The Final Note… Hello weekend readers. I hope you are out of the rain, hail, snow and yucky weather! Crazy climate changes have huge impacts all over don’t they? I’m not musing on the weather, but it is part of my musing.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who always has to have the last word no matter what? Thus my musings, because I had a conversation with a person about the weather, just a chit-chat that turned into a seminar! Suffice it to say, I decided to not get into the matter because the last word was going to be said by this person no matter what! I felt if I interrupted him, he would be “off balance for life!”

This reminded me of a rather funny story about a well-known music composer, Leopold Mozart, who had a mischievous son that just loved to get under his father’s skin. Way too often, his 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, but instead of ending the scale, he would leave off the final note—obviously making the scale incomplete.

Leopold, hearing the scale minus the final note, would writhe in his bed, and so annoyed by this stunt that he was unable to get any sleep because of the unresolved scale. Finally, he would stumble downstairs to the piano and shout out loudly: “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, you MUST stop doing this!” Then he went to the piano and hit the final note. Only then would he be able to sleep! One can imagine a mischievous Wolfgang was laughing his head off!

Getting that final note or that final sentence in, is called ‘catharsis’ which means: ‘the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions’. In fact, catharsis is that felt need that every single one of us has to resolve those things that seem or feel out of balance to us. It’s an innate feeling given to us by God to help us work toward and anticipate a time when every tension we have will be released and all things will be made new. Really, God—this can be a long haul for me!!

In Romans 8:22-23, Paul says even all of creation experiences catharsis: [ERB]

“We know that everything in the universe is still in great pain now. Everything cries together in pain, like a woman who is ready to have a baby. It is the same for us who are believers. We have received God’s Spirit as the first of his gifts to us, but we also cry inside ourselves. We are waiting for the time when God will finish his great work. Then we will belong to him completely as his children. Our bodies will be free from the power of sin.”

We know that day will happen when Jesus returns and the true final note in the unfinished ‘scale’ of our lives will be finished, as ‘perfect scale in full balance’. Wrongs will be made right, sadness will turn into joy, and yes—our faith will now be made sight and we will see Jesus face-to-face! Until then, like Leopold Mozart, we wait for the final note to be played.

Waiting is something we don’t like, but waiting is also a spiritual practice that we should take into our hearts and minds. Don’t we all have unresolved problems that play a large part of our lives? Let’s face it, we want those problems done and gone—NOW! But waiting on God is part of our spiritual lives whether we like it or not. In those times when you say to yourself: “I’m off balance?” We just know that something isn’t ‘kosher’ as my good Jewish friend would tell me…and that’s not about pickles! So, while we wait, we must pray. Prayer feeds hope to our catharsis and reminds us that, because of God, we can endure any hardship through his strength when we put our trust in God.

In closing, take a moment to think about Christ’s return; what unresolved problem do you have today that you are most looking forward to being resolved? And then think of the many problems that God has already resolved for you through your life. That felt need we all have to resolve problems will continue, but, we have the promise of Christ’s return and that ‘final note’ that trumpet call is for us! Then we shall be perfectly balanced, living our lives with Jesus in Heaven’s eternity. Now that’s a final note you can take to the bank, AMEN!