Resonance

The baby grand.

The single most desire of this little girl's grown up heart...And Jesus wants to give me one.  

My love affair with the piano started when I was very young. My grandmother had a small one in her parlor and I remember closing myself into that room and playing random notes...trying my hardest to mimic the sounds that I could hear so loudly echoing in my heart. When other parents would have told their child to stop, because it was most definitely NOT lovely, haha, they allowed me to explore the endless possibilities of musical combinations and sharps, flats, naturals and accidentals that a piano keyboard holds.

Unlike other a lot of other small children,  I rarely banged the keys.  It was more like...oh, I don't know...an unspoken respect that I felt for that instrument and I played it with an almost reverence. It was full of mystery for me and I remember spending hours in that room...just me and the sounds of exploration.  There was a genuine sadness when we had to leave because I knew it would be months before I would be able to experience that again.

When I was 10 years old.  My family moved into a new home and the former owners had an upright piano. It was very old and heavy and they didn't want to move it, so they offered it to my parents at a reasonable price.  My parents knew the love I had for this instrument and they accepted it and immediately signed me up for piano lessons with a dear friend from their former church.

I was almost delirious with happiness. It was a dream come true for me to have this beautiful, antique, cherry piece of living art just sitting in our living room waiting on me to caress its keys anytime I wanted to...which was a lot.  Haha. I sometimes wonder if the real reason that my parents signed me up for lessons was for their own sanity.

I was in love.

And then....

The day came for my first lesson and I was beside myself with excitement. I rounded the corner of her kitchen and stepped into the living room and laid my eyes, for the very first time, on the baby grand piano.  I'm moved with emotion even now as I remember that moment.  It was ebony and shiny....and the stuff dreams are made of.   The lid was down and had lace draped across it and their family photos were arranged symmetrically there. The keys were beautiful and so white and shiny compared to my antique ones and when she beckoned me to sit beside her on the bench, it was with great awe and reverence that my 10-year-old self slid in beside her.

She motioned for me to touch the keys and she was speaking to me, but I didn't hear a word. I was lost in the moment of discovery and wonder.  The keys were so smooth and cool and when I pressed down on one, there was a glorious resistance against my finger that my upright did not have.  In that moment, I was forever smitten by this brilliant, glorious instrument and my practices at home were less about learning the material, technique, and theory but more about imagining what the perfected pieces would sound like on my teacher's baby grand.

Once a week, I was allowed the honor to sit on that bench and pour my heart into the instrument of my heart.

Time passed and my skill grew quickly and with acquired skill came the confidence and freedom to create.  Haha! I remember times when I would sit down at the baby grand and play an assigned piece and my teacher would stop me and say, "Nicki...what's happening in the left hand? That's not what's written." To which I would reply, "It was boring, so I made up my own." Haha.

This became the norm for us.  I would create and she would insist that I play what was written...which was actually beautiful, now that I think about it. The composer felt deeply while they were composing those pieces and it was disrespectful to discard their emotion simply because I was bored with their interpretation, lol. My teacher was very wise and the discipline has served me well.  

One day, about 3 years in, I worked up the courage to ask my teacher to open the lid of the piano. I had only dreamed of what that would sound like.  She smiled and I helped her move all of the pictures and the lace drape off of it. With great care, I helped her lift the heavy lid and set the leg in place.  She showed me all of the strings and hammers and she had me stand beside it as she played for me.

It was almost more than my 13 year old heart could bear.  It was exquisite.  I watched the hammers strike the strings and the sound was indescribable. I felt the vibrations of every note echoing through my body and as I closed my eyes, I inhaled the resonance...I took it into my heart, and in that moment I decided that if I ever had a dream in life, it would be to own one of these instruments that could literally change the air in the room with one solitary sustained note.

I opened my eyes and looked at my teacher. She, too, was lost in the bliss of that moment.  Her eyes were closed and her body was moving in beautiful sync with the pianissimo and forte moments...literally feeling each note as it escaped from the confinement of her heart and exploded with purpose and melodic dignity into the atmosphere. If I had ever had a hero, in that moment, it was her.  She understood...and I've rarely ever felt so known and understood as in that moment. We were connected by the passion we both shared for this stunning compilation of wood, metal, felt and strings that expressed our hearts so beautifully.

She finished her piece and just sat there...eyes closed, soaking...as the resonance of the last chord slowly died into pregnant silence. There was a reverent hush and she opened her eyes and looked at me and smiled.  "I think I might just leave it open..."

For the next 3 years, I played on the open baby grand until the day when my teacher sat beside me on the bench and said the words that I never wanted to hear.  We had just finished a beautiful duet and she put her arm around my shoulders and said: 

"Nicki...that was lovely...You have grown so much, physically (I was now 16) and musically...and there's nothing left that I can teach you.  You know all of it and the only thing left is to continue to play and challenge yourself."

