There is some music, a very small quantity really, that takes hold of your heart and flies you to places you have never seen. In a single line it can tear away your armor and make you completely vulnerable. When I was a kid, it was so much easier to find music that did this; perhaps it is because everything was new to me.
But I'm glad it is harder to experience such intensely spiritual spaces...like C.S. Lewis' two encounters with JOY, there is so much more value to a moment that occurs only a few times in a life. James Newton Howard's theme for M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water pulls me into one of these moments.
The film itself is perhaps a subject for another day, but I will say that it effected me like few other stories have since I was dragged kicking and screaming into jaded adolescence. Now that I'm supposedly an adult, I'm thankful for the art that lets me touch the edge of my understanding every so often. There are places only music and poetry can take us, far beyond our earth-bound feet. Go find a quiet space...dig up that mp3 or cd or record that used to leave you gasping for breath, curl up in a little ball, and remember the innocence of awe and feel the edges of a universe you can barely understand.
Monday, April 9, 2007
The Edges*
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1 comment:
Your post makes me think wistfully of the days before that onslaught of numbness - when I used to spend hours lying on my back, staring holes into the ceiling. Just soaking up one song or album over and over again, until I knew every nuance by memory. I'd let the music create waves of emotion and then unashamedly immerse myself into the feelings. Oh... to experience everything with that dramatic intensity again....
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