Hey, what's that? Some guy on the back row has picked up some kind of stage prop and made a loud noise. Where did he come from? Is he even a musician? Anybody can bang two gizmos together. Sheesh. What has he been doing during the song while the real experts have been giving it their all?
He was doing precisely what the composer and conducter wanted him to do. He was resting and counting the measures, staying in readiness to unleash his peculiar joyful noise at the right moment.
Cameras are deceiving. The art of the camera is in what it leaves outside of the frame. Great pictures are made by cropping. During our symphony, the camera is showing the guys who are playing the conspicuous parts. That's just good TV. But have you ever wondered what everyone else is doing?
They are counting. They are emptying spit valves and keeping warm air in the horn. They are looking and listening to their peers. They are obeying the composer and conductor by resting. They are silent by design.
I have a friend whose electronic signature contains the quote, "There is no music in a rest, but there is making of music in it."
If you think about it a certain way, a rest seems absurd for such gifted people. Here are these world-class musicians, the cream of the crop. They have spent the majority of their lives studying and practicing and performing their craft. Here they are on stage in front of a huge live audience, and also being recorded for posterity. And then they have to sit there and be silent. Here they are getting paid good money and they might be doing nothing at all for long stretches.
Imagine the thoughts of the first chair violin observing a rest. "Here I am, stuck with a 64 bar rest. I'm so bored. I've played everything Mozart has ever written. I know exactly what Mozart would have put here. I think it's time for a solo, so I can earn my bread. They aren't paying me to sit on my hands. Here we go."
That's absurd, right? But that's how we have tended to operate in the Body of Christ.
1 Cor: 26-29
"For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence."
First of all, most of us are auxiliary percussion. We just are. And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is by design. But whether we're on triangle or first fiddle, we must follow the Composer and Conductor and enter into silence when it is time. In silence, there is listening and watching and readiness. Silence is used by the Composer as an intentional musical technique. A rest is every bit as musical as a note. It is crucial.
But nature abhors a vaccuum, and that goes for human nature as well. If you ever visit our gathering, one of the things that you will notice is that there are periods of silence. And this can be awkward for a guest (or even a regular). In the usual church gathering, things are scripted in such a way that there is no silence. One thing follows another, sight and sound always fill the senses. The meeting is just an example. But I'm talking about life in general.
The impulse is to fill spiritual silences with something, anything. And often, it is the gifted-ones who take it upon themselves to fill it, like the first violin in my absurd little illustration. "Here I am, stuck with a period of inactivity. I'm good at my thing. I have a good idea what the Lord would be saying and doing in this situation. I didn't go through so much preparation just to sit on my hands. Let's roll." And frankly, since inactivity does not make good TV (and all other media) we've only been shown the gifted folks in action. Quiet life is cropped out of the frame.
If a silence is scripted and we honk into it, we've played it wrong. In Spirit it might be hard to discern what kind of silence we are experiencing in a particular season. But at least the thought should enter our minds that a period of inactivity might be scripted. It might be a "Selah" like in a Psalm. We should at least consider the possibility. Because if it is a silence by design, we can with good conscience enter into listening, looking, counting, and readiness. We can greet the stillness with a sense of expectancy. At any moment we may be called upon by the Conductor to make that peculiar joyful noise that was penned by the Composer before the foundation of the world.
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