The word "harmony" has been in my thoughts lately. It happened like this . . .

Within the last two weeks, the company that Travis works for--Big Rivers Electric Corporation--had a "Board Retreat" which, as VP of Operations, Travis was required to attend. Due to the generosity and kindness of the President of Big Rivers, the spouses were included. The retreat was held in New Harmony (or, as the brochures proclaim, "historic New Harmony") on the banks of the Wabash River about 20 miles west of Evansville in Indiana.

The road to New Harmony holds many memories for Travis and me, as he frequently preached--for a while (about 30 years ago) on a regular basis--at Old Beech (or, more correctly, Bethany Primitive Baptist Church in Solitude, Indiana). To get to Old Beech, we headed for New Harmony, and then just about two miles from New Harmony, we turned off the state highway onto an unpaved road and went a few miles further into Indiana farm country until we reached the church. Even though I came so close to the town geographically, I really didn't know much about New Harmony until we moved back to Kentucky a couple of decades or so ago. There is a very good restaurant at New Harmony, The Red Geranium, and Travis and I once ate there on the occasion of an anniversary, and then walked through Tillich Park (an interesting place for telling about in another post, another time). On another occasion, Walt Wangerin held a writers' conference there that I attended (as a commuter--didn't stay on site), and those two events were the sum of my experience with New Harmony until the Board Retreat.

New Harmony (first known as "Harmonie") is "historic" because it was the site in the early 1800s of the first of two attempts at beginning and maintaining a "utopian" community. Both that first attempt, and a later one, failed, but due to the preserved state of many of the original well-built houses and the history of the "social experiment", plus the fact that German theologian Paul Tillich is buried there (his ashes were scattered in "Tillich Park" in 1965), and the untiring efforts of one of the historically-minded, well-to-do descendants of one of the founders of New Harmony, and other factors, this small town has enjoyed a thriving tourist trade. I enjoyed my time at New Harmony--walking the streets that do not have traffic lights (even though the main street through town is a state highway that leads to the bridge crossing the Wabash River into Illinois). I was intrigued with, and followed, the meditation path at the "Cathedral Maze" (a replica of the meditation maze at Chartres cathedral in France), spent some quiet time in "The Lord's Woods" (so said the sign), and just enjoyed the pre-tourist season quietness on some wonderful sunny days. Anyway, this was my first (of several recently) notice of the word "harmony".

In that same time frame, I noticed an advertisement for something called "eHarmony. com", which I think is an internet "dating service". That word "harmony" had popped up once again.

Then last Sunday, my friend Val in Australia sent me a post that (among other things) informed me that "yesterday was Harmony Day in Australia . . . " There was that word again.

After seeing this word so often in so short a time, I investigated a bit by looking up the definition in Webster's 1828 dictionary (online). Webster's gives one of the definitions for the word "harmony" as: "The just adaptation of parts to each other, in any system or composition of things, intended to form a connected whole; . . . ." Sounds to me like it could sort of be describing a bit of what the church should be like. It didn't however, in the end, describe the "utopian" community which took the word as the name for its ideological vision. The "harmonists" didn't take into account the fallen nature of human beings -- an always fatal mistake. The human "parts" didn't adapt to each other as well as had been expected, and what the Puritans called "Adam's Disease" (what author Iris Murdoch refers to as "that fat relentless ego") took its toll.

All of this kept the word "harmony" in my mind, and reminded me of something that Gloria Gaither wrote a while back (and, if I remember correctly, was included in the book "God Gave the Song" written by the Gaithers). This writing gives good insight into "harmony", and I include it below.

Grace and Peace to all,
Elaine

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"If there's anything we all have in common . . . it's probably our diversity. . . . We come from many backgrounds--we rush through an amazing variety of appointments and destinations . . . . Psychiatrists tell us that a sense of alienation and separation is the common malady of our day. Perhaps that's why we all feel so healed when we gather [together] and begin singing the songs of where we've come from and where we're going. It gives us hope to know that although the parts we sing are different, all our various voices create a beautiful chord."

"Not long ago a friend asked me, "Do you still sing harmony in your church?" When I said yes, he said, "I miss that! We sing unison mostly . . . . But I really miss the harmony!"

"Perhaps the reason that harmony pulls at our hearts is that it pulls us inside from the cold alienation of our separate worlds, into the embrace of a family that is joined not by being alike, but by being in love. Harmony reminds us that it's not consensus, but commitment, that holds us together -- commitment to a Father that has charted the course from history to eternity, and holds even the modern diversity in the palm of His hand. "

"So, come! You sing your part, I'll sing my part, but we'll all sing the song of the redeemed!"