It’s a great song. I use to sing and play it on the piano when I was in high school.
This musician, Adelaide Anne Proctor, was noodling on the keyboard, when, without knowing what she was playing she struck the most beautiful chord. It was exquisite, it entered her soul, her heart leaped for joy, she felt comfort, love, peace. She was ecstatic. She quickly pulled her fingers off the keyboard in surprise. She looked down at the keyboard, what was that chord?! She tried to find it again, but couldn’t. For the rest of her life she would search for that chord. The Lost Chord. She never found it. She writes that maybe when she gets to heaven it will be there.
At some time in our lives we have that beautiful experience, that beautiful chord. It is called an Epiphany. And we want it back, not just as a memory. We want to feel it again, but it seems to be lost. Adelaide Anne Proctor mentions her fevered spirit, pain, sorrow, discord, and perplexed meanings. Sounds like us: a fevered spirit, pain physically or emotionally or relationally, sorrow, discord? Discord coming from every direction: world, nation, community, church, family, marriage, even within yourself. Perplexed meanings as we try to understand circumstances.
You and I too have a longing for that Lost Chord, the experience that brought calm, love, peace. If only we could re-capture that beautiful moment, that exquisite experience. The Lost Chord. Missing it has driven many to despair and to substitutes, settling for something less.
Centering Prayer is taking the time, the quiet, the stillness, to listen, and wait for the Lost Chord. We do not have to delay until we get to heaven to hear it, to experience it. Wait for that touch of infinite calm. Let Jesus quiet our pain and sorrow, the strife in our discordant life, our unanswered questions. What Adelaide did not understand was that God was calling to her in the beauty of that Chord. God was speaking to her heart. Jesus is tenderly calling today with a beautiful chord, if we will Listen. Wait. Embrace. The Chord is there on the keyboard of our lives. Jesus is tenderly calling today.
The Lost Chord by Adelaide Anne Proctor, words 1860; Sir Arthur Sullivan, tune
Seated one day at the organ, I was
weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly over the noisy keys;
I knew not what I was playing, or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight like
the close of an Angel’s Psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit with a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow like love overcoming strife,
It seemed the harmonious echo from our discordant life.
It linked all perplexed meanings
into one perfect peace
And trembled away into silence as if it were lothe to cease;
I have sought, but I seek it vainly, that one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ and entered into mine.
It may be that Death’s bright Angel
will speak in that chord again;
It may be that only in Heav’n I shall hear that grand Amen!