Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
What Does it Mean to be a Resounding Gong?

What Does it Mean to be a Resounding Gong?

Last updated on: October 7, 2020 at 12:57 am by Mary Pezzulo

What Does it Mean to be a Resounding Gong? 2020-10-07T00:57:46-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Have you ever played a gong?

I got to play a gong once. It was even sillier than you’d think.

I was a bookish, brown-nosing homeschooled high schooler who loved the arts and whose only desire was to be an actress in a Shakespeare company. I ended up passing an audition to attend a very highbrow “Summer Institute for the Gifted and Talented” and take BFA theater classes with guest artists at the Ohio State University for two weeks– easily the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. As part of the package, theater majors were also taught a real studio art class, a real dance class, and a real music class. Next to the theatre classes, I was especially exited about the music class. I love musical theater. I took piano lessons and sang in the choir. I could could read music and sing harmonies from tenor all the way up to first soprano. I could bang out a tune on the piano if I tried hard enough, though I wasn’t very good, and I’d played a brass instrument before as well. I wanted to impress the music professors with all my talent, but I didn’t.

You see, they never asked us to sing.

They sat us down in the music studio and handed us each a randomly selected rhythm instrument; different kinds of drum, a few bells, a tambourine. I was given the only gong.

The extremely patient music professors would verbally recite a rhythm such as “DOOM takatakata DOOM ta ta ta.” And everybody would echo what they’d said on their instruments. The people who had a drum would hit the middle of the drum and then the outside rim: DOOM takatakata DOOM ta ta ta. The person with the triangle played TING ting-a-ting-a-ting TING ting-ting-ting. The one with the wood block that had a fat and a skinny end would go TOCK tick-a-tick-a-tick TOCK tick tick tick. The people with the tambourine and sleigh bells made fairly rhythmic jangling noises JING jing-a-jingle-jing. And I gonged my gong.

I discovered that gongs don’t know how to play along with a rhythm.

When you strike a gong, there’s a lag of about a second and a half where the gong is vibrating but not making any noise. And then suddenly it does make a noise, softly at first and then insistent, and then back to soft: bbbbbbbbbwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. If there’s a way to stop a gong once it’s begun to go bbbbbbbbbwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh at an inconvenient time, I wasn’t taught it. Once I hit that gong, the cat was out of the bag. I tried to make the gong clang along with the rhythm. I tried hard. But all that happened was that everyone else in the music class was going DOOM takatakata DOOM ta ta ta like professionals while I went bbbbbbbbbwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh at exactly the wrong time.

A few days later I was having lunch with some music majors and dance majors. They casually mentioned that the very patient music professors had remarked, “The theater majors couldn’t carry a tune, but at least they were nice.”

I’ve been thinking about that episode ever since I wrote last week’s post on the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the Charismatic Renewal.

The Bible tells us: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

I don’t know how similar the musical instrument Saint Paul mentioned that gets translated as “gong” is to the gong that goes in a modern orchestra. And I’m sure there are talented musicians reading this who are already jumping in the comment box to tell me there’s actually a way to make a gong do what you want it to do as part of a musical number. But I have no knowledge of that technique. The only thing I know about gongs is that I could not find a way to play one without spoiling my class’s entire musical composition, such as it was.

And so we all do, if we do not love.

If you speak in the tongues of men and angels but you do not have love, you will create an annoying bbbbbbbbbwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh in the middle of the music all around you.

If you are a talented person, a gifted person, an extroverted people person who knows how to make everyone happy, a go-getter, a hard worker; If you are blessed with spiritual gifts like tongues and prophecy and healing; if you are well versed in the scriptures and know theology like the back of your hand– if you have any of these beautiful gifts, but you have not love, you are a gong, and you will do to others what a gong played badly does to music.

I’m not talking about awkward nerdy people like me who and ruin the aesthetics of a party here. I’m saying, you will hurt people inside, just like I hurt that rhythm with my gong, if you do not love. The proper way to respond to a person is in love, and if you don’t, you hurt them.

You can love, or you can hurt. It’s one or the other. You can’t respond to someone in something other than even the most basic reverence for their personhood, and not be hurtful. And you also can’t try not to hurt people without at some level acting in love. The impulse to try not to harm is one of the impulses the Spirit of Love inspires, whether you think of it that way or not.

Most everyone who comes from a spiritual tradition has met a gong– someone who looked as if they were very devout and checked off every box; someone who acted ostensibly as if they were doing everything right, but they lacked love, and they ended up going bbbbbbbbbwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh all over the song our souls were trying to sing.

Most everyone has failed in love and found themselves playing a gong at one point or another.

Fortunately, the Lord is an extremely patient music professor. He sings the soul a piece of music far more glorious than DOOM takatakata DOOM ta ta ta, and each soul tries to sing that back in her own unique way. And if a gong should shake your soul to her foundations and spoil the anthem you’re trying to repeat, God will somehow take even that destruction and weave it into the song. That is also part of what love is.

I want to write more about love.

I’ll continue talking about spiritual abuse and politics and how much I hate my neighborhood and all the things I’m semi-famous for, but I’d like to resolve to write more about the Spirit of Love.

After all, without Love, we have nothing.

Image via Pixabay.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

Interpretation of Scripture

Previous Post

October 1, 2020

The Question of "Spirit-Filled" Christians

Next Post

October 9, 2020 Every Night And All

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to James, what is pure and undefiled religion?

Select your answer to see how you score.

To care for orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world To pray without ceasing To obey all the commandments To love your neighbor as yourself