[Oe List ...] A Story

[Isobel & Jim Bishop]

Thank you Priscilla, we have not heard such gracious words of deep meaning 
before.( Maybe other colleagues in
Australia have.)
The Cello is one of my very favourite instruments; and I notice how Music 
therapy has found a real place in the healing process, in hospitals and 
hospices, for example..
Regards,
Isobel Bishop.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles or Doris Hahn" <cdhahn at flash.net>
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <OE at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] A Story


> Thanks for sending that story, Priscilla. I heard it
> read over NPR one afternoon several years ago while I
> was driving, but missed the source. Do you know what
> the source is? It's a wonder-filled story.
> Doris Hahn
>
> --- "Priscilla H. Wilson" <pwilson at teamtechinc.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sunday afternoon, our choir, brass, organ and
>> bells participated in
>> a hymn festival with the congregation, "Called to
>> Sing the Song of
>> Hope." The hour hymn fest ended with our pastor
>> reading the story I
>> have printed below, "the Cellist of Sarajevo." It
>> was very moving...and
>> was followed by a cello solo. I am just sending it
>> because I wanted to
>> share it with my friends and colleagues.
>> Priscilla
>>
>> A hundred yards away lived a 37-year-old man named
>> Vedran Smailovic.
>> Before the war he had been the principal cellist of
>> the Sarajevo Opera
>> Company--a distinguished and civilized job, no
>> doubt. When he saw the
>> massacre outside his window, he was pushed beyond
>> his capacity to
>> endure anymore. Driven by his anguish, he decided he
>> had to take
>> action, and so he did the only thing he could do. He
>> made music. Every
>> day there after, at 4 p.m. precisely, Mr. Smailovic
>> would put on his
>> full formal concert attire, and walk out of his
>> apartment into the
>> midst of the battle raging around him. He would
>> place a little
>> campstool in the middle of the bomb-craters, and
>> play a concert to the
>> abandoned streets, while bombs dropped and bullets
>> flew all around him.
>> Day after day he made his unimaginably courageous
>> stand for human
>> dignity, for civilization, for compassion, and for
>> peace. As though
>> protected by a divine shield, he was never hurt,
>> though his darkest
>> hour came when, taking a little walk to stretch his
>> legs, his cello was
>> shelled and destroyed where he had been sitting.
>>
>> He played..It was just music
>> But in that music declared that warfare--
>> No matter what virtues war wears as a costume--
>> Warfare cannot win;
>> It was music that sang
>> inhumanity will not destroy that which is human,
>> That which is truly alive.
>> Day after day after day
>> He played his cello in the crater.  (22 days for the
>> 22 deaths)
>> It was just music.
>> But it was prayer,
>> And it was hope,
>> And it was a sign that
>> Hope is stronger than fear.
>> And good is stronger than evil,
>> And life is stronger than death,
>> And no act of inhumanity can completely destroy
>> The God-given gift of being human.
>> I don't know what melody he played.
>> But I'm sure it was the same melody sung by the
>> hungry in line for
>> soup.
>> I'm sure it was the same song sung by children
>> praying for the end of
>> war.
>> I'm sure it was the same hummed in Jerusalem and in
>> Ramallah, in Sudan
>> and countless other places.
>> I'm sure it is the same that leaps from our hearts
>> as we seek to lift
>> up that which is human.
>>
>>   It was 4:00 so Vedran Smailovic played the cello.
>> It was just music.
>>
>> *****************************
>> Priscilla Wilson
>> TeamTech Press
>> Mission Hills, KS 66208
>> 913-432-2107
>>
> pwilson at teamtechinc.com_______________________________________________
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