Second Violin

I’ve been surprised that almost no one’s asked why I started playing violin this year. True, I was a band and choir teacher. My mind and my ear know music. But my playing violin is rather like a shop teacher constructing a viola (I know one that did), or a painter deciding to work in marble. It can be done, but only with a lot of retooling.

Maybe no one’s surprised by my choice because they know others who’ve done similar things. I remember almost 35 years ao when Granddad told me he was learning Spanish. He and Grandma had moved to Florida. He’d noticed the many Spanish speakers around him and decided to take up the language.

Maybe my trying New Horizons Orchestra – or you doing whatever you’re trying – helps others to believe they can become more than they are. In The Lord of the Rings movies (I don’t remember if it’s in the books) Frodo tries to explain to Sam why he treats Gollum with compassion. 

Frodo: Why do you do that? … Call him names, run him down all the time.

Sam: Because... because that's what he is, Mr. Frodo. There's naught left in him but lies and deceit. It's the ring he wants; it's all he cares about.

Frodo: You have no idea what it did to him... what it's still doing to him. I want to help him, Sam.

Sam: Why?

Frodo: Because I have to believe he can come back.

The same burden that slowly destroyed Gollum’s humanity, is slowly taking Frodo’s as well. He fervently hopes that Gollum can be saved, because then, there’s hope for him as well.

Tolkien’s story suggests that only by reaching beyond our own comfortable place in the world, only by connecting with others – even the most despised – can we find our own humanity. We see this in the leaders of at least some religions – Jesus being the one I’m most familiar with. We see it in those most human ones of our recent past – Dorothy Day, Pope Francis, Nelson Mandela – and in certain people around us, the ones who are not content with the half-life that we lead when we’re focused only on our own day-to-day affairs.

Few people realize when they start out that they’re doing a great thing. They simply do something because it needs to be done. We call them courageous, but I’ve come to understand that this kind of courage is simply a realization that the alternative action (or inaction) is too awful to be born.

Yes, I was nervous at the orchestra first rehearsal. I was scared my first day at seminary, too. And I’ve trembled when I said things I felt led to say. But, not to have spoken? Or, to have missed the seminary experience, and this great adventure of pastoral ministry? Never try orchestra? In each case, the risk was preferable to not having tried.

I started playing second violin in a community orchestra as a self-care practice, doing something I love (making music with others who share that love.) I’m not doing any great thing that I can recognize. My hope is that by taking the time for this I will be more ready to do other things that can make a difference, guiding others to connect with their humanity. And I count that as a good thing.

What do you love doing? Where’s your passion? Do you make time for it? I had to make mine a priority, making choices that not everyone at work may have been happy with. It may be that way for you.

Even in my sleep deprived state, I can tell that this entry doesn’t hold together well, but I will lay it out there anyway. May you find something in the reading that feeds you.