A Missy Story...
“Button up your shirt Ralphy... get your shoes on Sherry... come back here Candy... ” Missy’s mom hurried around trying to get 4 kids out the door. They were going to a concert where Missy’s grandmother was going to play the violin.
After everyone was packed into the car they drove on the freeway, off an exit and up a hill until they reached a beautiful symphony hall. On the way Missy remembered listening to her grandmother practicing her violin in her front room. She enjoyed the story the music seemed to tell. The strings would bring her imagination through a simple story told from a violin’s perspective.
As Missy and her family walked in to find their seats the sounds of hundreds of instruments tuning up filled the room. She noticed moments of particular instruments sounding fine, but all together it sounded like many instruments just making noise. Missy’s eyes scanned the hundreds of orchestra members to find the violins. Spotting her grandmother Missy strained her ears to see if she could hear her grandmother’s violin over the noise. It didn’t appear to be possible. All of that hard work just to be lost in the mix. Were they each fighting to be heard? It seemed like a shame.
As the conductor stepped up and the evening got started all of that noise completely vanished and was replaced by hundreds of unique musical perspectives becoming one glorious story... told all at once. All at once it was like they were agreeing with each other, adding on, picking up where others left off. Not one more important than the next. Somehow the noise changed and the instruments blended perfectly. Missy’s heart raced at the impact the music made. No, she could not hear her grandmother’s violin above the rest, but it didn’t seem like a shame anymore. The simple story she had heard her grandmother’s violin tell suddenly became a grand overwhelming journey traveling through every cell in Missy’s body. Gaps filled in with new and amazing sounds where she remembered her grandmother pausing. What seemed simple transformed into a breathtaking voyage.
To think, that every one of those orchestra members had practiced on their own as her grandmother did. Missy’s grandmother had said, “I have to practice every day or else I will not be able to play with the orchestra.” At the time Missy didn’t realize what that meant. Now, she understood. Every single instrument sounded flawless. Missy noticed the members seemed to keep one eye on their music and the other on the conductor.
That conductor was a sight too. His arms waved around, pointing to groups of instruments as their parts emerged. His body and heart seemed to be in a musical zone that almost determined how the songs would turn out. Missy sat still for more than 2 hours. She did not even want to get up during the intermission. She was at awe that her grandmother was a part of something so big and fantastic.
For weeks after the performance Missy would try to hum some of the sounds she experienced and could only fill in the gaps in her head. She came to have a deep respect for what it meant to come together with others, under one conductor, to create a masterpiece. Her grandmother’s words ran through her head. “I have to practice every day or else I cannot play with the orchestra.”
Missy wondered, “What do I have to practice everyday so that I can be part of something big?”
It took many years for that question to be answered in full, but the beginnings of it came when she was cast in her first play.
Philippians 2:2
…fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
