We all play violins of different dimensions, for different reasons, with differing results. My first real violin was picked up when I was twelve, when my dad died. He was in and out of hospitals since I was about eight years old. I remember being at the funeral home and shaking my fist at heaven asking Jesus why He did this. (I was a Catholic school kid; I saw the pictures and did the calisthenics.) I learned my father wasn’t allowed to have a Catholic service because he wasn’t Catholic; yet my mother had faithfully attended the parish church, gave to them, and had asked for this service for him. Screech!

       The next violin; I never heard my father or mother tell me they loved me though in my wee youth I’m sure my mother did. My mother finally told me a few years into what I believe are the last chapters of my story. It is a story of the Father’s love for his child, a story of redemption when none was seen as being needed though some kind of change was. It is a story of the improbable, of the impossible; a story of grace unbound, abounding to me and any who will receive it; life-changing, life-giving, life abundant…a new violin for a new song.

       Now, I didn’t just all of a sudden decide to become a missionary. I didn’t just pick up my bible and now it was onward Christian soldier. No, at first after I confessed faith my newest violin slashed its way through the populace with a piercing tenor, accusing and abusing with this new raison d’être. It was surprising if not shocking to my family, especially my mom, as now instead of being glued to the television to pass the time I was glued to my Bible discovering time as I had never seen it before.

      For my family it was just another phase, another chapter of that book I was writing, the latest cat gut tune; that one that hopes for a good ending. My brothers, sisters and I were all raised Catholics, went to Catholic school, went to weekend mass and on holy days; so we had religion. I however was the only member of my family not to graduate in this parochial parade; indeed, I never graduated at all. I have three older sisters and two older brothers. I’m the baby; that’s another violin. Collectively we had never carried on with our religious traditions in our teens or early adulthoods that I knew of.