Jam#5 Dig that Crazy Pendulum Swing
Ever use a metronome? For those of you not familiar with musical paraphernalia, it’s basically a clock that creates a loud ticking sound for musicians to help keep time while playing a song. Newer ones come in various electronic forms, yielding a beep or clicking sound, but the traditional type is still the most endearing. It’s got an inverted pendulum arm that swings back and forth, providing a visual swinging pattern to follow, along with the accompanying “tick tock” sound. A movable weight, or bob, slides up or down the pendulum arm so you can determine how quickly or slowly the beats are metered out.
Metronomes are great tools to help younger musicians learn and appreciate time and time keeping. Somewhere within the exercise of working with a metronome, a musician finds the balance needed to keep from speeding up or slowing down too much. A sort of standard deviation is established in the mind and before you know it, you’ve tuned up your own internal clock. As a result, you learn to anticipate the beat and execute the next note or chord more precisely.
How we respond to life, is so much like that pendulum swing. There is anticipation and reaction to almost everything we experience… a perpetual give and take… and an eventual standard deviation that we establish for ourselves, that keeps us jamming through our days.
Imagine a huge grandfather clock, with one of those big old brass pendulums swinging slowly back and forth. For decades, it’s been keeping impeccable time, it’s intricate springs, ratchets and gears still working with agile precision and balance, counting out the moments of each new day. Ahh… smell that mahogany… seems to get better with age.
So what do we have here? Well we can observe the obvious… the swing to the left, and then the swing to the right. Keep watching and you’ll see how momentum builds through the downswing, pushing the pendulum bob right on through to the other side, reaching to only a certain point, until restraint is placed on the movement, and then it starts all over again, in the other direction.
Ever notice how a lot of what we say and hear, has the very same effect? At times we may say things in the heat of a moment, and suddenly realize, what we said demands an immediate counter swing. You know when this happens. It’s usually when we say things we really don’t mean, and we’re compelled to chase our words with the inevitable, “what I really meant to say was…” or “I was just kidding” or “…I’m sorry.” At that point, we see the counter swing return and hopefully we have established the balance to the thought we were originally trying to convey.
Now, we don’t have to say something rash or bad, or even in the heat of the moment to feel like we need to balance it out. It can be something well thought out and carefully crafted… and still… later, down the road, you find yourself trying to amend to what you said. Ministers do this, all the time. If you attend church regularly, you might see this pattern in your pastor’s messages. One week may be a message on the freedom we have in Christ… the next… or soon after, will be a message on repentance. Why, because your pastor is sensitive to what is going on in your church, and he’s got his finger on the pulse of the congregation. He, (or she), would never mean to lead the flock too far down a certain path, but it’s just a natural law that momentum leads us too quickly in one direction. From there, it’s a heart-felt reaction to try and bring balance to the original intent.
But then again, you’ll find people who are concerned in swinging the pendulum in one direction only. And if there’s no opposing force, that big brass weight is headed straight for the kitchen. Well, we know that that’s not really gonna happen, because something or someone else will eventually cause the pendulum to swing back… but not them.
Guess that’s why God made marriage counselors, (just kidding). See there it goes! I just made a statement that requires… ah you know. But seriously, as you look at your life through this lens you’ll start to see that almost everything we say and hear, everything we see or touch, smell or feel, is subject to this pendulum swing principal.
I believe there are three points we can benefit by as we observe the pendulum swings of life:
First… we were meant to be in motion. Imagine that big old grandfather clock again. Imagine that it’s stopped working. Doesn’t it kinda make you want to just reach your hand in there and get that swing going? The poor thing was designed to be in motion… and so were we. The swing is what makes us feel alive. We feed off of the excitement and anticipation of each swing. Watch a kid on a swing and you’ll know what I mean. They can swing on the same seat for hours, and still be amused by it. It’s the thrill of velocity, yet the safety of restraint and balance.
Next point is, Polarity. The swing establishes extremes on any given subject that helps frame opposing points of view in our minds. When I’m confronted with something new… a new situation or circumstance in my life… I can rest assure that my first impression is just one side of the pendulum swing. And if I wait long enough, I know that someone or something will reveal the back swing.
