Dissonance and Resonance
I like music. We play it a lot at my house. I played an instrument in the school band years ago, but I’m much more fluent in playing the radio these days. I know just enough music theory to appreciate that what I am hearing is complex and thoughtful, but am not adept enough to know how or why.
The definition of music I learned centered on the idea of both sounds and silence. The idea stuck with me because the absence of a thing is sometimes necessary to define that thing, but that’s for another day. Music challenged me because the step just beyond basic finger-pecking is built on chords - generally 3 notes played at the same time. Chords add depth to music and create a richness not found in knuckle-banging ‘Chopsticks.’ Yet with that richness, the margin for error increases. Playing chords is tedious and monotonous, yet the repetitions instill a sense of what is ‘supposed to be.’ Playing ‘C’ or ‘G’ chords over and over begins to create a sense of unity. Then on the rare occasion some misses that third note in the chord, something inside shivers. Our bones tell us something is off and asks for it to stop. This is dissonance — literally, "disagreeing in sound.”
The idea has been applied to psychology with an idea termed ‘cognitive dissonance;’ two incongruent ideas held at the same time. Our minds seek coherence and when we’re faced with data that doesn’t align, it creates ‘psychological discomfort’ or stress. Our response is either to 1) live with the stress, which our nature fights 2) address the stress head on, which will require energy and is risky 3) adjust our understanding to make the data fit, whether it’s right or wrong.
My wife and I have been engaging with a church lately. The primary teacher is fantastic, inviting engagement with the content. The primary worship experience is also tremendous, integrating traditions into a seamless, harmonious whole. My bride and I are hooked, so we started down the path of understanding more. As we moved from experience to experience, meeting new people (both staff and lay leader), the level of dissonance grew tremendously. Our experience of Sunday morning stands in such stark contrast of our experience outside of that hour that it’s caused us to wonder what’s going on. The dissonance is so loud that it’s created concern for us.
In this context, the contrast between our experiences has created such a challenge for us that at best, our experience has been disjointed and is requiring a lot of us to make sense of how it all fits together. At worst, there’s a lack of integrity in how the organization operates, varying in its theology and expression of that theology. We’re stopped trying to fit it all together.
Our experience invites our emotions, which inform our thoughts. We’re trying to decide if this psychological dissonance is a poorly designed journey (one wrong note, to borrow the musical metaphor) or a ‘check in the spirit’ that indicates deep fissures in the system (i.e., wrong instruments, wrong chords, wrong conductor).
A little extra noise suggests authenticity -- the realness found in the pops and cracks of vinyl records. Too much noise and the silence becomes more cherished than the sounds. The work is on me as a listener (be that in a concert or in a church).