Russellings of the Spirit

I love music. I mean I REALLY love music.

I love a whole lot of different kinds of music.

I love Christmas music… just not the same five songs over and over again, please.

I love church hymns from the past 400-500 years. But I also really love some of the exciting Christian contemporary music that is out now.

I love rock and roll music. Classic rock from the 70s and 80s, yes. But I really like a lot of the stuff that is being produced today… even the far-out stuff.

I love hip-hop. I’m OK with some rap… just not the misogynistic, violence-promoting kind.

I love classical music. I love the big band music my dad listens to.

I can tolerate SOME country music. But I fall several degrees short of being able to use the word “love” in relation to country. Sorry!

Music is such an amazing, mysterious, beautiful thing. It vibrates in our inner being. It seems to come from a place far beyond the scientific, rational realm. It is no wonder the appearance of angels – whether in the Bible or real life – is always accompanied by some kind of music.

I also love being involved in performing music. When it goes well and all the pieces are working together, it is very soul-satisfying to sing or play music on my guitar.

And so after recently finishing a concert with the Heartland Men’s Chorus featuring 18-20 very demanding, very beautiful holiday-themed songs, I am reminded to include this adjective in the way I describe music: CHALLENGING.

Someone a lot smarter than me once said that music is the perfect marriage of ART and SCIENCE. And one of the attributes that lends an extra measure of beauty to music is HARMONY. Harmony, of course, is different notes played at the same time that sound good together.

Reflecting for just a moment on the idea of harmony, it seems that “different” is a key component of its definition. An assembly of people or instruments sounding the same note might still be beautiful to hear, but it would not necessarily have the richness and depth of a good harmony.

The same thing is true in the visual arts. An image made up of a scintillating variety of different colors and shapes tends to please the eye much more than an image consisting of one color and one shape.

As we cast our eyes around creation, it seems to me this is a regularly recurring theme: that in difference lies beauty. It is almost as if God did this whole thing on purpose… creating a world of wide-ranging diversity in order to send a message to us as earth’s designated stewards.

You would almost think God wanted us to TREASURE the differences he created and recognize them as a source of BEAUTY… almost as if they were a key piece of the puzzle in the “… life abundant…” that Jesus talked about in John 10:10. (NRSV) and not something to be feared.

Certainly much of the beauty of the Christmas season comes from external sources: the lights and decorations we put up, or the snow on the ground or food on our table. But what if we chose to spend more time this year cultivating an appreciation for the beauty that God himself baked into the world he gave us?

• What if we learned to see the beauty in diversity?

• What if we cultivated hearts that might rejoice to discover something that breaks the mold of sameness and drab uniformity and stands out?

I don’t know… do you think that might be the spirit that would give us a better shot at the whole “Peace on Earth” thing?

Abundant life and blessing to you and yours.