Imitation Requires and Original - October 9

This afternoon I spent over an hour in my newest found position – a large instrument propped in my lap, with its base braced against the wall and my music leaned against the chalkboard. Add an aching forearm from hand washing my tennies and an itchy elbow from the combined sweat and bug bites and you have achieved the posture. It’s completely awkward and uncomfortable. The wall is too close causing my arm to brush against it if I bow correctly. That doesn’t even start to explain the pain in my ears from putting up with my lack of natural talent. About now you should be asking yourself why I willing subject myself to this torture. Why do I chose to sit in a dark, stuffy room with kids faces pressed up against the windows watching me humiliate myself every day? For one, it is teaching me humility. What a good reminder it is to be a student even now when I am a teacher as well. However, what really keeps me going is my new favorite playlist on my ipod titled – instrumental. As I fall asleep every night I push play and allow myself to pretend that somehow, someday, somewhere, that beautiful cello music will be coming from my strokes of the bow on my instrument. It takes a bit of imagination and once I am asleep the dreams help to improve the scenario, but it works. If I am not careful and I let myself lose my focus on the original – that amazing sweet melody coming from my earpiece, then there is no way that I can imitate it. I start to think that maybe this out-of-tune squeaking really is as good as it gets. But if I keep listening, I know that there is something better out there to look forward to. Perhaps a little cheesy, but it reminds me of my walk with God. If I let myself get busy and caught up in what I need to be accomplishing here, the focus shines too much on me and I can’t ever see success coming from my efforts. I see the student tearing up his homework I so badly want to give points for, I hear another student chiming in with “I’m not afraid of you,” and I feel the pain of another so desperately trying not to cry. I am helpless and lost. Nothing I try works, and I am at a loss for more ideas. But if I just keep telling myself to trust God and follow his example, the original shines more brightly. A photocopy is never crystal clear and my imitation can never be perfect. That’s obvious and somehow reassuring at the same time. God doesn’t expect me to be perfect. But he’s set the example and is always here to pick me up when I fall back down. Perhaps the more I imitate, the closer the original becomes.