The value in being strung out

I asked for new guitar strings for Christmas; specifically the rust-resistance Elixirs that can stand up to the weather inside the church building and my neglect to change them often enough. I got a set for my electric guitar, which is nice because I had broken a few prematurely rusty strings and replaced them with acoustic strings of a different gauge and it played and sounded weird.

John, the other guy who plays guitar in the church here told me that when he bought his first guitar at a store the guy made sure to show him how to string it. The first thing he told him was to make sure they are all strung in the same direction so you are always turning the tuning pegs in the same direction when you tune the guitar.

I strung the top E string in the wrong direction. This is beginner stuff. It was the first string I put on and I always string my guitar the same way and it is in the wrong direction - it was strung in instead of out. You can imagine my confusion when I got to tuning that last string and it was going in the wrong direction. I was doing the right thing, but this object was not responding as expected.

One time a guy wanted to have a debate about the value of church and how he could get more spiritual activity completed on a nice walk. In a setting without ground rules, he may have won handily on the basis that oftentimes church attendance and the attached interactions do not have an entirely positive effect. When we both started with the same set of assumptions - namely that church operated as it is supposed to rather than how it often does - his point was impossible to argue.

When you have a problem, it is fairly imperative to identify to root cause.

Treating your dysentery is almost pointless if you don't also recognize and resolve the contamination of your water supply.

Putting on deodorant to cover your man musk won't do the trick when real problem is that you haven't showered in four days.


You can change every part in your car but if you don't address the fact that an empty gas tank is the true reason you chugged to a halt on the interstate, you are stuck in park.

Changing the music in your church won't solve anything if you don't first address the attitudes from which the complaints about the music originated.

I can turn and turn and turn that tuning peg, but if I don't make the realization that it was strung incorrectly in the first place, I will only get further from resolution.