Variations in our Walk

Author: Mark Fenstermacher
March 12, 2021

As we walk through Lent with God, I’d like you to think about your soul life as music. Sometimes planned and structured works...it is what we need. And sometimes what we need is more spontaneous, extemporaneous and free-flowing.

This afternoon, in my office, I had Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the stereo. The Baroque piece of music is built around an aria, and then Bach introduces thirty variations of that aria. There is a constant part that is repeated throughout the variations.

Structure is key to a healthy soul life generations of Christians have discovered. A set time of prayer, a collection of prayers written in this century or ten centuries ago, the use of a particular plan for reading through the Bible, regular attendance in worship, the act of giving our money and time away. This kind of intentional, structured, life-renewing soul work doesn’t come naturally to me. The structure is something I need...it helps to be thoughtful and intentional about our soul life.

Then, there is the more improvisational, free-flowing side of spirituality that is also key. John Coltrane, in Giant Steps, amazed the world with what one writer describes as “an astonishing tenor-saxophone improvisation” where he pointed the way toward “the lava -flows of scales and runs that critic Ira Gitler famously described as ‘sheets of sound.’” 

I’ve spent several nights listening to musicians in downtown Nashville, Tennessee and been stunned by the way they would improvise their way through a song. They would read the moment, read the other musicians, and together something would happen that wasn’t completely planned out.

In your walk with God, I would encourage you to include structure (planned times with God, using resources that speak to your life and soul) and also to be open to those unplanned moments and experiences that God uses to reach you.  Keep your eyes open. Listen. Notice. 
Frederick Buechner (one of my favorite authors) talks about the power and beauty of “unmemorable moments.” Looking back over his life, he recalls the memorable and unmemorable moments. Buechner remarks, “It was the unmemorable ones, the apparently random and everyday ones, that turned out to be the key moments.”

Structure in your soul life is a good thing. Think about it. Be intentional. Plan it. And, then, keep your eyes, ears, heart and head open to the unplanned moments and experiences where God unexpectedly shows up.

Soul variations: has a nice ring, doesn’t it? Read the moment. Read the room. And go with it.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Mark

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