FROM THE PULPIT: JUST THE PROPER TENSION

A day or so ago a pastor friend loaned me a guitar. I had told him I was thinking about learning how to play and he offered to loan me one he was not using before I went to the expense of a purchase. Playing a String instrument was not totally new to me I had played an upright bass viol when in high school and I still remember some of the basics. (Even though that is more years ago that some of us would like to remember.)

Mike told me that he had tuned the instrument before he had given it to me, but it might not be in tune when I took it out of the case, And then I remembered all that can cause a string instrument to go out of tune, makes no difference if it is a mandolin or a grand piano. First I thought of the tightening or the loosening of the string, the usual tuning of the instrument. Not tight enough and the sound is flat, to tight and it sounds twangy, tighten it beyond it limits and it breaks. Mike had tune the guitar in an air conditioned house and gave it to me out side, the temperature and humidity had both changed, and I know that they both effect the tension of the strings. Then I put the well cased instrument in the back of my pickup truck and drove down the back roads of Cape County and that bouncing around had to have some effect. When I arrive home and took the guitar out of the case and made my first, uninstructed attempt at playing some cords they sounded in tune to me, but I know at some point I am going to need to twist on the adjuster at the top (OK I don't know their proper names yet.) if the instrument is going to sound the way it does now. They will need to have just the proper tension to have the correct sound.

We human kind are not unlike a string instrument, properly cared for, when the appropriate tension is experienced, we contribute to the harmony of the world in which we live. When there is no tension at all we contribute no sounds to the society in which we live, tightened to tight, like the stings on a guitar, we snap. Some place in between we can find the just the proper place in which our uniqueness makes the contribution God has intended. Yet there are so many factors that contribute to that tension.

We can begin with the conditions we are confronted with in our homes and expand them to world affairs. In each case we must decide on how we are to respond, and that I in and of itself produces tension. Tension that we can not avoid. What am I going to do about ? You fill in the blank, and doing nothing is a an action. Maybe it does not add any thing to the harmony of the world around us, but it may not add to the discord.

The factors that determined the sound produced by any instrument are many and varied, yet not so complex as those that effect our lives. How are we to determine if we are in tune with the world that surrounds us? For me it is the answering of a single question, "Am I responding to Christ command to love my neighbor as mysel7" Properly answered, and each of us can only answer for our self, we experience just the right tension.