Music of Our Lives

I’m going to ask you to do a something odd.  First, I want you to click here and play this song.  Then I’d like you to listen to the song while reading this blog post.  It might seem unusual, but please humor me. 

John Dryden, over three hundred years ago, wrote a poem honoring St. Cecilia and her contribution of the organ.  While I’m not a huge fan of the organ, no one can deny its majestic tones.  However, the portion of this poem, I’d like you to read focuses music in on creation:
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
               This universal frame began.
       When Nature underneath a heap
               Of jarring atoms lay,
       And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
               Arise ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
       In order to their stations leap,
               And music's pow'r obey.
From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony
               This universal frame began:
               From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
       The diapason closing full in man.

I love the image of “the tuneful voice” singing to creation to bring life in to lifeless matter.  “From harmy, from Heav’nly harmony this universal frame began” reminds me of Narnia’s creation from the music of Aslan’s roar (possibly one of the most amazing scenes I’ve ever read).  Tolkien also depicted this in the Silmarillion where the angels joined God in singing the song of the world.  Dryden goes further in his final stanza to suggest that creation not only begins with music, but the end will conclude with music also:

As from the pow'r of sacred lays

         The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
         To all the bless'd above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
   This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
         The dead shall live, the living die,
         And music shall untune the sky.
The final words sound like a line of music itself: “and music shall untune the sky.”  It’s easy to picture the unraveling of the world set to the winding down of a piece of music.  This beautiful poem is worth reading in its entirety, slowly so you can savor its message. 

There’s no denying it—music is powerful.  Music brings unity and continuity to the random events of life.  Good Morning, Vietnam, a movie set during the Vietnam War with Robin Williams as a DJ, sets the movie to the songs of that era beautifully capturing the heartbreak of the war.  Just as intentionally as music can be used in this movie to depict a time period, the lack of music in a movie is also telling.  The effect of a music-stripped scene is jarring and disquieting; it seems disconnected and lacks the cohesiveness of a story.  The silence builds tension that isn’t resolved until the music plays again.

I like to imagine one day we will see the story of the world laid out in the melodies of time, and our tension of silence will be ended.  There would be soothing adagios of peaceful scenes, jarring and bombastic staccatos of great strife, menacing and discordant songs of evil, and soaring and pounding crescendos of heroic deeds. There would be moments when we wept, and cried aloud with shame and horror, but there would also be tender moments of awe and wonder as we beheld the simple beauties of life.  My greatest hope is that the end of the story will including a weaving of those dark and disruptive pieces of music in to a symphony of exquisite depth and restoration.

Can you see it with me?  Can you hear it?

What about your story? Your song? Do you have hope that God is beautifully composing a masterpiece or do you doubt the vision that inspires our Master Conductor? 

As you listen to the song that I provided, notice its texture--the changes in tones and moods, the build up and the ending.  It's one of my favorite pieces of music and never fails to move me.  It's beauty testifies to the brilliance of the composer--one who saw the whole message of the song, and expertly brought the notes together. 

I pray that my life, and yours, will adequately display the talent of our Composer.