Los Angeles is one of the last public-school districts in the country
to offer free musical training to students. At a converted warehouse, the
L.A. Unified School District’s Musical Instrument Repair Shop
maintains more than 6,000 instruments each year for more than 1,300
student musicians. The team of four technicians repair and restore
thousands of instruments – as a result of their work, a whole new world
of music and creativity opens up for Los Angeles’ students. As they
lovingly maintain these instruments, the four craftspeople are fully
aware that the piano or clarinet or violin they are restoring or fixing
could very well change the life of a young musician.
The story of this unique repair shop and its impact on the lives of
student-musicians in the Los Angeles area is recounted in the
documentary The Last Repair Shop, winner of an Academy
Award for best documentary short film. In the film, students proudly
play their instruments and share the profound impact their music studies
have had on their young lives – over and above their learning to play.
And the four technicians tell their own stories of how their own
experience with music has transformed their lives from poverty,
isolation and oppression to purpose, dignity and self-determination.
Since the film premiered , the shop has received boxes
of hand-written thank-you letters from L.A. students and teachers. “This
is our Oscars right there”, the shop’s supervisor says, pointing to a box
of letters. “Every note (from a student or graduate) is our Oscar. Every
thank-you email from a teacher, that’s our Oscar”.
The work of the Last Repair Shop reveals the miracles that can be
realized with “leftovers” and fragments – whether scraps of bread or
musical instruments in need of some “love”. Throughout his ministry,
Jesus always knows what to do with what had been lost, overlooked or
left behind. Jesus realizes the possibilities contained in such pieces; he
knows the value that lies within what has been broken and discarded.
He sees the abundance that lies hidden, the feast that remains within the
fragments, the possibilities for new “miraculous feedings”. As the
twelve wicker baskets of leftovers attest to the sign Jesus had worked,
our own basket of “leftovers” are signs of the many blessings we have
received in our lives and the promise we can realize from our generous
and creative use of those fragments. Today’s Gospel also challenges us
to realize the many things we waste in our lives that can be the
difference between life and death for our brothers and sisters, that our
stored “wicker baskets” of clothing, food, and household goods – and
musical instruments – can become signs of the providence of God in our
midst, that what we casually throw away can be the means of something
good and grace-filled for the hungry, the broken and the discouraged.
God calls us to the work of repairing, of restoring, for making whole
with the “pieces” and “fragments” that bless our lives.
Tags: 7-28-2024