Keeping Your Balance…A good morning from New Mexico to all my Hump Day Devotion Readers! A beautiful but crisp 370 up here in the mountains greeted me today. These past few weeks at the US Army Corp of Engineers Riana Campground have been busy and fun but, most of all, it has me finding a balance in life that I didn’t expect. One of our local Pueblo nations-the Tesuque, have a great perspective on a balanced life. Tesuque means “structure and the sun above and the earth below that define and balance” for the Pueblo people’s life in this world.

That perspective is one that Paul beautifully described how God will put all things in balance: “For we know that all creation groans in unison with birthing pains up until now. And there is more; it’s not just creation—all of us are groaning together too. Though we have already tasted the first-fruits of the Spirit, we are longing for the total redemption of our bodies that comes when our adoption as children of God is complete.” —Romans 8:22-23 The Voice

Balance in this world is hard! So many things pull for our attention, let alone getting through a pandemic. A lady at a local store we shop in Espanola lives in the Santo Domingo Pueblo. In our conversation she said “this virus has upset our balance” – I agreed with her and asked her what she is doing about it, “I pray—I pray a lot” and I thought she was truly spot on! So enjoy this musical unbalanced story from one of our beloved composers…

Composer Johann Pachelbel, had a very large family but one son was quite the mischievous boy! He loved to get under his father’s skin. Knowing his father had perfect-pitch (what we call OCD perfectionist) this son would come in late at night when his father and mother were in bed. Before going to his room, he would go to the piano and loudly play a simple scale, all but the final note—leaving the scale incomplete, knowing this would drive his father nuts.

After hearing the scale minus the very important final note, Pachelbel would writhe in his bed, unable to relax after hearing the unresolved scale. This awakened his wife who said,   “Johann, go finish it or I shall never sleep!” He would stumble downstairs to the piano and hit the final note. Only then would he, well both of them, be able to get some sleep!

Today, health experts call this catharsis … “the felt need every single one of us has to resolve things that seem out of balance to us.” It’s an innate feeling given to us by God to help us find balance in daily life and even more, that desire to work toward and anticipate the time when every tension we have will be released and all things will be made new—a world in perfect balance for all!

Until that day when Jesus returns and will play the final note of this unfinished scale in earth’s history; when all things will be the perfection of the first Eden before sin entered the world, we shall live in a very unbalanced world—even the animals would agree with us. So, what are we creatures supposed to do?

Like Pachelbel, we writhe and wait for the final note to be played–something I can totally understand because, like him, I have that “gift” of perfect pitch and have had to train myself over and over again to not let it ruin a good concert or play! Like the lady from the Pueblo, I’ve asked God to make the notes perfect to my ears. As a long-time church musician, I had to learn how to love my musicians and not ruin their enthusiasm for music just because they could be slightly out of tune. That’s not easy when you’re working on the big Christmas or Easter Cantata, etc — many of you musicians can agree!

So what to do? I embraced love rather than musical dogma and adopted this stance: to God their music is beautiful, and if God loves the songs of the ravens and the gravelly desert cactus wrens, then God is delighted no matter the tone! In fact, it was a time that I learned much-needed patience and found out that sometimes the most mediocre voice could become outstanding with encouragement. Which, in the end, brought a wonderful balance not only of music, but deep friendships within the lives of those saintly musicians who showed up weekly no matter the weather!

Balance … what are you doing right now to keep in balance with an out-of-balance world? I love Brené Brown’s podcasts. Here are 10 points she uses in her life that are helpful:

*Cultivate authenticity and let go of what people think

*Cultivate self-compassion and let go of perfectionism

*Cultivate a resilient spirit and let go of numbing and powerlessness

*Cultivate gratitude and joy and let go of scarcity and fear of the dark

 

*Cultivate intuition and trusting faith and let go of the need for certainty

*Cultivate creativity and let go of comparison

*Cultivate play and rest and let go of anxiety as a lifestyle

*Cultivate the lies of status symbols and productivity as your self-worth

*Cultivate meaningful work and let go of self-doubt and ‘supposed to’

*Cultivate laughter, song and dance and let go of being cool and ‘always in control’

None of these are always easy, but this is where our trust in the Lord can help us find that balance we need! And that final day that is coming? — keeping balanced and filled with hope in our Jesus whose promises never fail, reminds us that YES INDEED — all things will be complete and heaven will be our home!