The same chord

I just read this most beautiful passage in a book I'm currently reading, "Mister God, This is Anna". The delightful and simple nature of this book is surpassed only by its deep spirituality and purity - a must read for everyone. Anyway, here's the paragraph that really struck me. These are the thoughts of the author, Fynn (who writes the book in first person) after a conversation with Anna on the myriad religions and spiritual perspectives people have, and the underlying commonness to them all.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? We're all playing the same chord, but it seems we don't know it. You call your chord a C major, while I call the same notes A minor seventh. I call myself a Christian, what do you call yourself? I reckon Mister God must be pretty good at music, he knows all the names of the chords. Perhaps he doesn't mind what you call it, as long as you play it."

Now isn't that lovely? What a wonderful analogy - we're all playing the same notes, but we call the chord by different names. And why is that so (and here's the nub) - it's because we all have different "home notes", as Anna says (or different scales that we're playing on). She says:

"The home note can't be Mister God because then we couldn't call them different names. They would all be the same name", she said.

"I guess you're right at that. What is the home note then?"

"It's me or you or Ali. Fynn, it's everybody. That's why it's all different names. That's why it's all different Churches. That's what it is."

How profound is that... Our differences exist because we put ourselves at the center, not "Mister God". We decide what our own home note, our tonic is - and we set everything in relation to that. If instead of the actual name, we focused on the harmony of the chord, we'd see nothing but oneness.

Ah, I love this book... :)