Music is the conduit of the spirit, in my experience. Music of Brahms, Mahler, Holst, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, Bach, puts me in touch with the universe. Then too, there's my experience, always present in the background of my life, of when I was saved out of despair at age 12 by the touch of the Lord on my soul. The despair came because my mother had just died of cancer, and the Spirit reached me through a piece of music which accidentally landed on our doorstep in a sort of poor-box, a cardboard carton from some neighbors, full of clothes for us kids, along with a few books and a record.
My dad was struggling, due to medical bills and grief, so the neighbors reached out to help us. The LP record that arrived in that box along with the clothes had no cover, and the label listed sample tracks from classical albums: the Promenade from Pictures at an Exposition, a string quintet Allegro by Boccherini, Handel's Largo from Xerxes, Traumerei for piano by Liszt. As the only one in our suffering family who listened to music, I played the record on our stereo in the living room. The first cut, the Promenade, stayed with me. I heard it in my head at various times. So I have in my head an image of my younger self wandering along a hot sidewalk, during one of those October heatwaves that Los Angeles sometimes has, tasting the acrid smog with every breath and feeling despair of loss in my twelve-year-old heart. And then came the touch of the Spirit to the rescue, and I could remember the sound of the music as a sign of hope.
This memory is evanescent, a mere fragment, a whiff of the past. Who knows how reliable the details are? Except for the music (which I have since heard countless times, live and on disc, and played, and conducted) the memory is fraying around the edges, as some memories do with the passage of time. But no memory linked to music can entirely fade, in my experience, and when the Spirit sends a wordless hand of comfort to my soul, music often flowers in its wake.
Today's quote: "I am the resurrection and the life, and whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies..." (John 11:25)
My dad was struggling, due to medical bills and grief, so the neighbors reached out to help us. The LP record that arrived in that box along with the clothes had no cover, and the label listed sample tracks from classical albums: the Promenade from Pictures at an Exposition, a string quintet Allegro by Boccherini, Handel's Largo from Xerxes, Traumerei for piano by Liszt. As the only one in our suffering family who listened to music, I played the record on our stereo in the living room. The first cut, the Promenade, stayed with me. I heard it in my head at various times. So I have in my head an image of my younger self wandering along a hot sidewalk, during one of those October heatwaves that Los Angeles sometimes has, tasting the acrid smog with every breath and feeling despair of loss in my twelve-year-old heart. And then came the touch of the Spirit to the rescue, and I could remember the sound of the music as a sign of hope.
This memory is evanescent, a mere fragment, a whiff of the past. Who knows how reliable the details are? Except for the music (which I have since heard countless times, live and on disc, and played, and conducted) the memory is fraying around the edges, as some memories do with the passage of time. But no memory linked to music can entirely fade, in my experience, and when the Spirit sends a wordless hand of comfort to my soul, music often flowers in its wake.
Today's quote: "I am the resurrection and the life, and whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies..." (John 11:25)
posted by Vicky at 8:02 AM
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