Last weekend I had the unexpected joy of hearing the North Dakota State University Concert Choir sing. They did a joint concert with the Rapid City Children’s Chorus, with whom my daughter sings. The audience was comprised mostly of parents, grandparents, and younger siblings of the kids in the Children’s Chorus.
The Children’s Chorus opened with an impressive performance. An intermission followed, during which I scanned the program of the NDSU Choir, finding only a small handful of college choristers on the roster who were not music majors. For this reason, they were bound to be good.
The chorus immediately captured me with their swells of pianissimo to forte; forte to hushed pianissimo. From the “Singet frisch und wohlgemut” to “Here I Am”, the luxuriant sound flowed like a rich caramel macchiato latte. My emotions crested as I was caught up in the memory of singing with the South Dakota State University Concert Choir over 20 years ago. I was hypnotized by the exquisiteness of their music and the hope in the words they were singing. It was ethereal. Except… it didn’t happen quite like that.
All the stuff about the luxuriant sound, the caramel macchiato latte, the exquisiteness of their music – that’s all true. But the cresting of my emotions did not happen in the form of a smooth, glorious rise, as in the rise of a wave, followed by sprays of water that reflect the noon-day sunlight. Instead, the waves were choppy, thrust by wind gusts. In reality, it went a bit like this:
A capella, vittorioso, Key of D: “Children sing all together, Praise the God of heaven, our need He has recognized, (kid #1 whines) and his dear Son sent from above, that we might praise Him (kid #1 screams, heads start to turn) here on earth. Praise we with love (grandpa #1 coughs loudly) and thanks (father 1 leaves the theatre, door slams behind him). Sing a new song to the Lord (kid #1 screams again, more heads turn). Praise him (kid #2 joins in) from the bottom of our hearts (kid #3 drops his toy truck on the cement floor), with one accord, and hope freely that to him (mother #1 whispers loudly telling kid #1 to be quiet) our service might be (kid #2’s screams turns into a wailing cry) a pleasure.”
For the love of SAM and all things good, if I was going to have any hope of experiencing an emotional high in the next hour, I needed to take action, quickly. I had three basic choices, as I saw it. One: Strangle kid #1. Two: Strangle mother #1. Three: Strangle both, in addition to kid #2. While mulling over my choices, it became apparent that all three might be a bit un-lady-like. The situation probably called for a more respectable course of action. So I left my seat and found one up close, hoping to hear better. Little did I know I sat down right behind kid #3, whose was chewing on loud snacks and moving from seat-to-seat, dropping markers.
Doesn’t it seem like that’s how beauty is in our lives? It comes, and then, it is interrupted. It washes over us, and then it’s gone. Beautiful sounds are interrupted by screaming kids. The concert of your favorite artist takes you to another place beyond this world, and for two consecutive hours you believe everything really is glorious. Then, you gather your belongings, make your way out to the parking lot with swarms of people, and fight traffic to get home. A vacation to the ocean is full of relaxation, warm sun, and beauty as far as the eye can see, and then, it comes to an end. It’s back to work. A beautiful experience that begins to fulfill a life-long dream is cut off. Beauty is interrupted by disappointment; disillusionment. A beautiful relationship is cut short by change. People move away. A treasured relationship can be interrupted; damaged by anger, by disease, and ultimately, by death.
Where do we file regrets? The ache from a rhapsody that rises, then comes to a halt? Broken relationships? Dashed dreams? They don’t fit on 8 ½ x 11 sheets of paper, and therefore, we can’t just store them in a filing cabinet, away from plain view, with labels like “ Regret”. “Friend that moved away”. “Disappointment #1”, “Grandmother that has Alzheimer’s”. They have odd shapes. They are jagged, sometimes caked with mud. They don’t fit anywhere. Each interrupted, broken piece of beauty is like a broken piece of colored glass with rough edges. We feel pain as the glass breaks, and then we ache over our inability to mend them; resolve them, to resume the songs they represent. Since we can’t fix them, and we can’t file them, we often throw them in the trash so that, finally, we can put an end to staring at their brokenness.
But we are not so clever. Even as we think they are being safely whisked away, to the junkyard, forever out of site, God snatches them in secret. He keeps them. Protects them. Watches over them. You see, He is the master stained-glass craftsman. One day, we will be His apprentices, learning the craft of stained glass creation and restoration. He will retrieve these pieces from safekeeping and hand them over to us so that we can begin building. In their disjointedness and jaggedness they are the perfect shape to create a window that will display an amalgamation of the broken, unfinished pieces of our lives. We won’t have to force the glass pieces to fit together. They will eerily interlock to form an unexpected, breathtaking beauty. That regret will fit perfectly with that disappointment; that loss with that heartache. Using putty and solder, we’ll work right alongside our loved ones, perhaps helping one another; turn our broken pieces into beautiful works of art. At last, we will get to see, in visible form, their interwoven purposes. It will be the ultimate display of God’s ability to turn brokenness to beauty. Beauty, interrupted. Beauty, restored. Rhapsody resumed.
Epilogue
In a week we celebrate Easter. It’s the ultimate reality of beauty broken, beauty restored. The beautiful life of Jesus, cut short. Broken. Jagged. The disciples didn’t know where to file this reality. It wouldn’t fit anywhere that made sense; nowhere that would alleviate their devastation. But God, using the same power that restores our brokenness, restored Jesus’ brokenness. This restoration is now what restores us. The new resurrection reality doesn’t fit nicely in a filing cabinet either. It isn’t well-stored. It’s well-lived. Have a blessed Easter.
“May God, who puts all things together,
makes all things whole,
Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus,
the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant,
Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd,
up and alive from the dead,
Now put you together, provide you
with everything you need to please him,
Make us into what gives him most pleasure,
by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah.
