There are many things that thrill us. One is obviously football. Another is
music. Watching and listening to Orchestra Kinshasa immediately tells you
what a lift if gives people. They have taken to classical music and instruments
and adapted them to be their own. ‘With the harp I will solve my problem’
(Psalm 49:4). It has been known since ancient times that music can raise our
hearts to higher things and switch on a light in our lives.
Daniel Barenboim from Israel and Edward Said from Palestine met in 1999 to
launch the idea of a Israeli-Palestinian Orchestra where musicians from across
the Arab-Israeli divide could play music together. Their love for music united
them and led to their sharing their different national narratives with each other.
It lit a light in the darkness of relations between the two sides but it soon came
under attack. They were accused of normalising the abnormal and softening the
divide. The majority of people in Israel and the Arab world are against the
project. Said died of leukaemia but Barenboim has kept up the orchestra. The
musicians find the opposition tough but they keep going.
Barenboim says you cannot be ‘comfortable’ playing music. It calls for
maximum ‘thought, feeling and guts’ if it is to be done well. So is working for
peace. It meets with resistance and those who engage have to be tough. When
Isaiah writes, ‘on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death a light has
dawned’, he is not saying something comforting.
I remember, as a child, the day electricity came to our home. We’d been waiting
excitedly for the great day but did not know exactly when it would be. Curious,
I would occasionally try the switch to see if something happened. The great day
came and suddenly there was light!
We know the light, of which Isaiah spoke, was rejected and Jesus ended on a
cross. But those who work for peace are energised by the little victories they
experience. So it is with the musicians of the ‘West Eastern Divan Orchestra’ –
the name of the initiative described briefly here. A member interviewed spoke
of the opposition but it was clear she loved what she was doing.
So, the dawning of light is a breakthrough which shows me the most satisfying
and uplifting things come through facing the obstacle in my path. Why the word
‘divan’? The word is of Turkish origin and meant a council of state. In other
words, it was a place where people meet to discuss issues. Clearly, that is not
what an orchestra is about. But it is something that can come out of music.
22 January 2023 Sunday 3A Is 8:23-9:3 1 Cor 1:10-17 Mt 4:12-23
By David Harold-Barry SJ
English