Rule of Life calls for creative discipline

From Tim Tuller, Canon for Music

A Rule of Life.  The great Anglican writer and theologian C.S. Lewis once defined it as “an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth in holiness.”

As a professional musician, this definition resonates with me.  I spend my life according to my own “rule,” practicing at the discipline demanded by my craft.  As a professional musician, my music is a form of spiritual devotion.

Music and math are very closely intertwined.  As a child, I was fascinated by both, and excelled at both.  I narrowly missed a career as a physicist; in choosing music, I found a way to spend my professional life contemplating even deeper mysteries of the world.  Music fundamentally is about the combination of notes.  Notes are simply sound vibrations at a given frequency.  The faster the frequency, the higher the note.  Chords are combinations of notes that are chosen because they blend in a way pleasing to the ear.

It’s tempting to consider that these combinations are a product of our cultural context.  Rather, the opposite is the case.  In music, combinations which are considered pleasing not only cross all cultural boundaries, but show specific mathematical attributes.  The primary combination lies in the “octave.”  The octave of a note is simply the doubling (or halving) of that note’s frequency.  The “fifth” and the “fourth,” both basic building blocks in music, blend notes whose frequencies have an even mathematical proportion.  In truth, when you hear a pleasing chord, you are hearing beauty which crosses every culture and defies any description outside of the perfection of its math.

Why?  Why does an objective mathematical ratio equate to subjective beauty in every corner of human civilization?  It is in this convergence of subjective and objective, in the crossroads of art and math, that I believe we glimpse God.  Beauty outside of ourselves, surpassing our subjective interpretation, mathematical perfection… if not God, what could this be?

How does that equate to a Rule of Life?  As a musician, I find God in the divine proportions of musical chords.  In the strictest sense, I worship most fully in the performance of sacred music.  Music is the space for me where God reaches into my life to display to me something of His character.  I know from the sweet harmony of a chord that God is not only perfect, but lovely, and that He desires to share that beauty with me.

Clearly, that sweet communion comes at a price.  I cannot enjoy that same mystical communion with the Divine when my skills are rusty.  And so I practice, so that I can perform.  For me, practicing and performing are my Rule of Life.

Practice is for me a form of meditation; on the most basic level, practicing “quiets my monkey brain,” as our own Rev. Louise Hardman likes to say.  It demands my total concentration and my best effort.  In practicing, I focus, I meditate, and I pray.

While practicing, I’m also working hard to bring forth my best possible performance for the Saint John’s family.  God did not ask us to bring our sickly calves for sacrifice at the temple; He demanded the best.  His perfection is clear in the perfect harmony of His divine chords.  As a creature I’m not perfect, of course, but I practice as a daily discipline so that I can bring forth my best possible sacrifice of worship.  In short, I commune with God through music every day, and become the best possible musician I can be through that communion.

Lastly, when I practice and perform, I’m exercising my most human of attributes, my creativity.  God has told us that we are all his image-bearers.  I don’t think this lies in our capacity to destroy, but to create.  God gave us creativity, and by participating in the creative process, I’m blessed with a way to commune with God.

But make no mistake; practice is a discipline.  Sometimes, it’s hard.  I’m no Shaolin monk!  There are days when I don’t want to practice.  It’s easy to be distracted by the background noise of life.  It seems that there are always errands to run, e-mails to answer, chores to complete.  There are a thousand reasons every day to not meet God at the organ.  But I’ve learned some techniques over time to keep me on track.

First, as God does, I demand of myself the best that I can possibly reach.  I could choose less challenging musical selections from week to week, both for myself and the choir.  Instead, I have learned to hold myself accountable by choosing only the very best even for routine weekly services.  Bach, Mendelssohn, Stanford… I try to select musical goals which stretch the limits of what I think I can achieve.  God demands from us only one simple thing: our best.  The temptation to pick the easy way out can be overwhelming, but once we know that God meets us and empowers us when we set high goals for ourselves, it’s easier to find the courage to take on that challenge.  In the words of Paul, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Second, I put practice first.  When I arrive to the office, it’s easy to be distracted with all the small administrative tasks that running a major music program require.  Instead, I structure my day around my commitment to God and to my craft.  There is usually time enough in the day for everything else if first you make time for God, wherever you meet Him.  For me, that’s in meditating on the perfection of God in His most divine mathematical proportions in music.

The great early twentieth-century Polish pianist Ignace Jan Paderewski once commented, “If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices it.“  I think finding time for our spiritual disciplines is very much like this.  But by recognizing His love in how He asks only our very best, and by putting God first in our lives, we can always find the time to “practice” our Rule of Life, and be enriched immeasurably by it.

On October 7th, Tim Tuller is giving a recital at 7:30pm at Saint John’s Cathedral, encompassing three great selections from the German Romantic period of the late 19th Century.  Come and share contemplation on the divine!