Making Room Within.

In a fleeting effort to be like his big brother, the young boy blew over the top of the Coke bottle in hopes of making a cool whistle only to have the Coke spray all over his face. The lesson to be learned was hard to hear over the laughs of the others: to get the bottle to sing it needs room for the air.

Mark Nepo reminded me of this important truth in a piece in his book "Endless Practice." A drum, violin, flute, and countless other instruments need to be hollowed out if there is to be sound. Like them, we need to create space within if we are going to bring a song into the world.

So much of life is about getting full, not becoming empty. I remember a quotation from a classmate’s yearbook page: “Too much is not enough, more is better.” That kind of thinking, to which I too often used to subscribe, leaves the bottle full or overflowing and the wind unable to enter. Like the Coke dripping from the young boy’s face, the wind that brings all songs into existence needs a place to go. If the bottle is full, there will be no song.

I like to think of us all as instruments of various shapes and sizes, sounds and textures, playing a masterpiece not of our own composing. Yes, sometimes we are out of tune, play the wrong note, or perform as if we are the only instrument in the orchestra . . . but beneath all of that is the need to have space within to make any sound at all.

When we are at our best, each of us adds a sound, plays a part in the overall composition. To do so, we need to be instruments with room for the wind. Whether we observe a season like Lent of not, making room within is an essential task if we are to bring any song into the world. Otherwise, we will go through life in silence with Coke dripping down our faces.