Job 33:14

Imagine, for a moment, that we are sitting in an enormous, ancient symphony hall. Imagine we sit in lined chairs, in deep darkness and concentration, waiting to hear the first, clear, rising note of the flute. The symphony is muted with our longing, our expectation. The flute will surely come.

We shall hear, we are quite sure, the most magnificent of parts. We cannot say what it will resemble, or call to mind, for we cannot be sure if we have ever heard it at all. But the desperation we feel in waiting assures us of its wonder. We deeply long for it. We are anxious with waiting. Starving with waiting. Straining to hear anything. We have come, from far and wide, for the music. Oh, for such music to waken our ears! To quicken our souls, to move us to tears. Music to loose us, gasping for the breath we've held at arms length for fear we might disturb the very atmosphere which could at any moment carry a trickle of flute to our ears.

There! A flute? I thought, for a moment. It sounded much like a violin, but was so brief we cannot be sure. You are holding your breath again, as am I. Did we hear something, echoing through the chamber? We grasp and cling to every slight reverberation like sailors to the last of the water on a sinking, sinking, drowning ship.

Did we hear the flute? We can't be sure. Sometimes we think we hear it. It is beautiful, beautiful for a moment. But far away, as though it travels over rivers and marshes, rolling under the bridges and through the streets to reach us. We are confident, if it is the flute, it must be coming from the stage. Yet, when the sound drifts into our ears, and out again, it reminds us more of a wave than a transmission, the way it comes rolling over and back and around.

We are straining. We are doubting our ears. It must have begun by now. We grow more anxious still. When, when shall we hear the flute, rising, rising, over all we fear and dream, over that for which we long?

When, when shall we hear it and know that the music does play?



And the symphony continues, all but forgotten. Perhaps even forgotten, now, for the flute. Yes, the composer wrote for the clarinet as well. And the violin. But the flute, I must hear it and know. He wrote for the trumpet, and for the french horn, and for the tuba, of course he did. But I cannot hear the flute. Why does it not play louder? Why was his piece not written with more boldness, more clarity. Let it stand alone, pure, and clean. I can hardly tell if it does speak, so intermingled are the voices of the other instruments.

I cannot dance until I know I have heard the flute. What if I should step out of it's rhythm? Or bend too far from its tone? How will I know how to dance if I cannot hear it over the symphony??

I will wait.

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The necessity of the flute is quite real, but it cannot exist alone. Perhaps, to to hear the flute, we first must admit the reality of the symphony in which it plays. Perhaps we must begin to dance to the clarinet or the trumpet, trusting that the flute will not contradict them in rhythm or melody.