Resonance

Thinking about what moves us

I’m starting this week with this thought: There is a lot that we can’t know about the world that we live in. Especially in the age of information that might be considered blasphemy. One might think, “Of course we can know everything.” Isn’t that what the pursuits of science, and research, and archeology, and spirituality, and similar fields are all about? Yes, and we deny ourselves the reality of our wonderfully limited nature if we operate as if we can or rather should know everything. At best, we may slip into a kind of false confidence, at worst, arrogance and hubris. Besides, no one even likes a know-it-all.

If this is true, what can we do? How can we attempt to live good lives if we can’t know everything? How do we make good choices, knowing that we may not see everything clearly? We must pursue, seek out, and find an idea of goodness that has the power to change who we are (not just what we do). And, by extension, the world around us. This idea of goodness doesn’t have to change things – things might be good already. But it must have the power to change things, at least for the times when things aren’t good.

For the follower of Jesus, the idea of goodness is directly tied to a particular kind of life – the good life. This life is experienced when one is living within the sphere of God’s effective will – that is the Kingdom of God. God’s will is born out of His character – God is love – and so we pursue the character of love within ourselves and the world around us. This is seeking the Kingdom of God. As we seek it out, we share it. As we share it, others are inspired. As the inspiration comes, there is change (or at least the possibility of it).

The practical nature of this pursuit is found in the intentional engagement in our own individual formation. With a clear vision for how we would like to be, we can put forth conscious effort to do things that can help us towards that vision. This is not meant to be just behavior change…it goes much deeper than that…towards character change. It is meant to change the things we find ourselves doing without thinking. It is also not meant to be done alone. For followers of Jesus, it is Jesus who is our teacher. For others, it will ultimately be someone else or some other idea that sits at the place of teacher.

The activities available to us in this pursuit I have often discussed as spiritual disciplines, and there is plenty of really good writings and videos about it. So, I won’t go further here. My current favorites include works by Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and Eugene Peterson. What I’ve been thinking about this week is the nature of resonance. For me, resonance is connected to sound and vibrations. In physics, resonance describes the occurrence of prolonged vibrations, particularly as they move from one object to another. If one object begins to vibrate, a nearby object may also begin to vibrate seemingly spontaneously. It would be said that the vibrations are resonating between the two objects. The concept of resonance can be applied to ideas. Have you ever felt different as you learned of a particular idea? Something happened, like your eyes widening, or excitement rising. Resonance is normally thought of as a good thing and seems to sit in opposition to tension. We are attracted to the ideas we resonate with. We are repelled by the ideas that we respond to with tension.

This got me thinking. Are there people, ideas, or experiences, that I resonate with, that aren’t necessarily good? If they aren’t good, why would I be resonating with them? The answer here, I think is my own formation. I’ve shared a little bit about the intensity with which I grew up , studying, training, and working. I have been formed to be high-capacity, high-expectation, and high-output. At face value these can be all good things. However, they also can lead to destructive tendencies. I’ve shared a bit about that idea as it relates to the project NUACH.

The ways in which we have been formed lead us individually towards familiarity with certain contexts and activities. That familiarity breeds resonance. Our bodies literally remember and want to continually revisit the things that they are used to doing. Our bodies are trainable, but not inherently moral. They don’t already know good from evil. They just want to do the thing that they know how to do. This poses a huge problem.

Take a quick look around your immediate world. There will likely be a number of things happening that are good alongside a number of things that are not so good. That means that if we simply take on what is around us our bodies will become used to a combination of both good and evil. If we want to do away with the evil, then, and the accompanying temptation to be involved in that evil that our own formation primes us for, we must find a way to engage our ongoing formation, weed out the evil, and move towards the good.

A few months ago, a friend sent me an interview with Victor Wooten (available on Apple Podcasts). I’m a fan. Victor is one of the most prolific, inventive, and thoughtful bassists I’ve encountered. While we’ve only ever met in passing, I counted it an honor to be asked to produce the second ever live-action TED ED video, knowing that Victor had done the first. In this interview Victor is discussing his book, thoughts on music as language, and how he listens to the music. In Victor’s approach the music serves as a kind of muse. Listen to the music, and the music will lead you toward goodness. It reminds me of the opening lines to the movie Tap, “Don’t be scared…just listen to the rhythm.” From personal experience, I can say that it is wonderful to immerse oneself in the beauty and wonder of music and dancing, and to trust them to lead you toward something good.

However, blind trust in beauty and wonder can lead to the pain expressed in this common cliché: Curiosity killed the cat. I’m sure we have all heard music, or seen dancing, that we would consider bad. Not just aesthetically (which might be subjective), but for the vision of life that such music or dancing may present, cultivate, and move people towards. The cultivation of our imaginations ultimately leads to reality, and reality can be obvious in its goodness or otherwise. Music and dancing are inspirational, but the question of what spirit they are amplifying needs to be asked, and cannot be assumed to be good. Music and dance function deeply on resonance, and if what is in us is not all good, then with the right content evil can resonate. No, there has to be something more. There must be something greater than The Music or The Dance to lead us towards goodness.

Separately, the idea of listening to something that we can trust to lead us towards goodness is also a spiritual discipline. As followers of Jesus there is an entire practice of learning how to hear God’s voice – the voice of the spirit that is love – that has been cultivated and taught over the millennia. It is not initially an easy practice. There are quite a few other voices competing for our attention in the world. From family and friends, to advertisers and influencers, these voices can clutter and confuse our mind. To add complexity, other voices are not all evil, they are just not God’s. We need to attune our ears to God’s voice, if we are to hear it. The pursuit then of God’s voice, character, and will, will likely result in a desire for times of disengagement – solitude and silence – that can free us from the clutter. As we are freed, we must replace whatever resonance we have had with a cultivated resonance with the voice of God.

I’m sure many of us have experienced music that made us want to move. Even just bobbing our heads, snapping our fingers, or tapping our feet. Imagine for a moment the same kind of thing but between a resonant voice of love, ourselves, and actions of goodness. That is just the beginning…