Tone Deaf

A lot of people tell me that they are tone deaf and can’t sing.

Now wait… don’t tell me you’re one of those people. Just keep reading. 

Virtually no one is tone deaf. Argue if you want, but it’s true. When you discern when to shift the gear in your car, it’s because you can hear a difference in sound. If you’re a mother and can tell whether you’re baby’s cry is from fatigue or pain, you can discern pitch. 

If you were tone deaf, you wouldn’t have music preferences. One station on the radio would be the same as the other, and you wouldn’t sing along with the radio in your car, but you do because you enjoy what you’re hearing. And that proves you’re not tone deaf. It also proves that you can sing.  Most of us just need some training so we can identify what we are hearing. 

About my supposedly nonmusical friends, I’ve observed that at some point in their early lives, someone criticized their singing, usually a parent or a teacher. So they just quit.  I often challenge them: Do you mean to tell me that when you were a child, you made a decision for life based on what one person said? 

They did indeed. And it bothers me because singing is not so much about performance—sure there are those who perform and perhaps they have some special ability and training. But for most of us, singing is about expression. How much of one’s soul is diminished because they’re too scared to sing? And how much have we missed because we didn’t hear the song of another’s heart?

I like to hear the children sing before they’ve been told they can’t. I like hearing the babies sing before they can even form words. I like to hear the toddlers who make up their songs on the spot.  I think of the children who sang about Jesus in the temple before the adults could make them be quiet.

What wonders would we hear if people were just a little less afraid to express themselves?

The thought makes me remember to be very careful about criticizing another’s expression. 

Thoughts on Matthew 4:1-11, When Jesus Was Tempted

"Command these stones to turn to bread.”

It seems like a pretty good idea, plus it would be a good marketing strategy. Jesus could tell the crowds, “I’m hungry, you’re hungry… let’s have dinner and have a nice chat about your souls.”

In fact, Jesus did feed crowds of people miraculously with loaves and fishes, and it made him popular, as did his power to heal the sick.  And it was all good—it just wasn’t good enough, and the crowds faded when food was gone, which Jesus knew would happen.

Jesus' reply to Satan was actually a statement to us:  “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Filling the stomach does not necessarily feed the soul. Oh, it’s pretty crucial when you don’t have any, but many of us have more than enough; to the point where we have to struggle to keep the weight down. Yet even when there’s plenty of food, we can feel lonely, empty, and unhappy.

For that matter, wealth doesn’t spare us from misery, and neither does excitement and entertainment (although I would like to have seen Jesus jump off a cliff and fly around). 

Jesus wanted to put us in touch with God, so we could find true satisfaction.

When I think of the word of God, I don’t think of a written page. Instead, I imagine the Father sitting close beside me, speaking into my ear, the words pouring directly into my heart, filling me up in a way that makes me calm and whole.

Perhaps the purpose of fasting is to remove distraction so we can focus fully on that word from God.