As my friend, Bob Britt, has his final radiation treatment in this long fight against cancer, I want to celebrate my friend today. I shared some of this in my church newsletter this month and at our fundraiser last Spring as we started this journey, but I think it’s a message to put in print and to share with others. You don’t have to be a guitar player to understand this way of life, faith, and love that I see in this man.
I was reminded about how I experience Bob as he posted this cover photo on Facebook.
At first look, it may not seem so impressive, but if you know the man, you get the picture.
To understand the man, this message, and your own way in the world, consider your own thumb and fingers and how your hand works.
Fingers can touch many things, even grasp quite well. What the fingers of your hand lack the ability to do is to touch one another. The tip of your index finger cannot touch the tip of your pinky directly, at least not the ones on your same hand. Thumbs, however, are unique among the digits of your hand in that the thumb is capable of touching each finger directly.
In this life, you will encounter people who are like fingers, they can be touched, they can grasp and grab, but are unable and unskilled at touching others directly. They are close to others but unable to make direct contact no matter how they reach and stretch. In life, you also encounter people who are like thumbs, they touch others with ease. They can grasp and grab like others, though it doesn’t come as natural to them. What does come natural is intimate contact and support. They are designed for and have developed skill in touching others and enabling each to reach his or her designed purpose and potential.
Thumbs also play a crucial role for guitar players. For most of us who pluck at a guitar, our thumbs never press a string. Thumbs do not press strings directly, so at first, the essential role a thumb plays may go unnoticed. If you pay attention, even look closely at the picture of Bob’s thumb and guitar, you see how, without the supportive effort of the thumb, the fingers would never have the strength alone to press the strings and make music possible.
My friend Bob is a thumb. As a guitar player, he is able to step into any group of musicians and see what not only the band needs as a group and as individual artists, he can even see what the song needs and offer it. He makes music as well as life better for others. Bob has touched lives directly and personally made so many people, musicians, artists, and just regular Joes and Janes like Carrie and me experience life in a way much fuller than we would have without him. That’s what thumbs do.
So, Bob’s thumb is a great image for him as well as an example for us. Be a thumb. Touch another life. Make music possible.
JOY!
David
p.s.. Here is a video of Bob playing with many different people that gives some great images to what thumbs do. Notice how many folks Bob makes better. That’s what skilled musicians do. It’s also what friends do for one another.
