I learned an Irish phrase “tuning the five string harp” when I read “Listening Beneath the Noise”, by Anne LeClaire. It means “opening the five senses and bringing them into alignment so they work in consonance”. In the book the author remarks that tuning the senses is much like tuning any instrument. It takes time and can’t be hurried or forced.
Tuning our relationships can be likened to tuning the “five string harp”. There are times when all five strings harmonize and make beautiful music. These are the fun times with our loved ones that we remember in our Facebook photos. Every so often one string falls out of tune. We talk and put it back in alignment and once again the music flows. Once in a great while all the strings go haywire and it takes longer to perfectly tune the harp again. Sometimes it’s quite awhile before we can get the music to play again. To get the music back, we first must listen to a lot of screeching and bad notes. The important thing is we don’t give up and set the harp out on the trash pile. We keep plucking and listening and pretty soon one, then two, then maybe four, and, finally, after much listening and labor, all five strings swing into tune and the music flows once more. It takes time and patience to tune the five string harp, just as it takes time and patience to listen to and reconnect with our loved ones.
Now that the harp is tuned, do we expect it to stay that way forever? No. Such as it is with our relationships. They, too, will not stay tuned and flow perfectly forever, because the very essence if life is movement, change, and growth and we must be just as patient and tolerant with our parents, children, spouses, siblings, and friends as we would be with “the five string harp”.
My problem? I’m tone deaf.
And so, as another day goes by, I need a skilled musician in my life, and…I have written.
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