If you listen to any talk radio, you know exactly what I mean. Listen to any one show, long enough and you’ll start to think that the whole world is crazy, except for them, of course. They’re the only ones that know the whole story, so you’d better be listening to them or you’re just… uninformed. Well, just like the old saying, “there’s two sides to every story, and then there’s the truth”, you can rest assure that there’s another swing out there, somewhere. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 10:26, “…everything that is hidden shall be revealed.” It’s a principal of life, that the pendulum is not complete until it has metered equal and consistent momentum in both directions. And until the moment that entropy wins out leaving us at dead center, we can still observe and appreciate the swing.
Now, I’ve found that opposing swings are not always the ultimate arguments between Good and Bad. Sometimes they’re just two different ways of looking at a situation. Sometimes it’s a decision or a choice, and by swinging back and forth, we get a better feel for both sides of the story. Classic academic debates are good examples of this. By allowing two parties to represent opposing points of view, an audience can benefit by the volley of ideas and opinions.
If we are wise, at times we will allow the same thing to go on in our minds. By collecting facts and figures representing both sides of a decision, we can often side step our emotions, because you know our feelings… they never want us to wait.
I don’t know about you, but I know what my emotions always tell me. They say, “React now!” But if I just take some time and jam a little with God while the pendulum does its swing thing, I usually can see a clearer choice, that’s based on what I know He would do if He were me. I know that sometimes this is not as affective as we like because… well sometimes we just can’t make up our minds, and even if we watch the pendulum swing for days, we’re still no closer to making a decision. Well if that’s the case, I can only tell you from my experience that my problem is I’m not inviting God into the jam. Somewhere along the tune, I’ve zoned Him out, and I’m just listening to my own solo too much… if you get my drift.
Which leads us to final point, Balance. Somehow, all of the pendulum swings we observe in our lives help us to find balance in everything we respond or react to. You’ve probably heard someone referred to as a “centered”… human being, not self-centered… I mean someone who is balanced, not one giving in to rash or hasty decisions.
These people have learned the art of listening. They take the time to gather all the information and data possible… they anticipate the movement of each swing, and before they react, they already have a good idea of just how far both sides go.
Oh… if only I can practice what I’m preaching here, ‘cause to be perfectly frank with you, I know I’m not as centered as I would like to be… as centered as I know God would like me to be. But hey… I didn’t decide to write these jams cause I’m an expert on any of this. No… I just see the prize and I keep reaching for it. Cause I know with each day, the full pendulum swing gets clearer and clearer to me.
Usually, I feel like that kid on the swing, endlessly swaying back and forth, because to me, each swing has a new thrill of anticipation, and as I react, I know that Love… Love with a capitol “L” is sitting there patiently on that park bench, just waiting for me to come to the center. To anyone else watching, they wouldn’t quite understand, cause it looks like I’m just wasting my time, going nowhere, fast.
That’s OK. The Jam Meister knows… and I know. Everyone else can just go play on the monkey bars.
Jammin exercise: Draw three positions of one pendulum on a post-it or a piece of paper. Create one arm stretched to the far left, one dead center, and another… you guessed it… to all the way to the right. Do nothing else with it. Just leave it, somewhere you’ll see it more than once a day. It can be somewhere on your desk or dashboard… your night table or refrigerator. Then, the next time you hear someone say or do something that you know is way off on one end, imagine it being your left-hand swing.
Now, ask the King to show you what the opposing response or reaction is going to be. Don’t worry. We’re not asking God to show us how to tell the future… don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to promote any form of fortune telling here. Instead, this is just an exercise in learning how to invite God into our natural process of anticipating the next swing. Take a bible verse and try and apply it here. See if it doesn’t help to show how you can achieve a balance within that situation.
Next, use the same illustration when you know that you just said or did something way off in left field. Whether you intend on countering the swing is your business, ‘cause I have no way of knowing what you did or said. But I do know that if you’re jammin’ with the King, then one thing is for sure. He’s gonna want to bring everything back to center, eventually... for your sake, and for the sake of those involved.
Finally, thank Him for the knowledge and the wisdom He gives you to see both sides of every swing. Thank Him for the balance He brings to your life as you spend time jammin’ with God.
