Out of the mouths of babes

Once when my sister, Anne Marie, was two or three years old, we were out driving when a particularly low quality song came on the radio. When it was over, she remarked, “That song isn’t real. Somebody just made it up.”

Naturally I DID NOT LAUGH when she said it, even though I laugh every time I remember or retell it.

But I have remembered it and retold it regularly, not just because it was funny, but because I think there’s real truth in there.

I was reminded of it again this morning while reading Stratford Caldecott’s Beauty for Truth’s Sake. In his chapter on music he quotes the English composer John Tavener, who says that, “all music already exists. When God created the world he created everything. It’s up to us as artists to find the music.”

He goes on to say:

Music just is. It exists. If you have ears to hear, you’ll hear it! . . . I believe we are incarnated in the image of God in this world in order for us to re-find that heavenly celestial music from which we have been seperated. Our whole life is a continuing return to the “source.”

(p. 96)