Finally Choosing a Big Enough Name

Haven't had much time to post as we prepare for our debut concert this weekend. Many emotions churning through my heart! Thank you to all of you for getting us this far.

I enjoyed the 'Concertmaster and Friends' concert on Tuesday with Julie and Jessica Perkins, who are interviewed by Dominique van de Stadt on the MYO blog today. The performance by Mr. Szasz and Ms. Voicu was impressive. The girls liked the Paganini piece. My favorite was the Locatelli. They promised to have something similar worked up for us when we take MYO to Calcutta to visit them in a few years. (Just kidding, Julie and Jessica!)

We've started a wiki for the Viola Project and other things we are working on. For those who don't know, a wiki is a web page anyone can (easily) read, edit, add to, and comment on. We have lots of good ideas and good research coming in--and this is a way to make that available to everyone interested in helping us develop our program. For now, participation is by invitation. If you'd like to get involved, email me and I'll send you an invite. We know the results will be improved by every brain and pair of hands added.

I've just received Margaret Wheatley's book "Leadership and the New Science". Waiting for it to arrive, I've been reading the articles posted on her website. I particularly liked Eight Fearless Questions:

'...he said, "So many of us choose names that are too small for a whole life." So, we call ourselves, 'cancer survivors;' that seems to be a very bold name, but is it big enough to hold a life? Or, 'children of abuse.' Or, we call ourselves 'orphans,' or 'widows,' or 'martyrs'.... are these names big enough to hold your life?...'

' ...What if your work achieves nothing? Thomas Merton, a great writer and contemplative in the Catholic tradition, said, "Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not, perhaps, results opposite to what you expect.

"As you get used to this idea of your work achieving nothing, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be gone through, as, gradually, you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything..."'