I started to compose the opening of "Fos" (light) and I had the idea of a string trio playing in the distance which would represent the soul yearning for God. The choir represented God in uncreated energies. This yearning choir is played by the string trio which is cut off by the joy/sorrow chord by the choir singing the word "Fos," light, light, light, light, light -- until it becomes an expanded light separated from all yet united to all, and moving straight into the second section, Doxa: symbolizing the glory of that Light filling everything with light.
On this bright still silent November day, we walk through bare thickets toward the lake like a silver mirror; so calm, so glassy, it holds on its wide surface all the patterns of light and air above. Its silence silences us. Its stillness stops us in our tracks. As I bend to touch a stone, I hear a voice say, "Love the earth". I cock my ear and hear the echo, faint yet unmistakable as ocean sounding in a shell. When I try to summon it once more, only my words come. A great and terrible tenderness breaks over me. Each pebble, each shell, is filled with beauty; each, in this moment, articulate, a word spoken, and I imagine beyond the grasp of hearing the great murmuring of creation beneath my feet. I feel these patient stones lie like an eternal sacrifice, offering me the ground of their existence on which to grind and crunch the pathways of my life ... I haven't begun to love the earth. Does it take the awareness of our death to wake us up to life?
