I Am the Instrument: A Reflection on Sacred Transparency

You know that moment when you pick up your camera and suddenly… click. You’ve taken a picture. But you can’t even remember deciding to do it.

This happened to me a while ago. Walking on the beach, some young children scare off the birds scurrying on the seashore. My footing faltered, yet somehow my phone was in my hand. The photo: the birds flying off, leaving the food buried in the sand below, in a flurry all around me. The Southern Californian sun was mixed with the sea spray.  I stared at the image later, wondering. When did I take this? Why?

I am a camera, who cannot see, or even know why I took the picture.

We spend so much time trying to be good at things. Good photographers. Good musicians. Good writers. Good prayers, even. But what if… what if the trying is getting in the way?

Meister Eckhart knew something about this. He talked about the Grund—this deep place inside us where God lives. Not God as separate from us, but God as the very ground of who we are—the place we touch when we stop trying so hard.

My friend plays the flute. She used to practice for hours every day, frustrated that her music never quite captured what she heard in her heart. Then something shifted. She stopped practicing to get better and started just breathing into the instrument, letting whatever wanted to come, come.

I am a flute, who has the breadth, but not the sound, or from where it comes.

The music that flows through her now… it’s not hers, exactly. She has the breath. She learned the fingerings. But the melody? That comes from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper. And people stop on the street when they hear it. Not because it’s perfect. Because it’s true.

This is what Eckhart meant about detachment. Not coldness. Not not caring. But this letting go of our need to be the source of things. To be in control. To understand.

I write these morning reflections, and half the time I don’t know where the words come from. My fingers move across the keyboard and thoughts appear that I wasn’t thinking a moment before.

I write these words, as the ink bleeds from me, not knowing their form or meaning.

It’s unsettling at first. This not knowing. We want to be the author of our lives, our art, our prayers. But what if we’re meant to be something else? Something simpler and more mysterious?

What if we’re meant to be instruments?

Not tools that get used up. But… channels. Pipes with no blockages. Wires with no resistance. Waterfalls of God’s love, flowing through us into a world that’s thirsty for exactly what wants to come through.

The birds in my photo probably don’t know they were being photographed. The birds don’t know they’re beautiful. The light doesn’t know it’s falling perfectly. And yet… something is being revealed. Something is being shared.

I am a prayer, or sayer of thoughts, not of my making.

We can practice this. This not knowing. This letting go. We can learn to stop interrupting the flow with our need to understand it, to direct it, to take credit for it.

When you pick up your camera today, or your pen, or your instrument… try asking: What wants to be seen? What wants to be heard? What wants to be said?

Then step back. Breathe. Let your hands do what they know how to do. Let the light fall where it wants to fall. Let the words come from that deep place Eckhart called the ground of being.

You might be surprised by what flows through you when you stop trying to be the source.

You might discover you’ve always been the instrument you were meant to be.

Image, poem and Reflection Copyright 2025 Michael J. Cunningham

I Am the Instrument

I am an instrument.

I am a camera, who cannot see,

Or even know why I took the picture.

I am an instrument.

I am a flute, who has the breadth,

But not the sound, or from where it comes.

I am an instrument.

I write these words, as the ink bleeds from me,

Not knowing their form or meaning.

I am an instrument.

I am a prayer, or sayer of thoughts,

Not of my making.