For two hours today I sat in my living room wincing as the piano tuner slowly transformed my sadly out of tune instrument into something playable again. I keep my piano in the spare bedroom where the worst temperature fluctuation in our apartment takes place. The cool air flow of the living room window air conditioner can’t reach the piano in the devastating heat and humidity of summer, and the radiator with no thermostat, blasts warm air directly onto the piano all through the winter.
I watched through the doorway as the piano tuner took apart my shiny May Berlin, emptied his case of tools, and began the painstaking process of plunking, tweaking, and adjusting each key, one by one until all 88 of them were in perfect tune. I was suddenly ashamed of how out of tune I let my precious piano get and hoped he wouldn’t scold me for it. I keep the outside clean. I polish, dust, and buff away marks. I keep the area around it clean, tidy, and vacuumed. But I’ve neglected the inner workings for far too long now.
How easy it is to focus on the outside. After all, that’s what everyone sees. So much effort is put into appearing clean, strong, and put together. But it can only be kept up for so long. Eventually, what’s inside our hearts comes out. And if we don’t take care of it, those around us will soon be wincing at our contradiction and hypocrisy. We all require maintenance, and more than the bi-yearly tuning that my May Berlin requires. I wonder, when was the last time I let the Piano Tuner come in, use His tools, and go through every aspect of my heart until each one was perfectly in tune with His will? Maybe today, more than just the piano will be tuned.
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-ro