{"id":1829,"date":"2022-07-26T08:20:31","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T12:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2022-07-26T08:20:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T12:20:31","slug":"shadow-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/26\/shadow-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadow Missions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


In 1979, the Charlie Daniels Band proved that a song about fiddles could become a national hit.

The Devil Went Down to Georgia<\/em> is the account of an epic fiddle-playing contest between Satan and a young man named Johnny.\u00a0 Who is the ultimate virtuoso?\u00a0 The stakes are high \u2013 Johnny\u2019s soul.\u00a0 But as Daniels lets us know at the end of the song, Johnny is able to outplay the prince of darkness, earning the right to say he\u2019s \u201cthe best that\u2019s ever been.\u201d
\u00a0
In the real world of string instruments, music historians concur that \u201cthe best that\u2019s ever been\u201d is almost certainly the Italian violinist Niccola Paganini (1782-1840).\u00a0
\u00a0
His gifts were so extraordinary, in fact, that many of those who heard him became convinced he had sold his soul to Satan.\u00a0 How else could they account for his genius?
\u00a0
Paganini\u2019s chance to perform in the greatest concert halls of Europe lasted only 12 years.\u00a0 But it\u2019s hard to overstate his legendary impact.\u00a0 His compositions were so complex that they were considered unplayable \u2013 until Paganini himself showed up and played them.\u00a0 He was the world\u2019s first orchestral rock star.\u00a0 More than a century before Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles, young women threw themselves at his feet.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
Ever the showman, Paganini sometimes secretly filed notches into the G, D, and A strings of his four-string violin.\u00a0 Those strings would eventually snap under the pressure of his vigorous playing, leaving only the E string, which produces the highest notes on the scale.\u00a0 Then he would bring the house down by finishing his piece on the E string alone.\u00a0
\u00a0
His creativity and audacity are on full display in his best-known compositions, the 24 Caprices<\/em>.\u00a0 Few violinists have risen to the challenge of mastering them.\u00a0 One of them is a 19-year-old phenom named Sumina Studer.\u00a0 Here\u2019s her rendition of Caprice No. 5 in A Minor<\/em>:\u00a0 N. Paganini Caprice no. 5 | Sumina Studer – YouTube<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 Suffice it to say that she can give both Charlie Daniels and Johnny down in Georgia a run for their money.\u00a0
\u00a0
Hearing those incredibly high notes on the E string, it\u2019s easy to understand why audiences seriously entertained the thought that Paganini had made a deal with the devil.\u00a0\u00a0

Paganini himself stoked those rumors.\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
It helped that his name meant \u201clittle pagan.\u201d\u00a0 Tall and thin, he customarily dressed in black from head to toe and wore dark blue sunglasses.\u00a0 As late-stage syphilis took a toll on his body, his face was contorted into a spectral grimace.\u00a0 Gossips whispered that his E string was actually made from the intestine of one of his mistresses, whom he had murdered with his own hands.\u00a0 \u00a0He had supposedly languished in jail for 20 years to pay for this crime, his violin his only companion.\u00a0 During that time, with Lucifer\u2019s help, he had been given access to his instrument\u2019s greatest secrets.\u00a0
\u00a0
If your goal is to fill concert halls, you just can\u2019t ask for better publicity than that.
\u00a0
But that, of course, was the problem.\u00a0
\u00a0
Paganini \u2013 arguably the most gifted violinist of all time \u2013 succumbed to what sociologists would call his \u201cshadow mission.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
What\u2019s a shadow mission?\u00a0 It\u2019s a misuse of our gifts \u2013 a detour from the true mission we have each received from the One who provides all such gifts.\u00a0 A teacher\u2019s true mission is to grow the hearts and minds of students, not to pursue the shadow mission of becoming famous and popular because of exceptional teaching.\u00a0 A friend\u2019s true mission is to provide to others the treasures of compassion and partnership, not to give in to the shadow mission of using such friendships as a means to enter higher social circles.
\u00a0
In the case of great artists like Paganini, the true mission is to connect people to the enduring, God-given realities of beauty and truth.\u00a0 But there\u2019s always a temptation for one\u2019s performance to become All About Me.\u00a0 That\u2019s the shadow mission.\u00a0 And Paganini couldn\u2019t resist the rush of becoming known as the world\u2019s most spectacular entertainer.\u00a0
\u00a0
He died at the age of 57, essentially worn out by having \u201cbeen there and done that\u201d in every realm of life except peace of mind.\u00a0
\u00a0
Our culture applauds giftedness but shrugs at character.\u00a0 As long as you can hit home runs for the Yankees, impress Simon Cowell on America\u2019s Got Talent<\/em>, or make your audience both laugh and cry during your big talk at work, you can be a hero.\u00a0 You can even become a highly paid but seriously flawed human being.\u00a0
\u00a0
But apart from devoting ourselves to the character qualities we so desperately need to steer our talents wisely \u2013 humility, generosity, honesty, and love \u2013 our gifts will almost always lead us astray.\u00a0
\u00a0
They may even destroy us.
\u00a0
Does the devil really make deals with people in exchange for their souls?\u00a0 The Bible is silent on that subject.
\u00a0
But we may be fairly certain that dark powers will always be rooting for us to fall so deeply in love with our gifts that we gradually forget that life is all about walking with their ultimate Giver.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1979, the Charlie Daniels Band proved that a song about fiddles could become a national hit. The Devil Went Down to Georgia is the account of an epic fiddle-playing contest between Satan and a young man named Johnny.\u00a0 Who is the ultimate virtuoso?\u00a0 The stakes are high \u2013 Johnny\u2019s soul.\u00a0 But as Daniels lets us know at the end… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[230,229,476],"class_list":["post-1829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-character","tag-gifts","tag-shadow-mission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions\/1831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}