Prayers for Peace in the Concert Hall
Tonight, in Akron, Ohio, one broken umbrella shielded Michael and I as we ran through the dark high school parking lot. After adjusting work schedules and texting plans for several hours, we were slightly late but fully determined to prove our parental support. (After all, I know the statistics of American kids who long for attention while parents work three jobs to pay rent.) My spouse and I slipped through the side door and carefully took a couple of squeaky seats for a concert already in progress. It was the first time my inner noise had been tamed all day.
I breathed in and appreciated this sea of young musicians in formal black. With homework still waiting, after quickly eating dinners from drive-thrus, they gave themselves fully to Vivaldi and Samuel Barber. Tall young men, their arms perhaps not yet stretched to full length, cradled violins and violas. They hunched over the notes, coaxing song from rented instruments. The senior first-chair, sophisticated as only seventeen-year-old young women can be, mastered the solo. She was so tall. Beautiful in flowing pants, the kind of clothing we used to call “androgynous.” And I could scarcely miss my daughter, the girl with brilliant magenta hair. In the back row of the orchestra, with intensity, she leaned from her core, through her clarinet, and into the music. Stage lighting caught the movement of her practiced timing. With each note, the inner noise of my day became quieter still. The music of these young ones overwhelmed my ego’s attempts at controlling life. This moment was truly a sacred gift if ever there was one.
Eventually someone arrived to the concert much later than us. I believe I involuntarily rolled my eyes, perturbed that a man would enter mid-song and carelessly let loose the door in a closing bang. The musical prayers had been interrupted. The latecomer sauntered down the aisle, audacious enough to choose a front row seat. And in a hot second, for about three seconds in fact, I sucked in my breath as irritation turned to fear. The interloper in the high school auditorium wore a back pack. And from that pack rose an extended rod. “He has a gun.” My own anxious imagination screamed for that second. Then, quickly, sacred sanity returned. I realized that he carried no rifle. Only a baseball bat. Most likely, he too was multi-tasking tonight. Most likely he had come from rained-out field to concert hall. This teenage boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, with muscled arms and muddy cleats had come to take a seat and listen to the notes of his peers.
Today, while I was listening to an orchestra concert in Akron, Ohio, while my imagination ran wild, other students and parents were attending a prayer vigil in a Denver suburb. Their music was that of grief and anger. An eighteen-year-old young man, Kendrick Castille, was killed earlier this week in a confrontation with real - not imagined - guns in school. And so, in honor of this rainy day, in honor of teenage students throughout our nation, in honor of parents who run through rain to concerts, in honor of musicians, and baseball players, and survivors of school shootings, in memory of children who die in the dark madness of our nation, I pray tonight. Earnestly. Fervently.
O Sovereign God, please watch over those gawky teenage boys who play violin. And please protect young women who dream of musical careers. We ask that you guide parents who sacrifice their shift to attend the concert of their kid. We need you to shelter all kids from violence. We beg you to carve out safe places where young men and women can listen to music, where they can play baseball, and where they can settle into deep safety. Thank you, Dear Safe One, for inhabiting auditoriums and for singing through rented instruments. And for calling students, teachers, and parents to communities of life. Amen.
