Guitar Amps Helping Us Understand the Bible

I have a friend named Lance. He also is a United Methodist pastor. He is a polymath.

Of the many gifts, graces and skills this guy has, he has the ability to play the guitar. He says he is not very good, but I cannot play the guitar and so to me it sounds like he can shred (I think that is the correct term). Anyway I was asking him a slew of questions about his new guitar when he began to talk about amplifiers, AKA “amps”.

I assumed that an amp receives the electrical signals from the guitar and then just makes those signals stronger so those signals can be fed to a speaker which allows the sound to be heard. This is not exactly what happens. Apparently (and I confirmed this with another friend who is a professional musician named Jackson) the amp is like a second part of the guitar instrument. The amp is a filter to the sound from the guitar. If I plug one the same guitar into different amps I will get a different sound. The sound is still coming from the same source (the guitar) but the sound is being altered by the different ways the different amps are created. When I heard this, I could only think of one thing,,,

The Bible.

The Bible is like the guitar. God is like the musician who uses the instrument called the Bible to communicate with humans. Each human is like a different amp. Each human receives the words and signals from the Bible. Because each human is different and is made just a little bit different from other human beings. The way that human understands and talks about the Bible is a modified by their experiences and their make up.

The amp can try really hard to stay as true to the guitar, but it just is not possible to do a one-to-one replication of the sound. The amp distorts the sound. But that does not mean the sound is bad or not reflective of the intent of the musician. In fact many musicians make the choice to play in a way knowing that sound will be distorted. Distortion of the sound is desirable because the point of the musician playing the music is harmonize with others.

God gives us the Bible and when we read the Bible we distort it, and God knows it. God’s goal is not a one to one replication. God’s goal is to make music so that the Lord of the Dance can lead us all. The Bible, like an electric guitar, cannot be heard on its own. It needs amps and speakers. But the amp cannot amplify nothing, it has to be connected to a source. Humans cannot amplify much of anything, we need a source in order to hear the music.

If you have read anything on this blog for any amount of time, you may see this metaphor and it’s connection to the United Methodist Church. Anyone who reads the Bible without an amp is not making any music. And anyone who is making music is making interpretive decisions on how that music sounds. The assumption that some people read the Bible without any interpretation are actually not reading the Bible. They are playing a guitar in a way it was not intended to be played.

No wonder so many people are turning from Christianity. We are using the Bible in a way it was not intended by God to be used. And so, let us read the Bible well. Let us play the music so that it becomes a song for the Lord of the Dance to lead us in.

Animal From the Muppets and Jesus

One of the greatest drummers of all time is Animal from the Muppets. Animal also happens to be one of my favorite Muppets because he reminds me of my one of my favorite stories of Jesus. 

In the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus encountered a man who is bound in chains and in just plain crazy to the point of self mutilation and community isolation. He is demon possessed and has become very strong to the point that no one could subdue him. He shouts and lives among the rocks and caves. He is scary and thought to be untouchable. 

For reasons that Mark make in the entire Gospel, Jesus is able to overcome this crazy chained man's demons and upon the healing the man returns to a state of affairs. We can imagine that the scars this man walks with the rest of his life are very visible and sometimes you have to wonder if he ever was affected by the residue of the demons.

Animal from the Muppets is a very primal being. And while no longer chained to the wall (see the pilot episode of the Muppets) he still has the chain around his neck. Animal is affected by the residues of his experiences and, from time to time, goes crazy. The one thing that brings him back to self is to play the drums. 

When Animal is playing harmony of the Song he is no longer affected by the chains of his past. Sure they are still there, but they do not control him when he is in the Song. 

For all the things Jesus is, (Bread, Living Water, Resurrection, Light, etc.) perhaps Jesus missed an opportunity to teach that he is the Song of the universe.

So if we are like Animal, let us find our place in Dr. Teeth's band and play along with the Song.

Singing as a Discipline?

Last week I shared this quote from St. Augustine to a friend:

"Let us sing now, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten your labors. You should sing as wayfarers do—sing, but continue your journey. Do not be lazy, but sing to make your journey more enjoyable. Sing, but keep going."

My friend shared that after reading this he could only think about how singing today is more about entertainment and escape than it is about a discipline. He went on to say that singing has become something that we do in private or at best quietly in a group. We sing only the songs we like and we sing as a way to transport us to another place (usually a past experience). So if there is a song that we do not like or do not have a connection with then we resist singing it. 

Singing to my friend is more of a discipline than entertainment. It is something that focuses the mind and Spirit so that we might be more intentional with the task at hand. Therefore it is important to sing even the songs we do not like because it forces us to face things we do not like and examine why we do not like them. Sure we can sing for entertainment, but if we are only singing to escape then we have missed the point of music - that is to connect us with one another, with God and with ourselves.

In light of the previous post of preserving the residues of tradition, I offer up this beautiful song of a Gregorian Chant mashed up with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. 

Reaching for a parable

She woke up, washed her face, put on her glasses and ate breakfast. Looking at her bookshelf she thought, "this place is a dusty mess." 

As she walked to work she looked up into the sky and thought, "another grey day."

She got into work mumbled about how her computer screen needs to be replaced because it is going out. 

When she went to lunch with a friend and complained about the low lighting in the restaurant. To which her friend asked, "why are your glasses do dirty?"

After rubbing her glasses with a nearby napkin and putting them back on, she realized the restaurant was not as dark as she thought.

“And the moral of the story is that it all looks terrible,
depending on what you look through, what you look through.”

— The Story of the Grandson of Jesus - Cloud Cult