Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? One of mine is to try harder and do better…to think positive…to think Christ…and to try to do good at all times. Here is a story about a guy who tried harder and did better
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.
He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap – it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage – to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn’t. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.
The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.
You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said – not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone –“You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”
What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life – not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.
Well, it happened! In the early morning hours of Christmas Eve, as Kathy returned from work, she found our snowy lane lined with hundreds of glowing tea lights. At the end was a radiant Carl with a ring in his hand and a proposal in his heart. She very happily accepted. Here they are, wearing the Christmas presents that Aaron and Carleen gave them: matching shirts with hearts that glow when they’re together and start to fade when they get very far away apart! They are adorable…both the shirts and the couple who wear them. Carl is here for most of the rest of 2008, and we’re all really enjoying him. AND, if you can believe this, he gave his Play Station and a whole pile of games as a Christmas inheritance gift to his three new little-brothers-in-law-to-be. Now, if that isn’t love, what is??! 🙂
So, do you want to see her ring? Here it is…a gorgeous square-cut diamond in white gold. It looks just beautiful!
On Christmas Eve, we also found time to do our two favorite activities. One is acting out the nativity story. This year we did it as a reader’s theater, and Joel was the narrator.
We also sang Christmas carols together. This picture was actually taken on Christmas night, when we sang together again. This time, Daniel’s girl friend, Brianna, was able to join us and played violin, while Alan strummed on his guitar and Stephen manned the piano. Daniel, Joel, and I sang in three-part harmony! What fun.
Christmas in Karwendel Mountains of Germany
Prague
Summer Setting 