Walk in Paradise

This week marks three years since my dad was called home to be with the Lord.

The bright spot in the middle of the week is that my nephew, my parents' first grandchild, was baptized two years ago today.

But I still miss my dad.

A few nights ago I was singing to one of my twin girls while she tried valiantly to fall asleep in my arms. Out of the blue, I started singing a Hawaiian hymn that my father used to sing to us when we were young. When I forgot the words, I simply hummed the beautiful melody, hoping my baby would find it as soothing as I did so many years ago. Inside, I was saddened to realize that I had forgotten many of the words.

The next day, as I was going through a box of my father's things, I came across a copy of the Hawaiian lyrics that he had prepared for me. What are the odds? The Lord is merciful, even in the smallest matters.

Rather than relay the written lyrics, I found this video on YouTube, where you can also read a short explanation of the song. I only remember my dad singing the second verse in English, which began, "Let me walk in Paradise with you, Lord."

And now he is walking in Paradise. His prayer has been answered.

They Just Don't Make 'em Like They Used To

Chico and Harpo. Delightful.

Finding the Trinity in Music

I was introduced to this fascinating illustration of Jeremy Begbie's while listening to a presentation by the very gifted Mr. John Hodges. Let's see if I can do it justice:

We are visual creatures. We understand things visually. This, in part, makes the Trinity - one God, three Persons - so difficult for us to comprehend. How can two or more things occupy the same space without losing their distinction? It's basic physics!

Most of us have seen the baseball diamond-looking picture that is meant to help us with this concept.

We may be able to articulate the idea of the Trinity, but the imagery is still problematic for us.

This is where Begbie has a wonderful insight. He suggests that music can benefit theology by better illustrating audibly what is so limiting visually. We're talking more than appropriately matching words to music, though that is certainly of great importance.

Take the doctrine of the Trinity, for example. The most basic chord is called a triad, and it is made up of 3 notes (tri - triad - Trinity...just checkin'!). Take away one note, and it is no longer a triad. To play the chord, all three notes must be played at once. It is one chord, but it is made up of 3 distinct notes. You don't hear one note, and then another, and then another. This wouldn't be a chord, but an arpeggio, or broken chord. You don't percieve one note in the chord to the exclusion of the other two, either. Three equal notes, one triad.

In Begbie's own words from Beholding the Glory:

"What could be more apt than to speak of the Trinity as a three-note-resonance of life, mutually indwelling, without mutual exclusion and yet without merger, each occupying the same ‘space,’ yet recognizably and irreducibly distinct, mutually enhancing and establishing each other? To speak of three strings mutually resonating instantly introduces a dynamism ... far truer to the trinitarian, living God of the New Testament.”

So simple, yet so amazing, isn't it?