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.
Archive for the ‘17th Sunday’ Category
The Last Repair Shop 7-28-2024
Saturday, July 27th, 2024Press Box Time 7-30-2023
Friday, July 28th, 2023I always wondered why our high school football coach would
always disappear in the middle of the third quarter. I remember during
my first game on the varsity squad, I looked up from the sidelines
(where I spent most of my time) and noticed that he was gone. (It was a
lot quieter). I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I was afraid the
other team had kidnapped him. Or maybe he had gotten sick on his
chewing tobacco. So I asked a senior “sideliner”. (They know
everything).
“Where’s the coach?” I asked, thinking I was the only one to
notice his absence, which made me feel important.
“In the press box”, he answered.
“Getting coffee”? I asked.
“No, getting perspective”.
Getting perspective – now that makes sense, doesn’t it? There’s no
way a coach can really keep up with the game from the sidelines.
Everyone yelling advice. Parents complaining. Players screaming.
Cheerleaders cheering. Sometimes you’ve got to get away from the
game to see it.
That story reminds me; occasionally we need to try that on
ourselves, too. How vital it is that we keep a finger on the pulse of our
own lives. How critical are those times of self-examination and
evaluation. Yet it’s hard to evaluate ourselves while we’re in the middle
of the game: schedules pressing, phones ringing, children crying, and
bills to be paid.
Max’s story offers us a suggestion. Take some press-box time.
Take some time (at least half a day) and get away from everything and
everyone.
Take your Bible and a notebook and get a press-box view of your
life. Are you as in tune with God as you need to be? How is your
relationship with your mate, your children, a good friend? Our parables
this Sunday ask us a few press-box questions. What do you value as
important in your life? Are you investing your energy in things that will
last? Perhaps some decisions need to be made. Spend much time in
prayer. Meditate on God’s Word. Be quiet. Fast for the day.
Now, I’m not talking about a get-away-from-it-all day where you
shop, play tennis, go to a movie, and relax in the sun (although such
times are needed, too). I’m suggesting an intense, soul-searching day
spent in reverence before God and in candid honesty with yourself.
Write down your life story. Reread God’s story. Recommit your heart
to your Maker.
I might mention that a day like this won’t just happen. It must be
made. You’ll never wake up and just happen to have a free day on your
hands. You’ll have to pull out the calendar, elbow out a time in the
schedule, and take it. Be stubborn with it. You need the time. Your
family needs you to take this time. As our story of the coach reminds us,
getting some press-box perspective could change the whole ball game. I
would like to add, getting some press-box perspective could change our
whole lives!
Lord, Teach Us to Pray 7-24-2022
Wednesday, July 13th, 2022I’ve had a very rough week this week and I have found myself
spending extra time in prayer. The Gospel this Sunday triggered some
things about prayer that I had not thought about for a while, and I would
briefly like to share them with you.
The first thing is that it is important that when we pray we must be
honest and completely open with God; we must use real words that
express how we feel and what is going on in our lives. Our relationship
with God should be one place where we can let it all hang out – no safe
and appropriate roles to play – no masks to hide behind.
The second thing I was reminded about through the Gospel was
that when I say I am too busy to pray (which I do at times), I may really
be saying I am afraid to pray. Also, if I am so busy with what I want
from God, I may miss what God really has to give me.
*Person in hospital – his brother has just died – yells & screams at
the Cross – God is big enough to handle it.*
The third thing is, if we are to take prayer seriously we must dispel
from our minds the notion that it is some kind of magic. Prayer is not an
“Aladdin’s Lamp” which, if properly rubbed, will grant our every wish.
A student, rather lazily inclined, noticed that a classmate always
recited her Spanish lessons well. One day he asked her, “How is it that
you always recite your lessons so perfectly?”
“Before I study,” she told him, “I always pray that I may remember my
lessons and repeat them well.”
“Do you?” asked the boy, somewhat surprised. “So that’s her secret
method,” he thought. “Well, then, I’ll pray too.”
That night he prayed up a storm, recalling as many prayers as he could
remember. However, the next day he could not even repeat one phrase
of the lesson. Quite perplexed he looked for his friend, and, finding her,
confronted her for being deceitful.
“I prayed,” he told her, “but I could not repeat a single phrase from
yesterday’s homework.”
“Perhaps,” she told him, “you took no pains to learn the lesson!”
“Of course not,” said the boy. “I didn’t study at all. I had no reason to
study. You told me to pray that I might remember the lesson.”
“There’s your problem,” she said, “I told you I prayed before, not
instead of, studying.”
I close with a final thought on prayer: A friend of mine used to
drop by his Church every evening around 5 PM, for an hour of
meditation before supper. Every evening he noticed the same old man
sitting in one of the back pews. The man was always there when he
arrived and still there when he left. It began to haunt him.
One evening curiosity got the better of him and he approached the man,
greeted him, and hoped he wasn’t praying: “I have seen you here for
several months now, and I really admire your constant devotion. But I
was wondering . . . I notice that you are always just sitting here quietly,
never using a prayer book, Bible, or rosary . . . still obviously praying…I
just wondered, when you pray to God, what do you say; what do you
talk about . . . ?
The old man looked up at my friend calmly and gently: “I don’t talk to
God; God talks to me.”
A lot of people think prayer (or meditation or religion or spirituality) is
supposed to be like Alka Seltzers in a glass of water: non-stop, bubbly,
effervescent, supernatural excitement. Wrong! Sometimes, maybe. But
most of the time prayer is like any love relationship: it involves a lot of
giving and listening. It’s like learning to talk: first, you have to listen, in
the sure peace of God’s presence.
