Base and Ordinary

At the moment, I was unaware of its profundity, but one of my life’s most important events occurred early in my sophomore year in college. In an introductory lecture for a course called “Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” our assignment was merely to sit in class and listen to a few selections, guessing at what each might mean. None of the examples was in English, yet it proved surprisingly easy to understand the subjects of the pieces, if it took a few guesses – the major idea, of course, being that the music spoke to us without the crutch of words.

I am struck by the role of religion in society. Those of us who believe and those of us who don’t are constantly at a war of sorts. We spend inordinate amounts of time arguing and speculating and wondering about what will happen when we die. Will it be just a grand transition to a better place, or will it just be darkness and decomposition – if that? I am convinced that our problem is that we spend so much time wondering what divinity we may or may not encounter in the future. I am as guilty as any of us might be, but this I believe: we are not enough concerned with the divinity we experience here. On Earth. Today.

Enter the role of the music anecdote: why is it that understanding the lyrics wasn’t necessary to get at the meanings of those pieces? Perhaps it was because all of us in the room were music majors and knew how to recognize the compositional devices that are traditionally used to convey certain emotions. The more convincing argument, though, is that something about the music spoke to our spirits. It is more sensible, if less logical, to understand that we have souls that speak languages beyond human comprehension, beyond altercations over God and Allah and Buddha and jihad and when you were “saved.”

Is there a God? I’m a Christian and I think so. But forget the stories of people being raised after the third day, of the world being created in seven days, and of Jesus riding on a white horse and defeating Satan in the ultimate fight scene. Let us consider those moments when we are convinced that we have souls and that they must be transcendent. Let us consider those moments where we understand that, if our lives are to have a purpose, there must be some sort of higher power. Let us consider the moments when the music strikes us so hard that we are left speechless and tearful, and we know it has to be a gift from Somebody Else.

This I Believe: there is a God, and he is smiling down on a world where his truth is revealed in more than just big, long books and religious rite. His gifts are here everyday, in the ordinary lives of people who have been richly blessed. We hear his meaning in the songs of our lives, base and ordinary.