And a little something from me.....

The last four days were spent in Santa Fe and the annual conference of the Pastor Theologian program. These are always incredible events, with major powerhouse speakers and lots of time for conversation and reflection. I met for the third time a man by the name of Jeremy Begbie, who has done some wonderful thinking on the ways in which music allows us and assists us in thinking and living our faith. One of his critical insights is that because of the way the modern world works around us, we tend to think in a more or less linear way--one thought follows another, and we get confused when there's more than one thought that fills a given space (the best example, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity--how can God be three in one, how can Jesus be human AND divine at the same time.)

Music, Jeremy suggests, gives you a way to think about three things, four things, and number of things at the same time, each existing together without eradicating the other, or merging into some different thing. So, while yellow and red on canvas either obscure each other r create orange, a c/e/g/c played together on a piano make a c major chord with each note present to all the rest.

Okay, it's getting a little heady, but it enforces something I've been thinking about since Iona: how much music shapes the way in which we learn/practice/articulate our faith. It also got me to thinking about the "paradigm" of church, and whether the goal is not to choose one or another, but to search for the "harmonics" of the many churches any one congregation might be at any given moment. Just as God is One in the Many, the Body of Christ is most faithful when its finding not "the one true way to be in this world" but ALL the diverse and wonderful ways in which, together, we witness to the harmony God intends for this creation.