WE just watched the movie August Rush. It’s about an 11-year-old boy.

The boy is extraordinary because he has such a keen sense of connection. He listens to everything around him and calls it music.

We find him at the very start of the movie in a home where boys are temporarily placed before adoption. His one goal there was to make music in the hope that his real parents would hear his music. He was hoping one day to be reunited with them through his music.

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The movie is so full of insights. It is such a beautiful and moving story of faith, of love and of being one with everything around us.

Twenty one souls who spent the day at Victor and Marilou Chiongbian’s beautiful home came away so full of love, so full of the sensitivity of being one with all that surrounds us especially the beauty of God’s creation.

Last June 25, as I knelt in my pew just before the 6 a.m. mass started, I was so engrossed in my prayers. However, in the midst of my being quiet, I heard a small boy’s voice behind me.

“Balloons, look at the balloons.” His father shushed him and said, “We cannot get them anymore.”

As I looked around, hoping to find the object of his ecstatic cry of joy, I looked upwards and the sight filled me with awe.

Clustered just above us in big dome were 12 balloons. Nine of them were red, two were pink and one light green. They were so arranged neatly in a cluster that one would think that a famous painter had painted a picture of riotous colors, bursting with life.

Trust adults to be oblivious of the beauty around us. It took an innocent child of seven to lead us to the joy of seeing something extraordinary from a few balloons.

Again the boy asked the father, “They will have to come down, right?”

The father answered, “When the helium diminishes in each one of them it will, but that will take some time yet. In the meantime let’s keep quiet and listen to God.”

The boy was well behaved throughout the whole mass. However, I could not resist telling him on the way out of church. “The balloons were so beautiful, did you ever see anything like that so well arranged?”

It was the mother who answered. “It is still the week after mother Mary’s feast day. I guess even the balloons wanted to look pretty for her.”

What I heard was the strength of faith in the mother of the little boy. He sure is a lucky little one.

In the movie, August Rush, the boy’s friend asked, “What if our parents don’t come to us?”

The boy answered, “Then we will just have to go looking for them.” Such faith in the belief that there is a oneness all around us, which we can connect with.

For nearly three months now I’ve been doing 25-minute brisk walks in an area where a lot of people have the same mode of exercise that I have.

During this length of time, a wonderful group of people of Chinese descent have extended me their very warm friendship, which started when I recognized one of my former students in their group. Because I would smile at them first and would greet them with a cherry good morning, I now can feel their warmth of friendship every time we would meet each other on the paths we take.

There is a lovely husband and wife team who wear matching t-shirts and who I especially look out for. Why? Because their hearts are pure and open to respond to innate goodness. I miss them when they are absent and vice versa.

The music that we all share is the happiness of being alive, the fresh air, the birds in the trees, the early morning sun, the dew on the grass and the warmth of friendship.

So, be quiet, listen, go out and take in the wonders of creation. God sends us “music of the heart” all around us. It’s all a matter of listening, feeling, living and being!