Place: New York City.  A  final Bible study before Christmas break.  A group of young men who seem to really be tracking and growing, consistent…some of them straight off the streets, clawing their way up and out of some heavy stuff.  Yet, Ace is missing, in fact for two weeks straight.  

The next day I called Ace’s mother, and she explained that he was as she put it, ‘back on the streets.’  She asked if I could come over and talk with her.  So, I took the L train out to Sutter’s Avenue, East New York, which was the one station the police had warned me never to stop at. I walked a couple blocks in the rain mixed with snow pelting my face, and entered a brick tenement building, climbed three flights and found the door. We sat at the kitchen table, and I remember frosted Christmas cookies piled on a plate.  We spent time talking, and we prayed for Ace.  Her heart was broken, afraid. I tried to be brave, to tell her how much I had seen her son grow over the past few months. I wished her Merry Christmas, and then left.  

Standing on the platform alone at Sutter’s Ave, colder now, shivering, I was suddenly plunged into a melancholy state, wondering how in the world our ministry could compete with the streets for the hearts of these young men.  

While sitting on the train a couple stops later, I noticed out of the frosted window an old man, who was sitting on a crate on the corner by a bodega, his head tilted upward, so that one ear was pointed at a little girl, probably ten or so, who was standing with her eyes closed very close to him, playing a violin. 

Snow swirled around them, and at closer look I realized the man was blind, transfixed by the sound of the little girl’s playing. It felt like God sat down beside me in the subway car, and I remember thinking, ‘I’m alot like that blind man. I can’t see Him, but I can hear the  music He plays when I turn my ear to the sound of His voice.’  At that moment God seemed to say,  “Listen for the sound of the violin, take courage, I am here, I have this, I am God.”  

The Christmas Story opened our eyes to see him; born into the world, so that we might fall in love, beginning in a manger, and ending on a cross.  We can’t see him now, but if we listen, we can hear the sound of the Violin played just for us. 

That’s my prayer for you who took the time to read these lines during this busy, but special Advent season. You would be like the blind man, holding one ear titled to the melody of heaven.