MELTING

I was watching the evening news with Lester Holt today, and one of those three minute human interest stories brought the broadcast to a close.

It seems there is a very exclusive, very expensive venue in the Italian Alps situated on a glacier, and sculpted from ice and snow, in which pampered people can listen to a chamber orchestra composed of a cello, a couple of violins and a xylophone.

However, the ingenuity of it all goes way beyond that.

For you see, the cello, violins and xylophone are made almost entirely of ice, with the exception of the strings, and a small amount of wood. The internal structure of the musical instruments has been imbedded with something, apparently a florescent chemical, which causes them to emit a color which can only be described as ice blue.

While I have seen videos which depict ice hotels, and other venues constructed of frozen H2O, I have never in my wildest dreams thought a musical instrument could be constructed almost entirely of ice, and be capable of being played. Perhaps as one of my relatives told someone one time, “It doesn’t take much to amaze you.” (In this case me). Whatever the case, I am pleased to report that the frozen musical instruments sounded exactly like the real thing.

After the segment ran, and I had a little time to reflect on it, it occurred to me. Each of us are a great deal like those frozen musical instruments, and they serve as a rich metaphor for the human condition.

For just as each of the frozen instruments, after they have been plucked by their master musicians, will melt away, and their intended function will cease, so we as human beings have, at the behest of our own Master, been created to play some extraordinary notes and melodies, and serve as a light for those whom God has set in our pathway; if only for a few brief years.

God give us the wherewithal to play well.

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending

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