Playing a song or playing the piano

My youngest granddaughter likes to pretend she is playing my piano when she comes to visit. It really is just noise. One day she asked me to teach her how to play a song. So i showed her the notes on the piano to Frosty the Snowman and she could memorize well enough to play that one song. She is back visiting for Thanksgiving and said again, "Pop, can you teach me another song?"

We were a few minutes into learning Rocking Around the Christmas Tree when i noticed she was a bit frustrated with memorizing another song so I said, "you know, you are learning to play a song but you are not learning to play the piano." She looked at me a bit confused and I said, "if you learn to play the piano, you will be able to play lots of songs, anytime you want even without my help."

Her reply, "then teach me to play the piano." I did and now she plays many songs from the freedom she has because she discovered how notes on the page point to keys on the keyboard.

This little life example has profound implications for us all and the reason i am writing my book "stuck in stinkin thinkin - The Divine alternative".  I have found that because many people just focus on learning to play a song (knowledge and rules to do a task), they do not do the work of learning to play the instrument (discovery). Thus it is with Grace. Many people are stuck with playing out life from their human nature (carnal mind) occasionally doing some Spiritual activities to pretend they are playing grace. My desire for all is to learn to make sense of life through the instrument of Grace and not the human imperative of social exchange and justice so that joy, freedom, significance, and hope are your song played out in every way.

Happy Thanksgiving!!