|
How did you get so far? (Cruise control on a foggy night...)
|
Oct 21, 2005 11:16 pm
467 Views
|
My wife's Dom gave her a CD a while back as a gift. It was a series of spiritual-based chants/songs/orchestral pieces, wordless prayers really, featuring some well-known artists. I borrowed her truck once, and put the CD in the player out of curiosity. The pieces were very emotional, evocative of transcendence.
Usually my cup of tea. But I have to say, in this instance I didn't quite care for it. I can't fault the music, the orchestrations, the vocals. All very competent. But... It struck me exactly what it was that didn't work for me. Each piece began at a very high emotional pitch. The glory and the transcendence were right up front, and never slackened as each piece went on. Swelling strings, blaring trumpets, the gates of Heaven opened before the first bar was played to completion. One track would end, and the next would start, at the same level of emotion. It was kind of tiring.
There was no build to the pieces at all. No warmup; no quiet movement to familiarize oneself with the vocabulary of the emotion; no journey from the mundane state in which one pushes the "PLAY" button to the point where one beholds the face of God.
In short, there was no struggle.
In the quest for transcendence, there must always be a struggle. None of us walks into a room and is suddenly illuminated. The pieces seemed to be promising easy glory, unearned communion with the Highest. It doesn't work that way. NOTHING works that way.
In no hurry to get home tonight, I set my car's cruise control to 5mph less than the posted speed limit on the highway and floated through the thick autumn fog. It struck me that I see everything in terms of the struggle it takes, especially in the moral realm. Glory, wisdom, transcendence. It all requires us to navigate forests of doubt and confusion and pain.
The pure brilliance, the one moment of utter truth, is predicated upon oceans of blind toil. At moments of rest, like tonight on the highway, I really feel, feel in my very marrow, the sweetness of that truth. A sweetness that would not be there but for the struggle it cost.
|
|
|
0
Comments
|
|
|
The First Word
|
Oct 19, 2005 10:00 pm
602 Views
|
I hear that many people struggle to have the last word in a discussion. I suppose it's a great feeling to be able to define a topic that way. But I've always been more interested in having the first word. Maybe that's because I have always loved listening to other people talk more than I have enjoyed talking myself. Throw out a statement, ask a question, and let other people respond. They'll usually go at it tirelessly.
Maybe I'm just lazy, but that seems to me like a great way to experience the world... through other peoples' eyes, as well as one's own.
|
|
|
4
Comments
|
|