My lessons ended that day and it was the last day that I would touch a baby grand on a regular basis.

I grew up and married and my upright came with me many times, until it got to the point that it really was too old to continue to move. The sound plate which holds the strings and maintains the tension was cracked and it just needed a home where it could sit and never move again. With a heavy heart,  I sold it and from then on had keyboards to accommodate our active life style. I began to lead worship and keyboards were just so easy to transport...and while everyone else was experimenting with all of the cool synth sounds...I found myself gravitating to the grand piano sounds...and for years it was enough.

But then.

Recently, I pulled out my sons keyboard to play. It's how I pray. I played the first chord and I was just...unsatisfied.  I turned it up as loud as it would go.  Still no connection.  I put in earbuds. Nope.  I found myself frustrated because I couldn't seem to get the sound I was looking for. I ended up turning it off and putting it away feeling unfulfilled and unsettled.  The next day I wanted to play, so I pulled it out again and the same thing happened.

For a week this went on and I found myself just disgusted with the synthetic sound of the grand piano function.  I cried out to Papa.  "Papa! I'm longing for resonance....to be surrounded by palpable inspiration and beauty...I cant TAKE this synthetic anymore! I don't even want to TOUCH a keyboard because its FAKE! It sounds JUST enough like a piano to suffice, but its missing the depth and complexity and REALISM. "

(**DISCLAIMER** Please do not misinterpret. I am in NO WAY saying that keyboards are fake instruments or that keyboardists are fake musicians. Synth is an art and I have great respect for the brilliant musicians who create using that medium. I have personally played and still play amazing keyboards from amazing companies, but as a classically trained pianist, I am simply stating my longing for the sounds of original instrument and the revelations I have had.) 

SO...In essence I threw a fit.

In that moment, He began to show me the beauty of resonance.

In many ways, the American church has become much like the keyboard. Good intentions and helpful hearts have lent a hand in making the gospel of Christ easier to manage.  The weight of it has been lightened and many options have been added for diversity and creativity.  What once was a pure sound has been synthesized and downsized to a sound that is very close to the original, but lacking one vital part....natural resonance.

What creates this resonance? Tension. Pressure. Impact. Openness. All things that can not be synthesized or imitated and when it is, it carries no weight. 

When played alone, a decent keyboard (set to grand piano) sounds convincingly like a grand piano and can be moving when played skillfully. But when set side by side with the grand, there is simply no comparison.  When a song is played on the grand...especially an open one...one literally feels the music. There is an actual physical reaction that happens in the air. Frequencies are released that affect our bodies physically.

So it is with the gospel of Christ.  We can simplify it. We can add cool sounds to it. We can downsize it to make it more acceptable and portable...but in doing so, we lose the natural beauty of it...and there is something majestic about knowing that His gospel is too heavy to move or carry in our own strength.

When one approaches a grand piano, one approaches with a sense of smallness...a sense of reverence...and when one sits at its keys, there is a sense of humility and appreciation of the honor that it is to partner with this instrument to create ripples in the atmosphere.  Children are not left unattended with it because if its great worth and value. Novices feel unworthy to touch its keys...but yet there it sits...unconditionally accepting us at any level of expertise and patiently waiting for someone to be bold enough to approach and play the song only tension, pressure, and impact can create.

Our lives are much the same.

Too many of us live our lives synthetically...imitating a sound we have heard, but never truly experienced...adding cool things to that sound to make it better or more attractive to others in the name of relevance....And we shrink back from tension and pressure of any kind. When our lives are impacted, because we avoid tension, the sound that is released...instead of being a clear resounding note that grabs the heart of the listener, it becomes a dull, out of tune ear sore.

Pressure is also something we don't like, but if there is no pressure, no matter how tuned and tight the strings of our hearts may be, our convictions are not strong enough to create the necessary impact for the sound of freedom to be heard.

If we could ever truly experience the resonance of His love and a life lived in partnership with Him, our hearts would forever be gripped by the complex and stunningly simple beauty of the melodies created from tension, pressure, impact and openness, and we could never settle or be satisfied by a substitute no matter how convincing.

I think this is much of the issue with the way the world views believers.  We have become synthetic...constantly changing the sound we produce in a desperate attempt to relate to the changing world around us...when in reality? The world is simply looking for something real...something pure...something unchanging and constant...something so secure in the impact is has on the world around it that it doesn't have to change...it doesn't have to move...It can just simply, and gloriously be.

He is still revealing so much to me in this area and, as He speaks, I soak...dreaming of the day when His promise to me is fulfilled and I am once again seated at the cusp of discovery, surrounded by inspiration and the frequencies of exploration, joy, sorrow, longing, love, passion spiral like ribbons toward the heart of the One whom my soul loveth.

In a word:  Resonance