Colin is playing Camille Saint-Saens’ The Swan at his cello recital on Saturday.  It is a gorgeous piece of music, and he plays it well.  His tuning is excellent, vibrato controlled, and he plays with emotion, just like his teacher.  I love to accompany him.  But as we were practicing tonight, I wondered what it will be like to hear him play The Swan in 30 years.  He will be 42, one year older than I am now.  I cannot even begin to imagine where life will have taken him, the triumphs and tragedies that he will have walked through, the lessons that life will have thrust upon him.  And from this place, of having experienced both deep joy and pain, loss of innocence, knowing himself more fully, and hopefully knowing God more fully, what depth of emotion will he bring to the bow on the string?  Christa Wells wrote a hauntingly beautiful song called “How Emptiness Sings”….”His bow is on the string/And the tune resonates in the open space/To show us how emptiness sings/Glory to God,Glory to God! In fullness of wisdom,/He writes my story into His song/My life for the glory of God.”  At almost 41, I feel paradoxically both more full and more empty than ever before.  More content and yet more expectant than ever before.  Acutely aware that I can only be filled if I am empty.  Sometimes in the evening, when the house is quiet, I like to pull out the classical piano pieces that I played when I was 17 and preparing for my ARCT examination.  Muscle memory kicks in and although technically I’m not as sharp as I was, I think that I know the pieces more intimately – the passage of time has layered experience and emotions that find expression in these familiar pieces, and I feel like I know them, and they know me, better, now.