In music, there are major and minor keys and their tones can set a mood in a powerful way. There is also something called a suspended note or chord that is used to create unresolved tension. Here’s an easy way to experience it. Sing this familiar song: happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Daniel, happy birthday to …….(now don’t finish the last note). Let it hang on the note associated with the word “to”. Don’t do it. Let it hang.

The mind and heart and even the soul wants to resolve the note. It feels so unnatural that it creates emotional tension. It’s even uncomfortable. It occurs to me that this is true in more places than just music.

Take relationships and conversations for example. Words have been spoken. Some in major keys. Some in minor. And some have been left suspended. I’m thinking especially about the suspended words. Last year I lost my best friend Lou. He passed away and I did not get to say goodbye the way I would have liked to. Oh the words that are left unsaid and suspended.

On the other hand, my mom passed away last year and I got to finish the music. Those final words completed the song and resolved way too many suspended notes. Now I think of you. My friends. My family. Do I have unresolved and suspended notes that need resolution? I’ve been giving that some thought. So if you get a message from me that might seem unusual – bear with me. I might just be me trying to resolve a suspended note or lyric that has lingered far too long.

I watched Phantom of the Opera last weekend and in its soaring finale, the tortured and minor key Phantom is resolving his story. He has had a lifetime of suspended notes and lyrics. But at the very end of the last song – he finds the most melodic note of the entire show. And it finishes his story in a beautiful and resolved way. He is saying goodbye to his only love Christine. “You alone can make my song take flight, it’s over now the music of the night”. The lyric is complete. His melody is resolved. He can at last let her go and the orchestra can finish what might otherwise feel incomplete.

Too many words have been left suspended or unspoken altogether.

I hope I can find the suspended notes in my life and resolve them before the orchestra finishes the music.