Harry Truman once said that listening to good music made him think of the way things ought to be, instead of the way they are.In the presence of music, we gain a taste of Heaven and Earth.Music is vitally important to our spiritual health: clearing the air, changing our mood, taking us to faraway places, revealing mysteries, calming the soul, allowing us true glimpses into the past.
Eternal God, since silence seems to be
the voice of holiness, the only language
you speak directly,
then I pray to be steeped in it
until I fear it less and welcome it
as an usher to grace,
a narrator of sacred mysteries;
until silence cease the fretful conversations
of my mind with too little else than itself;
until silence calm my heart to an ease,
convene my senses to an anchored focus,
hush my tongue to a chastened hold;
until I discern in the silence
an answer to that necessary question
which, for the very life of me,
it has not yet occurred to me to ask;
until I am stretched alive and deep
to its dimensions, and catch,
at last and ready,
your assuring wink at me. Amen.