Music Soothes the Savage Breast
It’s been a long day at the office
I have tried to help a family see there is a better way to live than to be constantly fighting and blowing up and giving each other the silent treatment…after over an hour I am becoming resigned to the fact that Dad is not going to get beyond “He has to respect me and if he doesn’t I will make him!” and the teenager's ‘They don’t understand!’
As I get in the car and pull out of the garage at almost 9pm I am tired. The classical radio station has some flute music and I begin to be captivated by it. I am with the music, in the music; thinking is that James G. or Jean-Pierre R.? It’s a concerto of some kind and I am enjoying it already; I am enthralled, casting off my shoulders hours of work and weariness. It’s rapturous…and it takes me all the way home. As I reach home it finishes and the announcer says “Flute Concerto by Bach in E flat”… It wasn’t my favorite flutists but that one was good too…
As I drive I acknowledge I received my introduction to classical music in the Legion of Christ. It was on Sunday mornings in Rome, the instructor was a priest ‘from outside’ doing his doctorate at Santa Cecilia…a Spanish fellow called Pablo Colina, great teacher…Yes, Thank you to the Legion. But let’s not get carried away. The Legion did not give me the innate sensitivity; that was there in me, already, in the son of the blue-collar printer’s assistant, in the heart that was sensitive from suffering and by the same token so capable of wonderful healing. Some of my detractors call me bitter and angry. If you only knew! You poor ignorant souls! It’s not anger; its sadness, hurt, disappointment. And hurt can be healed.
While we have life, there is so much healing in God’s wonderful world. Because, in retrospect, one can experience the Goodness of God –that is the Grace!—despite the stupidity of human malice and cruelty, despite evildoers supposed to be His ministers. And one can relate to the words of the Psalm which tells us that He was always there, even in that nightmare, at the moment of abuse that was utter hell to the victim, God was somehow there, or at least wanted to be there, despite that devilish act…And you experience the truth: It is better to fall into the hands of God than the hands of the enemy; because even when God wounds He then heals the wound.
And thank you JS Bach; James and Jean-Pierre, merry flutists, good night.
Was this the duet you were listening to?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_5fmGwMFl4
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeletewith a sense of humor like yours we may already be friends, or the potential is there. It brightened my Friday and made me laugh all the way to work after getting my crown victoria inserted; Miss Piggy reminds me of Bene Factress an old friend of mine who used to post on exlegionaries.com before it was intervened by the Gestapo
Unfortunately, my training in music in Salamanca was not so brilliant. We had an exlc for a teacher and he was always in a terrible hurry to do everything. Not good for gringos with bad Spanish. Too bad that LC formation is so irregular, with teachers changing so often and ciriculum based on whim. I learned much more attending concerts put on for the Holy Father in Rome. Now there was some culture.
ReplyDelete