(This is a followup to Monday’s post on Mark 12:29-31)

Anyone who has had an extended conversation with me knows that I often say, “Part of me wants to do X, part of me wants to do Y.” I identify six options. I list 8 ways. So for me to talk about being “whole-minded” feels funny.

Except that I do know how to put my whole mind to a task. When I am up against a deadline and the task is a creative one  (like telling a story with video or creating a decorating experience), I can get very much engaged.

So what if loving God with all my mind isn’t about being able to develop all kinds of logical arguments for God. What if it means taking the way that I think, the way that I”m created to think and applying that mind to seeking ways to express love to and accept love from God?

As I write this, I am listening to one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (#2 in F). Bach wrote complex music. Often, there is no one best part or lead part. Instead, the melodic theme works its way through all the instruments. (Right now, a flute and an oboe are conversing with a violin.)

What if the followers of Jesus are a Bach Concerto, taking the melodic theme of thinking about him and playing it on their instrument, at their point in the composition? My voice won’t sound the same as yours and the sound won’t be produced the same way, but there will be variations on the same theme.

The metaphor has flaws. But as I write, I remember the improvised jazz band at camp one summer, with a guitar, a tuba, a piano, and a trumpet. Like Bach, we passed the melody around. We were engaged.

Jazz and Bach. Woven melodies. Different minds wholly engaged.