Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Are Joy and Beauty part of our Nature?


Some months ago I was listening to a professor of Music Theory from a Michigan University on PBS radio. Somehow she had gotten ahold of some musical compositions made by inmates in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during WWII and had the compositions transcribed. One song in particular took her attention, and she had it orchestrated and then played for us, the listeners. What was stunning to her…and to us also…was the lilting, joyous, almost euphoric melodies which made up the song. What amazed her…and me, a listener…was how people in such a horrific surrounding could produce such beautiful music! Somehow it defied reason.

Joy, beauty, and creativity...

I was left to wonder…Are joy, beauty, and creativity so natural to us that they will eventually “out,” no matter what? Are there divine qualities in us that simply cannot be stamped out?

What fired the composers...

Since the professor found no clues as to how the inmates were thinking, we are left with our imaginations to estimate what fired the composers. Perhaps they were determined that their creations might survive. Perhaps they wanted to give the future their gifts, no matter what.

These are worthy considerations...

Certainly these are worthy considerations, and they deserve our best introspections, maybe to the point that we may discover far more wonders in us than we had imagined. It would be truly wonderful to feel that our divine natures always contain the best of the Infinite, and that It may escape at any time.

Perhaps there is more to being a human/divine creation than we know!

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