"It does no good to wire the world if you short circuit the spirit..."
Voices raised in song...rays of sunlight beaming through stained glass windows...the gentle undulations of a silk scarf draped round a woman's shoulder...art in many forms surrounded me this afternoon as I sat in a corner pew soaking up the unbelievable sounds of a college choir.
Music feeds my soul - especially choral music, because it combines the two art forms I love most dearly, it juxtaposes music and language together in a complete artistic thought. Today's young musicians, The St. Olaf College Choir, exemplified the epitome of choral singing, their purity of tone and expression oozing directly from their souls. The great Anton Armstrong, their conductor, spoke of music being an expression of their connection to God and a "dynamic means of grace."
Art is grace, isn't it? For those who make it and those who partake of its essence. Yes, the world depends on science and technology, depends on wires and engines. But the soul depends on art- on the beauty of sound and melody, of colors of paint on a canvas, the perfect sentence in black and white on the page. Art is what connects us to the spirit, to a mystical place of wonder where pain and suffering are mitigated, where we connect with our own deeper humanity.
What good is all the wizardry of the modern world if the soul is dark and bare? If only everyone could find an artistic spark with which to ignite their spirit, then what a difference in the wiring of our whole world!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwH120A7aJU&hl=en&fs=1]