"How Family Life is a Lot Like 5th Grade Band"
We can all picture what a 5th grade band concert sounds like, right? My apologies to well-meaning 5th graders, but in truth, it's probably somewhere between penance and punishment. With proper guidance, however, the band members mature and learn to play the right notes at the right time. Some high school and college concerts are downright enjoyable!
Just like a band or orchestra where everyone plays the right notes, it is difficult to overestimate the value that a harmonious family life has on the world. The members of any family eventually grow up and become members of society at large and myriad groups within that society. Nobody enters the wider community without first being a member of a family in one way or another. The family is unarguably the nursery for society. It's like 5th grade band. Even though things can sound awful from time to time in our homes, it's part of a learning process that helps us to learn how to be in harmony with the world around us.
Thank God, we don't have to be perfect people to make family life work. Maybe you've heard the proverb that "God writes straight with crooked lines." Well, since my children play instruments and sing in choir, it is easier for them to understand the idea of how God can still make a beautiful symphony even when we are playing wrong notes.
When a sibling makes a bad decision, a selfish choice, or loses her temper and lashes out, the whole family suffers. This discordant note can resonate and lead to the whole day's symphony falling apart. Sometimes there is nothing we can do to stop another person from continually making bad choices.
This is where the rest of the family needs to work together and help resolve that bad note. Some families might sound like a simple hymn with gentle harmonies, while others sound more like a jazz piece with unusual and unique chords and structure. The important thing is that we don't throw our instruments (to painfully draw out the analogy) at the person who made the mistake. As they say on Broadway: "The show must go on!" We must keep playing the best notes we can, maybe by doing something unexpectedly kind, or bringing in humor at just the right moment, regardless of what the others choose to do.
When I talk to my children about how to work together with their siblings, even when they are having a bad day (or week), I give the example of the saints. Saints are not people who had an easy life because they only hung out with other saints. You don't have to look very hard to see that the saints lived with people who drove them crazy, imprisoned them, irritated them, and sometimes killed them. Yet in their souls they were able to rise above these difficulties, sometimes even converting their oppressors and enemies by their gentleness. I love the story, for example, of how the witness of St. Paul and Silas converted their jailer (Acts 16:25-40).
When the members of a family can remember to call on the grace of God to help them get along, make it work, forgive, build each other up, and provide positive examples to each other, even when everyone is so imperfect that it reminds us of early September in 5th grade band, we begin to see how God works in our world. We don't have to write every line straight or always play the right notes. God comes to us in our weakness. He can write straight with crooked lines, after all, and even with our bad notes, He can still help us to live in harmony.
Above was a bit of the inspiration for this article. My 5 year old was practicing the piano and playing rather painful notes over and over again. My 12 year old is quite the musician though, and came over and made this beautiful song with her sister. I realized that without the 12 year old, the 5 year old would just have been annoying everyone. We can help each other when we choose to use our gifts to make harmonies!
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