EVERY BLESSING, dear friends! As we enter into the summer season of fullness, may the music of our hearts become One in a symphony of souls united in the Silence. May we pause each day in the silence to listen to the deepest Song in our hearts ... then sing it in our actions and interactions in work and leisure.
In a sense great music exists for the sake of its pauses; for instance, the pauses that occur in the middle of a Beethoven symphony. These pauses are of course quite unlike bits of ordinary silence, because the whole symphony has led up to them — they are held and defined, and the music goes on the other side of them. Such pauses are silence charged with meaning. Music transcends music by producing charged silence.
While I was writing about silence and explosíons and the moment, of creation, I made an ínteresting typing error. I wrote "big band"" instead of "big bang." I'd like to think that ít was not an error but the voice of creation typing for me.From now on that's my theory on the origin of everything. Creation began with a big band, and ever since there has been rhythm, style and beauty throughout the uníverse. Our job is to look and listen for the big song, and then to join in, following the beat established by the Conductor leading the big band.
Something about a song ia nearly irresistible in that it reaches both the mnd and the heart,the former with meaning, the latter with beauty. The Spírit found her way into my shut-off heart through the songs I learned through that very same heart.
Song is not a luxury, but a necessary way of being in the world. If you are cut off, in pain, estranged, numb — sing, give voice to anything. It needn't sound pretty. Simply, bravely, open despite the difficulty, and let what is in out, and what is out in. Sing and your life will continue.
The voice of God whispers in the heart
So softly
That the soul pauses,
Making no noise,
And strives for these melodies,
Distant, sighing, like the faintest breath,
And all the being is still to hear.
The silence of the marsh was so profound that it could have been the flip side of the singing in my church. Just last Sunday the people had sung the old spiritual, "Go Down, Moses," a cappella because the pianist was gone, and a bunch of people were crying, singing very loudly with their eyes closed, and the singing of that cry of a song was a wonderful form of communion. How come you can hear a chord, and then another chord, and then your heart breaks open?
Each of us is a new creation, a singularity, a facet of the glory of God, Love's presence made visible. "The greatest glory of God is a person fully alive." Everything in creation has íts own language, its own radiance, its gift to the universe. Dante's music of the spheres, the movement of the planets and stars in their orbíts, is an unrivaled symphony. And I am not a single note, sound, or chord -- I am a symphony of a lífetime. What is the song of my life, the inner music of my being, the background music whích softly accompanies me? Each thing has its own song and each sings it ín silence. What a chorus when each life song is blended into and harmonized with all the others!
The poet, the artist, the musician, continue the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between people, reminding us of the universality of our feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding us that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.
In that nocturnal tranquility and silence and in knowledge of the divine light, the soul becomes aware of Wisdom's wonderful harmony and sequence in the variety of her creatures and works. Each of them is endowed wíth a certain likeness of God and in its own way gives voice to what of God is in it. So creatures will be for the soul a harmonious symphony of sublime music surpassing all concerts and melodies of the world. Thus there ís in it the sweetness of music and the quietude of silence. AccordÍngly, she says that her Beloved is silent music because in the Beloved she knows and enjoys this symphony of spiritual music.
I can't think of any way to explain the existence of art other than as a means to express something greater than ourselves. I can't reach a single musícal decision except wíth the goal of making a connectíon to God. If I separated the religious goal from the musical one, music would have no meaning for me.
They sang a capella: one voice began to mount like a skylark and detach itself from the rest, from those mingled voices which together sounded well, but from whose conjunction with this single one soared in an intensity of beauty — a voice so clear and just, yet vibrant with such warm sweetness, I have remembered it always. The fact that this great, this glorious and rare voice was singing behind bars, that the face and identity of this singing nun would forever be unknown to us, shadowed the music. Mainly, we were awed to think this treasure was so hidden.
May your life be filled with sacred songs!
May the Great Conductor lead you on ...