Playing with a broken string

 It is said that during a concert in Munich, Ole Bull—the highly acclaimed, 19th-century Norwegian violinist—brilliantly finished a piece he was playing even after one of the strings on his violin snapped. “That,” noted Fosdick, “is the human problem in epitome.” Playing on after a string has broken, “fighting with the scabbard after the sword is gone,” living with life’s remainders, staying in the battle after a defeat—are challenges that each will face, sooner or later. Paradise Lost isn’t everybody’s cup of literary tea, but can we not admire Milton after learning that he wrote it despite being totally blind? And what about Beethoven, who composed some of his greatest works after he was completely deaf?

One of the better parts of my life has been the privilege—the honor—of knowing people who have played on, stunningly, despite a broken string.

Now in his nineties, J. O. last year buried Geneva, his beloved wife of nearly seventy years. He still lives by himself on the farm, working the garden, bowling with neighbors on Monday mornings, keeping the house as Geneva would have done, and being a pillar in the church (which meets just around the corner from him)—all the while smiling through his loneliness.

I’ve known Laura since she was a young girl. She grew up, married a fine man, and became a mother. But recently, she had to say goodbye to her baby girl and father within days of each other. Yet in the midst of her grief—a few weeks ago I go to the mailbox and find a card from Laura, sent to comfort me on the anniversary of my mom’s passing.

And then there’s Reggie and Janice, who lost their daughter to cancer and their son to an accident, who have done all they can to see their grandchildren through troubled waters, who are dealing with the debilitations of aging, disease, and misfortune. I wish you could have heard the joy in Reggie’s voice yesterday when he told me of a young man who was baptized last Sunday after he (Reggie) had studied with him.

I could go on, telling of other brave ones who have been broken by sin (their own and others); who have been abandoned by their spouse and left to hold the family together by themselves; who have outlived their children; who have been catherized, chemoed, radiatiated, dialysized; who have lost those closest to them to death or Alzheimer’s; whose children have broken their heart; who have endured slander and lies; who are barely hanging on while growing old. Of such my friend Jim McGuiggan wrote that “Countless sufferers, real sufferers have made it clear to us that suffering isn’t Lord! They will not be victims! They don’t have the time for endless self-pity; they have too much they can and feel they want to do! . . . Not all sufferers take this approach . . . but there are enough of them . . . to make clear that they’re bigger than their suffering!” (The Power to See It Through, 64–65).

Baille tells us that he spent many a long, blacked-out evening during the Second World War reading books written about the First World War. “In one of these books the question is asked as to what kind of man it was who really won the war for us, and the answer proposed is this: ‘He was a plain man awake all night in a ditch.’”

It’s the plain folks, who lie awake at night in an emotional ditch, scared, sorrowing, and anxious, but get up every morning to “dare beyond their strength, hazard against their judgment, and in extremity be of excellent hope,” who are life’s true virtuosos.

So let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Comfort one another with these words.     Kenny Chumbley (Prairie Paper #153)