I’m teaching a music appreciation course at CVCC this semester. In the opening unit, I covered major elements of music including melody, harmony, and rhythm.

When we think about a piece of music, the melody is usually the first thing that comes to mind. Melody is defined as “a succession of single pitches, perceived by the mind as a unit.” When you look at the bulletin on Sunday morning and see “Amazing Grace” listed as the opening hymn, you probably hear the melody in your mind.

Harmony is the result of three or more pitches sounding at the same time instead of one after another. The way chords are constructed and how they follow each other fall under the heading of harmony. By the end of the course, I expect my students to listen to the harmony of a musical example and identify the musical era in which it was written.

Then there’s rhythm, from a Greek word that means “flow.”  Music takes place in time. When we hear a melody or a chord, each pitch lasts for a specific number of seconds or fractions of a second. Rhythm helps us perceive the order inherent in music.

But rhythm isn’t confined to music. One author writes:

The ancients discerned in rhythm the creative principle of the universe, manifested alike in the regular movement of planets, the cycle of seasons and tides, of night and day, desire and appeasement, life and death. … This universe was art, and its controlling principle was rhythm. The symmetrical proportions of architecture, the balanced groupings of painting and sculpture, the patterns of the dance, the regular meters of poetry – each in its own sphere represents man’s deep-seated need for rhythmical arrangement.

Christians long have felt those needs, and the Church has responded in a variety of ways. One is through its music. For the first millennium of Christian history, almost all Christian music was written in triple meter. That is, each beat was divided into three equal parts, an intentional expression of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Another way the Church acknowledges the value of rhythm in our lives is through our observation of the Christian year. We start with the season of Advent, a time of preparation for the celebration of Jesus’s coming. We move through the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. Then, this month, we enter the season of Lent, a time of self-examination as we prepare to celebrate Jesus resurrection. After the season of Easter comes Ordinary Time, which leads back to Advent and the repetition of the rhythm of our life as the people of God.

This year, as I was teaching about melody, harmony, and rhythm, I came across the following quote: “In our global digital age, many Christians are rediscovering the importance of community, the value of rhythms and routines amid chaotic circumstances, and the need for deeper commitment to spiritual formation.”

For many of us the past year or two has seemed especially chaotic. As together we continue our journey through this still fairly new civic year, may we also share the joy and peace that can result as we rediscover the value of rhythms and routines amid chaotic circumstances.