In a small church in northeastern Kansas, Randa and I join other seekers for a Christmas Eve service. A forty-something violinist and his pianist mother are playing various carols as prelude. Will is a former colleague (Highland Community College). I knew he played in a band but didn’t realize he was a fiddler.

My grandfather Pap Bazzell and some of my favorite friends played fiddle: Bill Jolliff, who suffered and triumphed through grad school with me at Ohio State. Terry Brock, a former student at Missouri Western who joined Randa and me for a couple of years in our band, Desert Rain.

Pap passed away without me having any memories of him playing. Dad said he was really good, “He’d play ‘Listen to the Mockingbird’ and he’d make that fiddle sound just like a real mockingbird!” He also said that Pap played on stage with Roy Acuff at the annual picnic at Backusburg, Kentucky. Sure wish I could have seen that!

Randa and I did get to see—and hear—Elizabeth Pitcairn play The Red Stradivarius in a live performance at the Missouri Theater in Saint Joseph several years ago. It was ethereal! The beauty and power of that violin in the hands of someone like her are amazing. The way it projected sound without electric amplification did not seem possible. Her skill drew out its capacity, which is how it is with all instruments of beauty and power, including ourselves. Given the right arrangements…

Whether classical or whimsical, the fiddle to me was and still is the ultimate expression of folk music. With a soft, tender melody, its notes can turn my heart into putty and my eyes into wellsprings. And in a different vein, get me to tapping and clapping in time with its lively tunes. On certain bits, it can even get me up on my feet dancing a jig. (Or whatever you’d call whatever it is I’m trying to do!)

Speaking of age, Pap played the fiddle into his eighties. Terry has just hit sixty and is still playing. Tendonitis or arthritis took that pleasure away from Bill years ago and he mostly plays banjo now. I’m older than either of them but we are all still making music, still enjoying our offerings to others and to the Lord.

I don’t know that there will be any fiddles (or guitars) in heaven. But I do know that we will still be praising Him Who Died for Us!