The idea for the name, Diminished Lives, was imagined around the idea of the diminished chord.
Diminished chords* are known for their awkward sound. That awkward sound is referred to as "dissonance."
(*Information on diminished chords: Major chords are constructed from the root, the third, and fifth notes in a particular key. For example, if you were constructing the C chord, you would begin listing the notes in the key of C starting with C as the root note. C-D-E-F-G-A-B. C would be numbered #1, D #2, etc. The C chord is made up of the notes 1, 3, and 5 of this progression: C-E-G. Played together, they sound wonderful. Diminished chords are constructed from the root note, C in our example, the flat 3rd and the flat 5th in the progression. So, the C diminished chord would consist of C, E-flat, and G-flat. Played together, the notes smack of dissonance. The chord is abbreviated Cdim or C with a degree sign.)
I don't consider myself much of a musician, but I play enough guitar to dread diminished chords when I see them in a chord chart for a piece of music. It's usually awkward. When I practice getting the chords right, the dissonance screams out that I'm playing it wrong. But diminished chords are examples of dissonance resolved only in the context of the song as a whole.
The name, Diminished Lives, also harkens to the diminished characters of the Bible, like John the Baptist, who said of Jesus, "He must become greater; I must become less.(John 3:30). John lived a diminished life, and he felt the dissonance. Even after announcing Jesus as the Lamb of God, he sent his followers to ask Jesus if He was the One. He felt the dissonance in his circumstances: cousin of the Messiah, but held in prison waiting to be beheaded. That's a mighty dose of dissonance, even to the untrained ear. The root note, the flat third, and that painfully dissonant flat fifth.
There is no more dissonant event in history or in time to come than the nailing of God Incarnate to a piece of wood and the raising of Him up like a trophy to die on display while God the Father turned His back on His Son and hurled the fullness of the wrath that we so justly deserved upon His perfect Son.
THAT is our example: a life willingly diminished.
How many times have we felt the dissonance on some level: child of God but diagnosed with an incurable disease, obeying God but saddled with uncertainty, a newborn child born into dysfunction and incredible need? Somehow the diminished life finds glory in the greater context of this God-orchestrated life. Just as the song is made that much more glorious by weaving the dissonance of the diminished chord into its notes and resolving that tonal tension in the greater context of the song.
Thus, the diminished life, like the diminished chord, is defined by dissonant events resolved in the greater context of Who God Is.
The name, Diminished Lives, also harkens to the diminished characters of the Bible, like John the Baptist, who said of Jesus, "He must become greater; I must become less.(John 3:30). John lived a diminished life, and he felt the dissonance. Even after announcing Jesus as the Lamb of God, he sent his followers to ask Jesus if He was the One. He felt the dissonance in his circumstances: cousin of the Messiah, but held in prison waiting to be beheaded. That's a mighty dose of dissonance, even to the untrained ear. The root note, the flat third, and that painfully dissonant flat fifth.
There is no more dissonant event in history or in time to come than the nailing of God Incarnate to a piece of wood and the raising of Him up like a trophy to die on display while God the Father turned His back on His Son and hurled the fullness of the wrath that we so justly deserved upon His perfect Son.
THAT is our example: a life willingly diminished.
How many times have we felt the dissonance on some level: child of God but diagnosed with an incurable disease, obeying God but saddled with uncertainty, a newborn child born into dysfunction and incredible need? Somehow the diminished life finds glory in the greater context of this God-orchestrated life. Just as the song is made that much more glorious by weaving the dissonance of the diminished chord into its notes and resolving that tonal tension in the greater context of the song.
Thus, the diminished life, like the diminished chord, is defined by dissonant events resolved in the greater context of Who God Is.
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