Tuning and Pruning

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been thinking about tuning and pruning lately.  It’s the perfect season right now.  Spring is coming out in beautiful flowers, longer days, and peaceful sunsets.  And time is slipping and swishing past.

But the reason I’ve been thinking about tuning is for my love of music.  I was thinking about how I regret in some ways not pushing myself more to learn an instrument when I was young.  I think I was fearful of the time and commitment that it would take to practice.  I was fearful of failing expectations.

And now I sit in the coffee house just off campus.  There are so many things that are buzzing about this place, but the one that stands out is the man tuning the piano.  It’s the most atrocious sound.  It goes above all the other noises, above the people talking, and the typing, and paper crinkling. 

It stands out. 

It’s different and unusual, but that’s not why it stands out.  It stands out because it sounds awful.  It takes time hitting the keys and hearing horrible noises to make the piano just right.  And in the same way the tuning in our lives is accomplished.  It takes time to be refined, tuned, and form new habits.  It takes time to deal with the problems and the issues. 

Every so often we need to be tuned and it is a process.  Its takes work and it can be awful.  We want to run away from the pain that we hear or feel or that is a part of the process.  But there is hope.

In the end, after the tuning, the piano makes beautiful music.  The sound that was once horrible is one that draws people in.  From the broken and messiness comes the beautiful.  The process makes the end note that much sweeter.  Refining in the tuning and pruning becomes beautiful.