Tuesday, 30 January 2007

Playing and Singing in 440

Never fear-Mavis is simply taking a rest. All that eating tuna and playing and jumping in and out of her basket has Mavis quite tired, and every cat worth its salt takes a good nap on a regular basis. She'll come back.

I've wanted to write about the heading I've put up to take Mavis's place for awhile, and now is my first chance. Last Sunday for Engedi meant subdividing into house churches. Having not been to a house church for various reasons in several months, I was really excited to be back. The past few times I went, it's meant watching one of Rob Bell's NOOMA productions. I've liked them and the discussion afterwards is always good, but I'll admit I was slightly disappointed with the prospect of watching yet another one. That is, until I saw what our topic was.

God is singing a song. Are you in tune?

Playing music in tune is an interesting thing. As any musician knows, the more you learn to listen and tell what is EXACTLY in tune and what isn't, it's a razor-thin line. Even going slightly sharp or flat can make it sound horrible to a musician. Classically-trained musicians in particular become especially sensitive to this and have been known to go mad if things are always out of tune.

To the untrained ears, if something is wildly out of tune, it's noticeable. However, very slight variations sharp or flat tend to not bother them quite so much and they'll be more likely to say the music still sounded "good." However, it really isn't. When two different vibrating objects are slightly out of tune, they'll produce beats. These aren't they kind like you hear from a drummer at a rock and roll concert. These beats are the sonic result of two slightly different vibrations. It creates a "WAH-wah-WAH-wah" sound. The farther apart the beats sound, the more obvious they become.

I had the misfortune of being exposed to a pipe organ being tuned this past Christmas. While working with Delta Omicron to decorate the chapel for Christmas Vespers, we had to listen to the Skinner organ being tuned in preparation for the services. I thought nothing of it until after about 45 minutes or so into decorating. Unlike the symphony orchestra, a pipe organ can take hours to tune. The Skinner organ in Dimnent Chapel has 2,932 pipes that all need to be tuned perfectly for the organ to sound lovely. And it wasn't 90-100 people working to tune it like 90-100 people tuning instruments in the orchestra. It was probably closer to 2-5 (a complete guess on my part but there weren't very many). Needless to say, the people decorating had to listen to pipe after pipe being tuned, sounding either sharp or flat and being adjusted. When you're bombarded with beats like this, it's unsettling. Jeff described it best as "feeling seasick," and he was right. It felt almost like a boat rocking in the waves to listen to the sound pulse like it did, and it left me slightly nauseous for awhile.

So what does this have to do with house church with Engedi? Rob Bell compared our life as Christians and God as singing a song or playing a symphony. He described it as God is the leading musician or the conductor, and He is how we tune. Rob Bell challenged the audience with the question, "Are you in tune with God's song?"

That really struck me right between the eyes. I've learned as a musician what it's like to sing in tune and out of tune. I know how it works, and I should be able to make it work with perfect accuracy. However, that's not the case. I have the tendency to sing sharp, which is a bit unusual for vocalists, but it sounds just as nasty as singing flat. I'm far from perfect, and though I strive for perfect tuning with the other musicians around me, I don't hit the target every time (and sometimes I REALLY miss it). But rather than dwell on that, I've learned to just get back in the music and tune myself with the others and continue singing.

It's kind of the same way with the Christian walk. God is singing His song, and He's set the standard for how we tune, or how we live. Our job is to do our best to live up to what He expects of us as His followers. We should strive to be in tune with Him. We won't be perfect EVERY single time because, well, we're human and tarnished by sin, no longer exactly what God had intended in the beginning. The world's greatest singer can't possibly expect to be in tune EVERY single time. Going sharp or flat happens, even to "untouchable" musicians like Placido Domingo and instruments like the Skinner. But our greater cause is seeking to follow God, to be in tune with Him. Just like we might not sing exactly in tune with everyone else every time, we try to do that. Our life should be the same-seeking to do as He as taught us with His help, focusing on that purpose rather than our failures.

God is singing a song. Are you in tune?