No one was able to do more with less, than Schroeder. He sat down at his toy piano and provided masterpiece renditions of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, but mostly Beethoven because Ludwig van Beethoven was Schroeder’s hero. He kept a closet-full of Beethoven’s busts to display (he always wanted a spare because Lucy might break one in her own frustration). His house number was 1770, which was easy to remember since it was Beethoven’s birth year. He once enlisted a sponsorship for his baseball shirt from Beeth-Ovens. And every year he picketed his neighborhood carrying a sign to count down to Beethoven’s birthday.
One day while he was playing, Charlie Brown noticed something about Schroeder’s toy piano; the black (i.e. ebony) keys were painted on the white plastic (i.e. ivory) keys. When he questioned how Schroeder could play such beautiful music with the painted keys, Schroeder’ response was simple, “Practice.” I guess if Charles Schulz is drawing pictures of Beethoven’s sheet music or Vince Guaraldi is providing the piano sound for the TV/movies, then you can play almost anything on a toy piano.
My own musical journey was more akin to the plunking sound Schroeder did at the Christmas program when he played Jingle Bells, than when he played the now famous Linus and Lucy theme song. My guitar attempts were short-lived as I couldn’t get my left and right hands to come together in tandem (I could say the same about my attempts at the piano). I spent eight years trying to play a French Horn, which they say is one of the hardest instruments to master (small mouth piece and very long horn wrapped in a coil). In the right hands the French Horn sound is the most beautiful of the brass instruments, but it wasn’t in my hands. Most of the time I was more concerned with hitting the right notes, than I was with making music.
My eight years of band experience was overall positive. Both of my directors were meticulous instructors, particularly my middle-school/high school director. She demanded our best, and we respected her enough to give her our best. The results spoke for themselves. We got the notes right by winning sight reading competitions, propelling us to win the equivalent of the State Competition for stage bands my junior and senior years in high school.
I still feel the residual effects of getting the notes right when I listen to music. My ears cringed when my children were learning to play their respective instruments. Sometimes American Idol tryouts are too painful to watch; I’m thankful that The Voice weeds out the singers/performers from the pretenders. And while I’m supposed be “lost in wonder, love and praise,” I easily get distracted when the hymns veer far off from the written score.
Getting the notes right not only resonates with my musical background, but also with my theological background as well. I’m part of a historical Movement focused on getting doctrine right. Certainly, I admire and applaud such a history. Who wants to admit they belong to a group who perpetuates a lie? I don’t. We long for harmony with God, not dissonance. We pursue getting the doctrines right: resurrection, baptism, Lord’s Supper, worship, Incarnation, Church, et. al. But in our pursuit of getting these right, two problems have emerged.
One, we’ve tended to settle for a select few doctrines (i.e. baptism, church structure, worship, etc.), while forgetting how much the Bible speaks about forgiveness, taming the tongue, social justice and equality, and how lives touched by Jesus means being transformed into looking like Jesus. Even Jesus preached that there were “more important matters of the law, like justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Mt. 23:23). He also reminded us that God “desired mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos. 6:6; Mt. 9:13).
Secondly, in our pursuit of the right note of doctrine, we’ve often failed to humbly and compassionately pursue harmony with each other; we’re far too comfortable living in dissonance with those we disagree with. Dissonance may be of value in certain musical contexts, but harmony is the norm. Jesus’ prayer was for the church to be one (Jn. 17:21), not to just talk about unity, but to mirror the unity of the Triune God. Or, as Paul McCartney once prayed, “Ebony and Ivory lived to together in perfect harmony; side by side on my piano keyboard, O Lord, why don’t we?”
So let’s get the notes right, or in this case, let’s get the doctrine right. But let’s expand our play beyond treble and bass cleft, or the white ivory and the black ebony keys, and embrace the “whole counsel of God” (Act. 20:27). Let’s be all encompassing, for only then will we play the beautiful music of Christ. More importantly, maybe then, God will use us in a way where people will ask, “How’d you get that sound out of that toy piano?” Besides, no one has been able to do more with less, than God.
bonum dolar!
(i.e., Good Grief!)