“When will the music start?” our youngest asked ten minutes into her sister’s first orchestra concert.
The opening pieces of the night were simple notes and basic scales, plucking away at their string instruments. The demonstrations didn’t sound like music, especially not to a three-year-old. Then came Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and the grand finale, Jingle Bells. Their teacher was clear, they needed to demonstrate the basic skills before moving onto the more complicated compositions. The simpler practices enabled them to play in (a pretty slow) harmony as a collective orchestra of elementary instrumentalists.
That’ll preach.
Advent is a four-week pilgrimage to the birth of Immanuel, when Divine Love came down as one of us- to show us the basics of what it means to be human and orchestrate us into a collective harmony. Yet, in the midst of so much division and hostility in the world, my question mirrors the expectant bewilderment of my littlest, "when will the music start?"