While writing a new book on leadership I came across the most powerful metaphor on relationships I have ever encountered. (I also shared this on my Facebook page.) 

   It is from John O'Donohue's spectacular book, Beauty.

   “There is a kindness in beauty which can inform and bless a lesser force adjacent to it. It has been shown, for instance, that when there are two harps tuned to the same frequency in a room, one a large harp and the other smaller, if a chord is struck in the bigger harp it fills and infuses the little harp with the grandeur and beauty of its resonance and brings it into tuneful harmony. Then, the little harp sounds out its own tune in its own voice.” (italics added)

   O’Donohue points out that, “This is one of the unnoticed ways in which a child learns to become herself. Perhaps the most powerful way parents rear children is through the quality of their presence and the atmosphere that pertains in the in-between times of each day. Unconsciously, the child absorbs this and hopefully parents send out enough tuneful spirit for the child to come into harmony with her own voice.”

   Come into a room playing harmonious music and you will influence every other "harp" in the room. The other "harps" can do the same with you. Light a candle and turn on a lamp and two kinds of light grace the room. 

   Boom out disharmony and you will influence the music in another way. Others can also darken your sound.  

   Once again, the power of Love's music is affirmed. Be an instrument of Love and you can sing her beauty into every relationship you have.

-Erie Chapman

Photo by Erie Chapman