria told me that the number of people he reported included children because I thought only the adults counted. The minister of music directed all of the singing.

To me, the minister of music was the most important and amazing person in the church. He had the ability to control the actions of every single person in the church by simply waving his arms around. When he moved his arms in a certain way, everyone stood up. When he moved his arms a different way, the pianist and organist played music. When he moved his arms in a slightly different way, everyone sang. No one ever did anything other than what the minister of music made them do with his arms. He was like the wizard in Fantasia! Naturally, when we decided to play church, I made my friend be the pastor. I wanted to be the minister of music. Singing was fun; and controlling a building filled with people by simply waving your arms was a mysterious, wonderful ability!

My favorite song was Power In The Blood.