Dissonance

Have you ever been to a piano recital? You know where kids show off their talents after three months of lessons.

Marcus took piano for a few years and I went to a LOT of piano recitals. Some kids could play very well, but others should have played something else… like Monopoly.

Some would freeze and try to remember which note to play, others would peck around and try to find it. And they always seemed to get stuck on a dissonant chord. If you’re musical at all, it created this unease in you that made you want to run up on stage to resolve it for them.

Dictionary.com describes dissonance as: a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of unrest and needing completion.

Sounds like life doesn't it?  We live in a world filled with dissonance. A world in a state of unrest and in need of completion. A quick check on the news and you’ll see it. We experience it personally too, through a broken relationship, loss of work, illness or losing someone we care about.

Nancy and I have seen it in some of the places we visit. We saw children living in the city dump in Ecuador, others prostituted in Thailand. Stuff that made you want to run up and resolve the issues.

One of the reasons I believe in the Biblical story is because somehow we all realize that this isn’t how things should be. We intuitively sense that something has gone is terribly wrong. We were created for something different.  

There are great organizations filled with great people trying to help resolve the dissonances issues all around the world.  I work with many of them. And I long for the day when the final chord is played and Christ brings his perfect resolution.