Article - Feel the Rhythm

Feel the Rhythm!

For the last few months I’ve been learning to play the drums. Tapping toes or clapping hands to the beat is pretty easy, but just you try to get two hands and two feet working together in a good rhythm! It’s a lot harder than it looks. After a while, you get a basic 4/4 beat down pat, so you think it’s time to jazz it up a bit. As soon as you do that, you stuff up your rhythm and have to start all over again! (a one and two and three and four and one and two and……)

Tim loves to come over and have a whack on the drums, and his philosophy of drumming is LOUD AND FAST ! I was trying to teach him to listen to the rhythm of the song and drum along to that, but it just wasn’t happening. Well, he is only 4 after all! But he did remind me of the way that many of us – me included – live life.

Life was meant to work with some natural rhythms. There are seasons of work and rest and play. There are seasons of struggle and seasons of peace. Seasons of happiness and seasons of sadness.

God Himself demonstrated that in the story of Creation. He worked for 6 days and rested on the 7^th. God doesn’t get worn out, He doesn’t get weary. He was demonstrating how to live with rhythm – work and rest.

Another important rhythm is found in our patterns of sleep. An article published in Nature Magazine in 2005 entitled “The rhythm of rest and excess” stated: “Our immune defence, cognitive performance and mental health are all affected by sleep and our circadian rhythms. Disruption of the sleep–wake axis results in a broad range of interconnected pathologies, including poor vigilance and memory, reduced mental and physical reaction times, reduced motivation, depression, insomnia, metabolic abnormalities, obesity, immune impairment and even a greater risk of cancer.”[1]

Drumming without rhythm is just painful noise – and so is living without rhythm. When we tune in to the rhythm of life and live in harmony with how we have been created, that’s when the music works. Those rhythms include things like regular sleep, balance of work and leisure, time spent with people and so on.

As a Christian, I believe that the best rhythm of life must include time for getting in tune with God. When I am too busy or stressed to make time for God, I find that life just isn’t as sweet and I’m not as effective as I could be. When I’m taking the time to listen to God’s beat, the rest of life works out much better.

Mike Birch

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[1] Foster, R. & Wulff, K; “The rhythm of rest and excess”; Nature vol. 6 May 2005 p407