There is a British television show called The Repair Shop. This is a place where people bring old family heirlooms, often long forgotten, or damaged, or neglected, in hopes that the craftspeople in the shop can restore the item to something of its original beauty and more importantly, back into the family’s safe keeping. In one episode, the item was a violin. As the owner, an elderly lady, opened it before the camera, we saw a violin in multiple pieces. It had been her great-grandmother’s, and then her aunt’s. Her aunt was, as a Jew living in Germany during WWII, taken into a concentration camp where she played the violin for those inside the camp. When the war ended, the violin came to the woman’s father who continued to play it in their community for many years. Finally, the violin, battered and broken by time, use, and holocaust, ended in this woman’s possession. She hoped that it might be put back together and played once again.
Of course, as they always do on The Repair Shop, the violin was lovingly and painstakingly pieced back together into the beautiful instrument that it was, and a violinist was brought on the show to play it for the teary eyed woman who received her family’s violin back into her care. I can’t imagine an object more woven together with both suffering and joy than this violin. It had travelled through such unspeakable human suffering, and even in those darkest of places, it was able to give joy and comfort to others because someone dared to play it even in the worst of conditions.
One of the most difficult moments in the restoration process came when the craftsman working on it had to clean and refinish the fingerboard of the violin. His hesitation was that the finger prints and impressions of the previous owners of the violin could still be seen, but to clean it so that it could be played again meant losing them. He had no choice, but the loss was palpable. As soon as the violinist began to play the restored instrument, it was clear, though, that its very sound united the lives of all who had touched it over the decades.
I think our lives must be like that violin. We come to know so many experiences, suffering and joy and many on that spectrum. We can point to the “marks” left on our lives by each of them. Our lives, themselves, have made a kind of music for ourselves and for others that continues to play out in the lives we touch. We can find ways to play our music even when all around us seems devoid of music. Especially then. So, what is your joy today? What music is your life still playing?
~Bob Patrick
