Metaphors 10 and 11 - Synesthesia and Perfect Pitch

Synesthesia is a physical/psychological condition in which a person perceives one sense as through it were through a different sense organ. For a example, a person’s ears can hear a sound or some music, but their mind will perceive it as light of some color or quality, or a taste sensation, or even a smell.

I like the thought of that. Imagine perceiving Beethoven’s ninth symphony as a wonderful fireworks display, or a delicate and exquisite perfume, or as the best thing your tongue has ever tasted.

But the reality of that condition maybe just the opposite. The brass section of an orchestra may come though as a head-splitting blinding flash of evil looking red light. Certain movements of the violin section may come through as a whiff of the most rotten substance in existence. And certain strains of the wind instruments may come through as worst thing one has ever tasted.

Then too, think of the "gift" of perfect pitch. This is the ability some people have to exactly distinguish one musical note in the scale from another musical note, just by hearing it once. Most people have to hear a number of notes in secession to get a relative sense of where they stand in relation to each other. People who have perfect pitch need to only hear a single note to know which one it is.

For musicians, perfect pitch is a perfect gift. But it comes with a price. They have to endure people who do not have perfect pitch who insist on singing or playing musical instruments. They are even prey to random inharmonious noises. For someone with perfect pitch, this can be like enduring a physical illness or even an assault.

Now here’s the question. What is all this a metaphor of? Well, two things that are very hard for human beings perceive that are very real attributes and characteristics of the Being who resides at the top of the Chain of Being. These attributes are righteousness and holiness.

Righteousness is right relation to other beings (or treating other beings right). Holiness is a related attribute that can be described as righteousness in itself without relation to another.

Being perfect, God has a perfect perception of the quality called righteousness, and is Himself most holy. God, as Creator, is at the top of the Chain of Being, and by that position is the sole arbiter of what is right and wrong, good and evil, and is in Himself good, and incapable of doing wrong. He is the Maker of the "rules of the game." Therefore a lesser being than God would say that righteousness and holiness are super-developed in Him.

Now think for a minute. A more highly developed being is more easily transgressed against than a lesser developed being.

A fish will only get annoyed at you (if he is even capable of that) when you actually get your hook in his mouth. A wild dog will get angry at you as soon as you step into an area it has marked as its territory. Apes, even if you have successfully negotiated stepping into to their territory, will get angry at you if you smile at them because among them bared teeth are interpreted as a challenge to a fight.

And in a similar vein, I recall a story about Washoe the chimp or one of the other chimps who have been taught a form of sign language from using a specially made computer keyboard. The story is that the special keyboard had a sign for "scientists" and a sign for "feces," and one day the scientists denied the chimp something and the chimp immediately tapped back and forth on the key for "feces" and "scientists!" True story or not, you get the picture. A more highly developed being is more easily transgressed against than a lesser developed being.

Now consider again, climbing up the Chain of Being, whether it is more than very likely that with a being like God, there are offenses that might not seem like they are a very big deal to us (indeed we might not even be aware of them or even think we are doing Him good by doing them), but do in fact strike very heavily at the center of His own happiness, just like Beethoven’s ninth might make a person with synesthesia ill, or our singing in the shower might make a person with perfect pitch cringe in their inmost being.

By experience, which I myself have shared, I know that most people, when they think of God at all, they think of Him as either an annoying stickler for rules who is like the Princess in the fairy tale of the Princess and the pea - someone easily annoyed by seemingly petty little things.

Either that, or they believe He is a jolly fine old fellow who can be easily entreated of any offense against Him because either they’ve had dealings with corrupt officials who can be bribed, or they’ve had authority figures over them who were given to moods they could take advantage of (which are merely the product of time passing), or more likely they or others they’ve hurt have experienced the baneful healing that time brings, which is merely forgetfulness, and found themselves easily absolved of offenses.

Whatever the reason, there is a failure to see that with God, righteousness and holiness are like the air we breath, the food we eat, and all that strikes our senses. It is His atmosphere. And it is of a piece with the intentions He has for creatures created to worship Him.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It is also the sincerest form of worship. It goes right to the heart of God’s happiness. If you have God as your Object, and He is your contemplation, then if you do something that is contrary to His personality, to the air He breathes, you have in fact become something unendurable to Him, and in all likelihood He has dropped out of your contemplation because what you have done is contrary to what He is.

Just how unendurable is it for God? We have discussed the quality of God’s happiness. We should now consider the quality of His unhappiness. Time for another metaphor.