Growing Old Together

Monday Devotional

“Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things.

Isaiah 25:1

Hollywood actor Al Pacino once talked about attending a Frank Sinatra concert in the early 1980s.  When he arrived, he discovered that the opening act featured the legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich.  Suddenly, it dawned on Al that Buddy was in his sixties—and he was going to play the drums?  Al confessed, “I’m thinking, now I’m going to sit here and listen to him drum for a while and twiddle my thumbs until Frank Sinatra comes out.”

And then something totally unexpected happened.  Buddy Rich sat down and pulled sounds, rhythms, and cadences out of that set of instruments the likes of which Al Pacino had never heard.  He sat mesmerized, confessing that Buddy Rich “transcended what I thought he was gonna do tenfold.  And it became this experience.”

Rich amazed the entire audience.  Everyone stood up in unison and started screaming, at which point Frank Sinatra came out and said, “You see this guy drumming?  You know, sometimes it’s a good idea to stay at a thing.”