I have a bit of a hobby. It isn’t something I can take with me on a plane or work on while I’m waiting to go into a meeting. As a matter of fact, the less I have to move it around, the better. I am a pipe organ enthusiast. I don’t mean I just like to play the pipe organ. I love the craftsmanship of the organ. How each pipe is created, how the mechanical actions are built, how a wind system is engineered to provide pressurized air to blow through tubes to create sound.
For several years I’ve been working on an organ in my home. Most of the work has been moving all the pipes from their original locations in churches to my garage and then into my basement, where they will be set up to play. Some of the work has been tedious. Each pipe sits above a valve that allows air to pass through when an electrical signal passes through one of several hundred tiny wires. I’ve had to solder each of those connections – about 1,200 so far.
On Monday, Lowell, Brian, and I went to the home of another organ enthusiast. He put his organ together in 1976 and after decades of tinkering, playing, and entertaining, he fell ill and died. His wife wanted the organ to go to someone who would put it to use, so we were there to preserve it.
The picture a lot of people have of pipe organs is a façade of pipes of the same shape, lined up next to each other. But behind the façade is a forest of other pipes of different shapes, materials, and sizes. Lowell was excited to see up close how some of them made sound by putting air through a reed before being resonated through a longer tube. And that small changes in the shape and make up of a specific set of pipes might shape the sound so they can be used another way.
Some of them sound great playing a melody all by themselves, while others are more suited to play together as a group to support a full congregation singing. As years have gone by, some of them have been dented and gnarled. Sometimes the pipe can still go on playing, and sometimes the other pipes just have to fill in where that pipe can’t sing any more.
A few years ago I was helping to design an organ for another church and we hoped to put all those variations on display so that people could see all the color and shapes. When the graphic artist sent us the final drawing of what it would look like, the pastor exclaimed, “this is the kingdom of God – all of these different pipes working together, performing their individual roles for a common purpose.” This is my favorite way to think of the organ, and also the way I see what we do at Lord of Life. We all have our different gifts, we've all been made a different way, we're different colors and shapes, we work through our dings and our scrapes, and we all work together for the common good.
Musically yours,
John