Back to the Tonic

Let me tell you something about music.  There are rules to music.  At least, there are rules to the kind of music we play in our culture.  There are no real rules to music; play anything you want.  But, if you want the notes to sound like Western Euro-centric music, you have to follow certain rules, such as using that eight note octave scale.  Start using a different scale, and your music sounds like it came from somewhere else, from some other culture.

We grew up with our music, whether it was Bach or the Beatles, we got used to it.  It has become a part of us.  And it has an effect on how we feel.  For example, a musical key is built off of the #1 note in a scale that starts with any damn note we choose.  Thus, the key of C starts with a C note and progresses up C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C (which uses only the white notes on the piano).  In our music, the key of C, as in any key, has three main chords.  Chords are groups of notes played at the same time.  For example, a C chord is played by sounding the notes C, E, and G at the same time.  In the key of C, the C chord is the #1 chord, or the “tonic” chord.  The F chord, which starts with the 4^th note of the C scale, is the sub-dominant.  And the G7 chord, which starts with the 5^th note of the scale, is the dominant seventh.

Now the only reason I’m mentioning this music theory is that these chords have a psychological effect on us.  If I play the tonic chord, then switch to the sub-dominant chord, then switch to the dominant 7^th chord, I will leave you hanging.  You will have the sensation of “waiting for the other shoe to drop.”  It’s like playing the first few notes of the “shave and a haircut” song—Da da da DA da…    You are all waiting for the DA DA!  When you hear that one to four to five chord progression, your mind screams for the musician to go back to the one chord again to finish it off.

And the only reason I’m bringing any of this up is that this is how we live our lives.  This is what “Waiting for Godot”, by Becket, is all about.  We are all looking for something.  There is the strange longing in our cores; this feeling like something is missing.

From our earliest memories, from before we could remember, there has been this feeling that something is missing.  We spend most of our lives looking for it.  Some people fill that missing piece with religion.  Some use drugs.  Some use sex.  Some use photography, or music, or quilting, or dancing, or exercise, or making money, or any number of the limitless ways we have to use our time.  Sometimes, those are really an attempt to fill the void.  Sometimes the activity just drowns out the voices in our souls calling out for us to come to them, like the Sirens of Odysseus.

In the movie, “Lilies of the Field”, a story about an itinerant construction worker who is pressed into service by a group of nuns to build a chapel, a cynical restaurant owner explains to a business man why he is helping to build the church.  He calls it insurance.  He says he doesn’t know if there is a God or not, but he figures that helping to build a church will be his insurance of being in good standing with the all mighty.

A lot of folks see religion that way.  They don’t really believe, but they go to church each week—just in case.  They celebrate the holidays.  They wear crosses on the necks.  But that is the only outward sign that they believe in God. Some of these folks study the bible, hold prayer meetings, and then go off and blow up abortion clinics.   Some folks don’t spend any time in prayer, unless they’re in trouble.  There are some men I’ve heard say, “I leave the religion to my wife.  She goes to church.” I imagine they have some idea that their wife’s prayers will get them into heaven.

And of course, believing in God shouldn’t have anything to do with getting into heaven either.  Saint Paul sad he would gladly give up heaven if it meant that others might see God.  You don’t love your parents because they give you stuff, or even because they take care of you.  You love them because they exist—in the same way that your parents love you because you exist.

It seems to me, as a rational thinker, that the question of whether or not there is some divine power would have to be the singular most important question that each human needs to confront.  Because, if it turns out there is a God, if YOU are convinced there is a God, then trying to be in harmony with that divine power would have to be the most important thing you could possibly do.  And if there isn’t a God, then wasting your time with prayers and rituals of any kind is pretty stupid.  I mean, it fulfills a purpose, but it would still be pretty stupid.  The restaurant owner who says working on the church is insurance is just putting off dealing with that ultimate question.

