Tony and I had a moment during his marvelous concert Saturday evening.
Well, I had a moment anyway. Tony Meléndez probably doesn’t remember it even happening. It was while his wife Lynn was at the mic, telling a few stories about their beautiful life together. Taking a break from his performance, Tony sat down right next to me, in the second pew.
Lynn was speaking about her father’s reluctance to the budding romance. “Musician?” her father asked. “What’s gonna be his real job?”, wondering aloud how the armless entertainer expected to support his precious daughter and a family. Right about then, Tony leaned toward me and laughed, “True story!”
And his laugh transported me back in time – to the Kirkwood home where my own Sweetie grew up, and I was being quizzed by her Dad following a Friday evening dinner. “Writer?” he inquired, one eyebrow raised skeptically. “How can you make a living doing that?”
How indeed?
Had I known Tony Meléndez at the time, I might have answered “Hope!” It’s the coin of his realm, the commission given to him by Pope John Paul II following a 1987 performance in Los Angeles. “Continue giving hope to all the people,” the pontiff said, after kissing the musician on the forehead.
That kiss and those words have had a remarkable impact, Tony noted. They amounted to a gift from heaven, launching a career that has taken Tony and his small entourage to 45 countries and all 50 states for concerts both large and small.
While my own experience of hope’s impact has been considerably more modest, I share Tony’s wonder at the simple fact of God’s graciousness in our lives. He plays the guitar with his toes. I put squiggles on paper (or LCD screen). We both try our best to give God glory through these gifts.
That said, my Sweetie’s father probably had good reason to be skeptical about the lad sitting on the sofa in the late 1970s. Then – as now – he has rough edges (such as self-centeredness, impetuousness and a certain stubborn obliviousness) that need smoothing. Substantial smoothing. Much hope would have been needed to see any real potential in him, in me.
Remarkably, the hope has been there. Hope, and grace, in outsized measure, pretty much all the days of my life – even (and perhaps especially) on the days when I’ve been oblivious to their presence.
Which, on some level, is precisely what we celebrate today, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: God’s saving presence in our broken world. God’s sending his Son, Jesus, not to condemn the world for its folly, but to raise it up. To give us hope.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 
Beautifully done, John. For whatever reason, I have never had the opportunity to hear or see Tony, and I wish I had been paying attention to the internets and would have known about this. In any case, thanks for telling a bit of his story, and yours. Us penniless writers need to stick together against the inlaws…
I remember those conversations and feelings. And also the hope that there would always be enough.
Steve
My bad, Steve, for not alerting you! (There’s that pesky obliviousness of mine poking up again!) But if you do get the chance to see Tony, please go! He has a beautiful voice, to go along with his other-worldly (heavenly) strummin’ skills!