Hearing Music Between the Notes

Spirituality Column #207
October 26, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Hearing Music between the Notes
By Bob Walters

“Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10

There was a 30-year period of my life from my mid-teens to my mid-40s that I didn’t go to church and was utterly without conviction about God.

God was quiet and I wasn’t listening anyway.

College and career and home and family filled life’s gaps. The idea of “going to church” or “being a Christian” seemed a grim, limiting, monochromatic, spirit-shrinking, intellect-killing enterprise.

My experience since coming to Christ has been the opposite of that. Any Christian who strides humbly but confidently in his or her walk with the Lord can relate to the joy, wonder, color, freedom and thought of Christian life.

I’ve been reading A Place for Truth, a thought-inspiring new book which recounts various “Truth” discussions at leading U.S. college campuses sponsored by the Christian Veritas Forum. Jeremy Begbie’s dissertation on music revealed to me new and surprising dimension and depth of the faith experience:

Christians must learn “to hear between the notes.”

Begbie is a theology professor at Duke Divinity School, an Anglican priest and also a classically trained musician. In his 2007 presentation at Cal-Berkley, he talked about musical tonalities and meter; about tension and resolution. There is a “beat” in music, Begbie noted, the same way there is a “beat” in our lives, and a meter in mankind’s relationship with God.

Exhibit A is the Bible. God’s interaction, silence, and surprises are easily compared to the movements of a classical symphony where properly placed pause or a tension-filled passage leaves us gasping for resolution.

Spiritual “silence” is not uncommon in our lives. There are, quoting Begbie, “in-between times … when it seems God is on vacation … when grace doesn’t seem very amazing anymore.” That’s when it’s time to listen “between the notes.”

Recount the Old Testament’s trials and truths; then consider God’s silence before the appearance of Christ, signaling the salvation of mankind.

Jesus Christ, Begbie teases, “is the Big Downbeat” providing humanity with the expectation, hope, and discipline for the symphony yet to come. God’s silence should be for us a time of prayer and trust in God’s resolution, not despair.

Once I only paid attention to the simple melodies and dissonant noise of life, with no clue how to appreciate the divine music between the notes.
Now I know that God is talking then, too, and it is joyful to listen.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) has great appreciation for great music, but no musical talent.