Music

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

—Aldous Huxley

Music. There is something deeply stirring about music. It contains something that grips the inside of us, and brings forth a subtle reminiscence of familiar yet unknown beauty. I am not sure exactly what this is. Perhaps music reminds the soul of the rhythm and melody of a universe that was lost long ago. There are songs that the tune of which draw out emotions and pull our hearts to them even if there words are shallow or inapplicable to us. They carry us away to moments from our past, or longings for our future. Longings that we cannot even put into words. At times it feels as though they synchronize the pangs of the world and draw harmony to the chaos around us.

Imagine a world without music today. What a world that would be. Then imagine in this music less world what it would be like if someone introduced you to it for the first time. What a price we would pay to have music fill our existence. Millions of dollars would undoubtedly be paid just to hear something break the silence of our souls...but because music is everywhere I can so often grow numb to the life and wonder it breaths. Martin Luther said well: "the riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them.... next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits...A person who... does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."

I have heard it said that music is the language of the Angels... I don't know if this is true... but it is certainly a taste of something divine, something beyond this world... and yet strangely present in it. Perhaps creation was sung into existence as one author put it... and every time a note is played it reminds us of the beauty that began our world.