MORE ON MUSIC AND ART: THE PATHOS OF OUR FALLENNESS

I was driving up to Manchester the other morning. I was listening to my local classical music station, as usual. The program was exploring Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." You might recall that I referred to Barber, and some others in the earlier MUSIC AND ART posting. A gentleman named Thomas Larson, it appears, has recently written a book which, interestingly enough bears the title, "The Saddest Music Ever Written." Just hearing the title, sent something stirring my soul. Now, several days later, I'm reminded of something C.S. Lewis said: "We read in order to know we're not alone." It was a revelation. I had begun to wonder if I was the only one in the world in whom certain pieces of music have the ability to cause choking up, weeping, tears. That's the way it has happened to me. I'm not always sure what it is about the music that does it, but sometimes I have identified profound joy, or a soul gripping beauty, but also a heart penetrating pathos. I don't mean music with words for the most part, although there are some operatic arias that have a similar power, "La Boheme," comes to mind, and sometmes Pavaroti had that effect. Between his remarks about the depression that filled the life of Samuel Barber, and his constant melancholia, the interviewer played portions of "Adagio..." It is, for all of its "sadness," one of my favorite pieces, as, apparently it is for many. Interestingly, Larson says it has been the music of choice in the funerals of several major figures on the world stage, including a couple of American presidents. It has a profound, even awesome beauty that penetrates deep into (at least) my heart. As I often do with music I'm listening to, I started to hum along with the strings...but found I could not. Instantly, I choked up, and the tears began to fill my eyes, but in this case I could discern that the tears were a response to the "Adagio..." It has an amazing capacity to communicate the pathos, the "sadness" Larson speaks of. I spoke about this pathos in the earlier blog, and I realized, deep inside, that the music is, even if unrecognized by its composer (though Thomas Lawson seems to have realized it - consciously or unconsciously)- the music seems to express an agonizing lament, as if the music itself was communicating the utter despair of the world weeping for itself: "Rachel weeping for her children because they were no more," and the world (at least those in it who have ever heard the piece) knows it, because it reveals itself, not to the superficial level of hearing, but to the understanding depths of the heart. The piece reflects all the tears that are shed because of the darkness, and the terrible aloneness that so many of the living feel. Yet how many would listen to this cry of grief without hearing it? I recall the shortest verse in the Bible: "Jesus wept." What for? Certainly it was not because of Lazarus' death, for in a few seconds He was going to raise him from the dead. Rather, Jesus wept because of the very existence within the creation, and especially within mankind, of the power of sin and death that dominates every soul as it comes into the world: every life, every human thought, word and deed, a poison that spreads itself like a plague. It is because of this profound pathos that you and I have been called by God to be the salt (preservative), and light (bearer of truth that sets free) - because God's very purpose is to restore the image of God - the power of love, which is the antidote - the only antidote that can provide the healing balm that overcomes the awful aloneness that the power of death, in the hand of the enemy of our souls, seeks to spread abroad in God's creation; "The thief comes only to steal, to kill and to destroy, but I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly."


Some people don't like to talk about negative things, such as the pathos of the world and the power of sin and death. I'm inclined to think we don't talk about it, or even think about it enough. It should be obvious (but I'm afraid it isn't) that without the first six, and especially first four chapters of the Bible (the "bad news"), the entire rest of the Bible (the good news), would make no sense. Human fallenness would be regarded simply as the way things are, the normal state of this world. There would be no answer to why Jesus should come, live, die on the cross, be resurrected, and all the rest. It would be an "every man for himself" world. The world would be what "Adagio..." reflects in terms of the pain and suffering and isolation of humanity from itself, much less from God. Listen to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." Listen for the revelation of the human soul's condition.