"It would be interesting to have the statistic of what number, out of all the human stream that pours into the city every morning coming to their work, are singing inwardly.
How many are thinking tunefully? How many are moving rhythmically? And how many are going, as dead drays and carts, rumbling lifelessly to their tasks?"
A question for my own soul: Am I singing inwardly?
These words were written before movies were made with sound; so it is much easier for us to picture the cliche of background music because we are used to hearing characters inner song played out for our ears.
But, there is an inner song of the soul that can be likened to background music. Sometimes, it feels like mine stops. I know that's a depressing thought, but it's true. It's only when I am dreaming and excited for the dream, reaching for the vision, or even just have a little inspiration that the song turns on. The song means it's time to dance, time to get work done, time to learn, grow, and live righteously.
"This world is an insolvable puzzle to human reason. It is full of the most absurd antinomies, the most distressing cruelties, the most amazing contradictions. No wonder men's minds take refuge in stubborn stoicism, in agnosticism, in blank unfaith.
There is no intellectual faith, no rational creed, no logical belief. Faith comes only through music. It is when the heart sings that the mind is cleared. Then the pieces of the infinite chaos of things drop into order, confusion ceases, they march, dance, coming into radiant concord."
I often think that non-Christians today are unique, and have their own set of unfaith philosophies that no one in the past has ever seen before. How I learn from reading essays from 100 years ago! There will always be people who cannot have faith because they crave reasoning. Faith doesn't reason. It can be reasoned about, it can be learned, it can be shared and discussed, but ultimately, it is felt. I love comparing faith to music and dance, because I am a dancer who loves to moves to music. I get it. I feel the rhythm, and my body just wants to move. I can help others learn to feel the beat, but in the end, their own bodies must feel the rhythm and they will dance their own dance.
"What a drop from such a level to the place of the mad sensualists and pleasure-mongers who only knew
'To seize on life's dull joys from a strange fear,
Lest losing them all's lost and none remains!'
What a whirl of cabaret music, what motion and forced laughter, what wild discord of hot viands, drugged drinks, and myriad-tricked lubricity it takes to galvanize us when our souls are dry and cracked and tuneless!
Whoever does something that makes the souls of men and women sing within them does more to make this earth habitable and this life tolerable than all the army of them that widen our comforts and increase our luxuries."
Yesterday, Matthew (my husband) and I went out for a walk downtown to stretch our legs and breath the fresh night air. The bars were packed full of people. While I do not believe it is wrong for a Christian or anyone to go to a bar, neither is it wrong to drink, the bars nevertheless serve as the meeting place for souls who are clinging out of fear to what little bit of soul music they can, no matter how contrived. I see wild parties as a place where, more than any other place, its filled with people who fear being alone, fear facing God, fear facing themselves, and are clinging to luxuries rather than soul satisfaction. When my soul is singing, I do not want to drink for drinking alters the tune. No, when my soul sings, I want to stay sober and dance to the rhythm of the song.
