In the immense field of divine compassion, countless small
life fields are interwoven with each other. When human
hearts deepen through some form of contemplation, there
emerges in them an intuition of human oneness prior to all
separation ... a "communion of saints". In each religion's
communal story, there is a way of handing on from
generation to generation this transforming perception of
universal solidarity in the Mystery. We do not learn such
wisdom on our own. We receive this wisdom from
someone else.
~ Carolyn Gratton in THE ART OF SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE
I am one of a new breed, a hospital musician. Last week a doctor who had come out of a difficult eight-hour surgery heard the piano and stopped to rest. He said the aria I was playing from Bach's Goldenberg Variations revived him by reminding him of the larger picture. He said he felt more accepting of the outcome of the operation he'd performed. The man who'd received a new kidney said, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony reminded me how much I want to live, how much I love life. After listening to the music I was able to pray again."
~ from THE NATURE OF MUSIC by Maureen McCarthy Draper
I am carried by the movement of the sound. I go with it, listening. It is a flow of music through the universe, A flow of music into me. It is a flow of harmonies, Vast, beyond me. Tremendum. A great word, a sound, The music of life playing in the spheres beyond. In the Silence, in the Silence.
And we began to sing, "Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall? "And Ranola watched Ken rather skeptically for a moment, and then her face began to melt and contort like his, and she went to his side and bent down to lift him up — lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang. And it pierced me. I can't image anything but music that could have brought about this alchemy. Maybe it's because music is about as physical as it gets: your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath. We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix, it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way.
A small bird with a red bonnet on its head came and perched on a rock opposite us. It waved its tail, turned its head anxiously in all directions, then glanced directly at us and as it did so, it grew bold and began to whistle softly, tauntingly at first; but soon it threw back its head, swelled its throat, and gazing at the sky, the light, burst into song with abandon. Everything vanished; nothing remained in the world save this bird and God: God, and a beak that was singing.