All glory to Jesus forever and always!
Oh yes, yes, yes. (Hebrews 13:20-:21, the Message)
The Children’s Chorus opened with an impressive performance. An intermission followed, during which I scanned the program of the NDSU Choir, finding only a small handful of college choristers on the roster who were not music majors. For this reason, they were bound to be good.
The chorus immediately captured me with their swells of pianissimo to forte; forte to hushed pianissimo. From the “Singet frisch und wohlgemut” to “Here I Am”, the luxuriant sound flowed like a rich caramel macchiato latte. My emotions crested as I was caught up in the memory of singing with the South Dakota State University Concert Choir over 20 years ago. I was hypnotized by the exquisiteness of their music and the hope in the words they were singing. It was ethereal. Except… it didn’t happen quite like that.
All the stuff about the luxuriant sound, the caramel macchiato latte, the exquisiteness of their music – that’s all true. But the cresting of my emotions did not happen in the form of a smooth, glorious rise, as in the rise of a wave, followed by sprays of water that reflect the noon-day sunlight. Instead, the waves were choppy, thrust by wind gusts. In reality, it went a bit like this:
A capella, vittorioso, Key of D: “Children sing all together, Praise the God of heaven, our need He has recognized, (kid #1 whines) and his dear Son sent from above, that we might praise Him (kid #1 screams, heads start to turn) here on earth. Praise we with love (grandpa #1 coughs loudly) and thanks (father 1 leaves the theatre, door slams behind him). Sing a new song to the Lord (kid #1 screams again, more heads turn). Praise him (kid #2 joins in) from the bottom of our hearts (kid #3 drops his toy truck on the cement floor), with one accord, and hope freely that to him (mother #1 whispers loudly telling kid #1 to be quiet) our service might be (kid #2’s screams turns into a wailing cry) a pleasure.”
For the love of SAM and all things good, if I was going to have any hope of experiencing an emotional high in the next hour, I needed to take action, quickly. I had three basic choices, as I saw it. One: Strangle kid #1. Two: Strangle mother #1. Three: Strangle both, in addition to kid #2. While mulling over my choices, it became apparent that all three might be a bit un-lady-like. The situation probably called for a more respectable course of action. So I left my seat and found one up close, hoping to hear better. Little did I know I sat down right behind kid #3, whose was chewing on loud snacks and moving from seat-to-seat, dropping markers.
Doesn’t it seem like that’s how beauty is in our lives? It comes, and then, it is interrupted. It washes over us, and then it’s gone. Beautiful sounds are interrupted by screaming kids. The concert of your favorite artist takes you to another place beyond this world, and for two consecutive hours you believe everything really is glorious. Then, you gather your belongings, make your way out to the parking lot with swarms of people, and fight traffic to get home. A vacation to the ocean is full of relaxation, warm sun, and beauty as far as the eye can see, and then, it comes to an end. It’s back to work. A beautiful experience that begins to fulfill a life-long dream is cut off. Beauty is interrupted by disappointment; disillusionment. A beautiful relationship is cut short by change. People move away. A treasured relationship can be interrupted; damaged by anger, by disease, and ultimately, by death.
Where do we file regrets? The ache from a rhapsody that rises, then comes to a halt? Broken relationships? Dashed dreams? They don’t fit on 8 ½ x 11 sheets of paper, and therefore, we can’t just store them in a filing cabinet, away from plain view, with labels like “ Regret”. “Friend that moved away”. “Disappointment #1”, “Grandmother that has Alzheimer’s”. They have odd shapes. They are jagged, sometimes caked with mud. They don’t fit anywhere. Each interrupted, broken piece of beauty is like a broken piece of colored glass with rough edges. We feel pain as the glass breaks, and then we ache over our inability to mend them; resolve them, to resume the songs they represent. Since we can’t fix them, and we can’t file them, we often throw them in the trash so that, finally, we can put an end to staring at their brokenness.
But we are not so clever. Even as we think they are being safely whisked away, to the junkyard, forever out of site, God snatches them in secret. He keeps them. Protects them. Watches over them. You see, He is the master stained-glass craftsman. One day, we will be His apprentices, learning the craft of stained glass creation and restoration. He will retrieve these pieces from safekeeping and hand them over to us so that we can begin building. In their disjointedness and jaggedness they are the perfect shape to create a window that will display an amalgamation of the broken, unfinished pieces of our lives. We won’t have to force the glass pieces to fit together. They will eerily interlock to form an unexpected, breathtaking beauty. That regret will fit perfectly with that disappointment; that loss with that heartache. Using putty and solder, we’ll work right alongside our loved ones, perhaps helping one another; turn our broken pieces into beautiful works of art. At last, we will get to see, in visible form, their interwoven purposes. It will be the ultimate display of God’s ability to turn brokenness to beauty. Beauty, interrupted. Beauty, restored. Rhapsody resumed.
Epilogue
In a week we celebrate Easter. It’s the ultimate reality of beauty broken, beauty restored. The beautiful life of Jesus, cut short. Broken. Jagged. The disciples didn’t know where to file this reality. It wouldn’t fit anywhere that made sense; nowhere that would alleviate their devastation. But God, using the same power that restores our brokenness, restored Jesus’ brokenness. This restoration is now what restores us. The new resurrection reality doesn’t fit nicely in a filing cabinet either. It isn’t well-stored. It’s well-lived. Have a blessed Easter.
“May God, who puts all things together,
makes all things whole,
Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus,
the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant,
Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd,
up and alive from the dead,
Now put you together, provide you
with everything you need to please him,
Make us into what gives him most pleasure,
by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah.
All glory to Jesus forever and always!
Oh yes, yes, yes. (Hebrews 13:20-:21, the Message)
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