Unresolved Spaces
Not all those who wander are lost.
– J.R.R. Tolkien
There was a trend in worship music a while back of leaving chords unresolved. Resolution is what happens when a chord moves from dissonance to consonance, from an unstable sound to a stable one. Dissonance commonly occurs in worship music in the form of suspended chords, created by playing the second or fourth note of a major key. For example, if you play the first, fourth, and fifth notes together, the fourth and fifth notes together create a sense of tension, which can then be resolved by shifting the fourth down to the third.
There was a period when songs would purposely end on a suspended chord—perhaps to prolong a sense of expectation or feeling of drama—and it was a bit of a new idea, letting that dissonant note linger.
I remember that now because I’m realizing that often my frustration, anxiety, or resentment with situations and people occurs because I desire quick resolution. I want to arrive at a solution, fix a problem, discover an answer, or obtain an object, as quickly as possible. But sometimes expediency is an enemy. Sometimes I need to be willing to live in suspension, to let dissonance linger. I need to be willing to inhabit unresolved spaces.
An unresolved space could be mess in the house. It could be the behavioral fluctuations of someone who is no longer a child but not yet an adult. It may be when I see a truth about someone that they haven’t seen for themselves, or have yet to live into. It could be someone figuring out an opinion, or mulling over a decision. It could be waiting, waiting for anything.
Living in suspension is uncomfortable. In that space, there is uncertainty, tension, discomfort, suffering. Our instinct is to seek resolution, and many times we should, but I’m learning that sometimes, immediate resolution is not so much the point. If the point is transformation, if the point is the experience of grace, if the point is felt reality of the truth, well then, sometimes those things happen most in those unresolved spaces.
One of the gifts we can give others is the freedom to be in suspension, to grow in their own way and their own time, without offering hasty judgment or prescriptive demands. Of course, love can mean offering our opinions, but I generally have no trouble doing that: what I need to remember is that pushing someone towards a solution is not only close-minded, but robs them of whatever that space may offer them. There may be something specific from that situation they need to learn, there may be a significant insight they can gain, and in pushing for a resolution, I take that chance away.
One of the greatest ways we can live out our trust in God is to accept for ourselves a life in suspension. There is a kind of lie we’re always believing, that we will be happy when. When this problem is fixed. When this difficult situation is over. When we have what we want. When we become better. When the chord resolves. But this kind of happiness is a mirage; it never arrives. Or if it does, it lasts but a temporary period of time before we start looking to the next thing. The truth is, happiness does not come from circumstance, but from understanding that we are created for a relationship with God, the only one who can satisfy the truest longings of our hearts, who loves us entirely without condition.
If we believe that, we are willing to see the value of unresolved spaces, because we know that the things that really matter—not just “fixing this so it suits my idea of how it should be”—but growing in closeness with God and experiencing his power more, seeing and gaining freedom from areas of sin, learning how to more unconditionally love the people around me—those things so often happen in those very spaces.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin writes, trust in the slow work of God. When things are not coming to head as quickly as you’d like, when resolution is not happening, give God the benefit of believing that he is leading you, and accept being in suspension. The beginning and ending of his poem goes like this:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God…
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