Oh, the question is there.  That is obvious by his need for insurance.  He just doesn’t want to face it.  Because if he did face it, he might have to change his life in some way, not because of any rule, or sin, or ritual, but because you don’t come to a conclusion about the godhead without it transforming your life one way or the other, whether you decide you believe or decide you don’t.  I suspect that many folks prefer not to deal with the question at all, sort of the way people don’t want to go for cancer screening.  They’re afraid that they might find out what they don’t want to hear.  If we consider the question of whether or not there is a divine creative spirit, then we might have to either start practicing what we say we believe, or else walk away from beliefs we find too comfortable.  And if we decide those beliefs are true, then they cease to be comfortable entirely.

Take for example, this portion from the Gospel According to Mark, Chapter Nine:

At that time, John said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”
Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.
Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink
because you belong to Christ,
amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him if a great millstone
were put around his neck
and he were thrown into the sea.
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’”

So here we have those twelve guys, those guys who left everything to follow Jesus, and they’re saying that there was somebody else, somebody they didn’t know doing all kinds of good things in the name of Jesus.  They were a little put out.  Who was this guy?  They didn’t know him.  How dare he go around doing good things in the name of Jesus?  So they tried to stop him, and now, Jesus is pissed off!  And here is the ultimate message about God and God’s acceptance.  Jesus says that anybody who isn’t against him is with him.  This is very different from whoever isn’t for us is against us.  Jesus is telling them they need to be inclusive.  You don’t exclude anybody.

Jesus even goes so far as to pull over one of those kids, one of those people who were least valued in first century Judea, and say anybody who pushes one of these people away is in deep shit.  That’s what the Greek word means.  The Greek word translated as “causing to sin” means literally “to place a stumbling block in their way”, to “cause someone to trip.”

Consider for a moment all the people the church as pushed away, the people the church, by her actions, has caused to turn away from God and spirituality.  I have one friend who hasn’t been to church since she was a child because of the intolerance she saw in the people who claimed to be Christians.  When we see those people the church as claimed as heretics, women, people of color, homosexuals, people who the church has seen traditionally as “sinners”, we see those people who, in today’s world, are the equivalent of those children, those people who practically no worth.  And the church has pushed them away.

If we decide that there is a God, and we decide that the message of Jesus is a true one, then we have to try to live that message, and that means accepting everyone, whether we agree with them or not, whether we know them or not, whether or not they meet our own personal criteria for value.  Jesus is saying that everyone has value, everyone is divine, everyone is a child of God.  We shouldn’t push anyone away.  It isn’t for us to decide who is right and who is wrong.  The search for God is never comfortable.

If we decide there is a God, then it would seem only logical and rational that we would want to avoid anything that keeps us from connecting to that divine spirit.  Because if you come to the conclusion that there is a divine spirit at all, being in harmony with that spirit, the Tao, or whatever you want to call it, would have to be the most important goal in life.  And that is sin.  Sin isn’t any specific act, like stealing, or lying.  Sin is anything that keeps you from that divine connection, and that could be anything.  That could be devotion to your family, if it keeps you from feeling and seeing that divine connection. So Jesus says that we need to get rid of anything that is stumbling block for you.

Sometimes having a strong conviction, but a closed mind, believing that only our way is the right way, can keep us from opening our hearts, minds, and arms to other people, who are also trying, in their own way, to make that divine connection.  The mistake is always thinking that because we’ve found something that works for us, it must be right for everyone else too.  We need to lose whatever it is that keeps us from God, even if it turns out to be our desire to follow God.

Gahenna, by the way, was the trash heap, the rubbish pile, the dump, if you will, located just outside the walls of Jerusalem.  Jesus was very big on people holding the message of his teachings in their hearts.  It didn’t matter what you said or what rituals you practiced or how you prayed.  It mattered how you treated the other sons and daughters of the Lord most high.  Did you welcome them, or exclude them?  Saint Paul said we make void the word of God by our traditions.  Jesus said we follow with our words, but not with our hearts.  Prayers and rituals, without love, belong on the trash heap.

Until we learn to love one another the way Jesus taught, the way the Buddha taught, the way Mohammed, peace be upon him, taught, and accept one another, we are like that dominant seventh chord, always missing that resolution, always waiting to come home to the tonic chord, where we started.