Intelligent Design

How to Get Big Results with Little Effort

Have you ever taught a child to "pump" their legs back and forth to launch a swing higher and higher? At first the child works very, very hard, flailing feet and legs at all the wrong times, going nowhere and frustrating themselves to the point of crying out, "puh-leez push me!"

But once they learn to feel for the rythym of the swing, and work within it, even the small force of three-year-old legs is enough to build quite a bit of momentum. A small effort, applied at the right time in the right place yields big results. This is the power of resonance.

Now consider these commonly cited words from Jesus, delivered for those who have grown tired of working alone, even if (and maybe especially because) their effort is expended where they want and when they want:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30)

A yoke is an instrument built for two laborers working in unison. Jesus instructs us to find Him, come to Him, resonate with Him. And in so doing He promises that a small human effort will be magnified beyond measure.

Resonant Frequencies of a Room

I just came across the original recording of Alvin Lucier made in 1969, entitled "I Am Sitting in a Room." With it, he explores the resonant frequencies of a room by recording and re-recording himself as he delivers the following monologue:
"I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."
The first measured delivery carries emotional weight, punctuated as it is by his occassional stuttering. The somewhat pained monologue gives way to the song of the room with each re-recording, in which imperfect Lucier becomes the perfect string vibrating with resonance to the soundboard of the space.
For me, listening to this was a spiritual experience as I reflected on my own speech in my own room, or for heaven's sake, the sound of singing in a cathedral and the way it all must sound to God.
To listen to Lucier's performance click here