Midori and the E Strings
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When Midori Goto was three years old her grandmother gave her a 1/16 violin for her birthday. Her mother and grandmother sensed that music was one of her gifts, and they were right. By age 11, Midori and her mother moved to New York City so that Midori could study with excellent teachers. Midori played many challenging pieces, including Chaconne, a 13-minute violin solo written by Bach that is considered one of the most difficult violin solos ever written.
However, one of the most remarkable things Midori ever did was to play through. The summer that she was 14 years old, Midori played at Tanglewood Festival, one of the most prestigious festivals in the United States. She was playing Serenade, a very difficult piece by Leonard Bernstein. All of a sudden, right in the middle of playing, the E string on her three-quarter size violin broke.
That happens sometimes, right? We can be poised to do something that we feel is important or urgent, something that we prepared and worked for, and all of a sudden, something breaks.
A flat tire, bad grade on a test, an argument with a loved one, we can experience these as moments of breaking, when things no longer work. Do you know what Midori did when her string broke? She borrowed the violin of the concertmaster. It was a Stradivarius.
Sometimes we have to borrow from our Beloved Community. We borrow strength. We borrow hope. We borrow joy. In a way, this kind of borrowing is like window shopping. We see the joy of another and allow it to reach us. It might not be ours, but it is near and it is real.
Midori played for a while and then, the E string broke again. This is another thing that we experience as we try to grow in our ethical and spiritual lives: we tackle one obstacle, deal with it, and find ourselves blocked by another challenge. In addition to borrowing resources from our Beloved Community, sometimes we have to make adjustments and keep on going.
Everything is not all your fault. The obstacles you face can come from a variety of sources. No matter where they come from, though, they don’t have to be the end. I imagine that Midori could have gotten stuck blaming herself for breaking the string of a very old, very valuable violin. She would have missed playing the rest of her piece. Instead of getting stuck, Midori borrowed the violin of the assistant concertmaster.
It can be easy to confuse a moment of breaking with a moment of disaster. When it’s hard to see the whole picture, it’s hard to trust that everything will turn out. But, just as Midori’s violins demonstrate, a broken moment, like a broken heart, is not the same as all being lost. Having a broken heart doesn’t make you a broken soul. We, as Unitarian Universalists, affirm that each person has inherent worth and dignity, broken moments and all.
What is your song? Will you continue to play it, even when, woven into it, are broken moments? You might face the pressure of perfection, both from yourself and others, but that might not be the only way. Your true song, imperfect and played through all the way to the end, is one way that you can bring your gifts and your love to the world.
With the second borrowed violin, Midori finished the piece. The audience cheered with joy. The conductor, Bernstein himself, kneeled before her in appreciation. The applause and appreciation wasn’t because Midori had played perfectly, but because she had played no matter what, making the broken moments a part of her song.
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