The River Road and the Chinese Gong

There is a road that runs along the Mississippi River. It is called the River Road. Follow the River Road from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and you will see some of the most beautiful Ante-Bellum Plantations imaginable.

We were in the Triumph Spitfire and spent the day seeing the plantations. In one we took a tour. It was during this tour I saw a mysterious Chinese Gong. I fell immediately in love with it. Before we left the tour I made an offer to purchase the Chinese gong. The owner in the home was willing to sell it but unfortunately it was out of my price range at the time or I thought that it was.

It was to be a lesson that I would slowly learn over the years. Now obviously if you do not have the money, you do not have the money. Or if you need the money to buy shoes for the children, you buy the shoes. But sometimes.....you know how it is you see something, you have the money-but just are too cheap to spend it. Then when you finally go back to buy the object, it is not there.

I had that happen on a road trip once. Saw a great John Wilburn painting of a windmill for about $1500. I went down the road 25 miles, came back to my senses and went back to get it and it was gone. I did see the painting again several years later in a Houston Art Gallery for $25000.

The gong was not purchased. But it haunted me for years suggesting travel to romantic and mysterious places far away and of cultures that were unknown to me.

Many years later I would travel to China. When I was in Beijing I went into one of the antique areas and discovered a wonderful Chinese gong which I purchased that looked much like the gong I had seen on the River Road many years ago. Before I left the store I struck a gong that was larger and looked more modern and was so taken by the tone that I purchased it as well. I had so much medal in my suitcase that going back to the United States I was stopped at every security point. I have one gong at home and the other more modern gong at the office.

The larger gong is for children to strike when they come into the office. It is my hope as they strike the gong and hear its beautiful resonance that it will set off a spirit of resonance in them as the sound of the gong did in me as a young man driving along the Mississippi River Road and visiting the old plantation.

The larger gong continues to resonate long after it is struck. So it is in life. The things we do resonate.

I had a good friend of mine that I went through law school with many years ago. He was my best friend. He had been to West Point, then to Viet Nam, then to Harvard's Business School where he picked up an MBA. He and I went through law school together. On one occasion, he said that he knew his place in reality. It was like putting your finger in water and then removing it. Your life seemed to make no difference.

I do not believe it. I believe that our life is more like a pebble that is thrown into a pool but the pool does not have borders. The ripple extends throughout eternity.

The things we do make ripples in the eternal lake of time. My gong resonates-but a time comes when the resonance finally stops. But I can still hear the resonance of that gong along time ago along the Mississippi River. Its resonance has birthed another two gongs. One of those gongs is my daughter's dojo. The other gong will be struck by every child that visits my office. And the resonance of that gong will birth dreams and who knows perhaps more gongs in the future.

It is interesting that the Bible says that if we have not love we become like a "sounding gong." The music goes away because there is no love in it. But if we do have love for God and our fellowman perhaps the music never stops and the gong reverberates throughout all eternity.

HarleyDad