I have a pretty clear memory of the first time I went to the symphony. I was about seven years old and it was during the Christmas season.
Even walking into the concert hall (I wish I remembered where and my grandmother is, of course, no longer alive for me to ask) gave me the overwhelming sense that I was there to witness, or experience, something new and profound. My young brain sensed that this event was important; like church, but on a much larger scale. Folks were gathered in their nicer clothes and the quiet murmur of voices contained a kind of adult excitement, a prelude to something mysterious and joyful - the stuff that one rarely glimpses as a child.
After settling into our seats, the lights darkened and the curtains opened. The memory comes back clearly: the feeling of anticipation, a venture into the unknown about to unfold right before our ears and eyes. As the musicians began to play, I felt this sweep of rapture move across me. I started to cry. I couldn't help it. The tears were involuntary and felt almost holy. I felt a mixture of intense affection, wonder, longing, smallness, immensity and gratitude. I felt like the luckiest little kid in the world to be witness to the inner lives of these beautiful beings laid bare on the stage, these strange fellow creatures who loved to make objects sing for no apparent reason other than to commune with the hearts and ears of those who came to witness.
I never felt that in church. Church, at least for me, seemed mostly to obscure the raw force and glory of whatever that rapture is. Only in nature, in music, in love, and in the arms and care of other humans - only in the warm mysterious arithmetic of those radiant forms - did I sense the nearness of the divine. It seemed to me, that the only time I came close to glimpsing a similar feeling during church, it was in the elements that felt earthen and wild and weird; the fleeting flashes of playfulness and mirth. The all too human beauty that dances within the mystery.
I did not come upon this DJ's NPR Tiny Desk Concert expecting to dissolve into near tears of awe, but that's what happened. This young man seemed like some strange and otherworldly version of a priest, and it is entirely possible hat he's never even opened a theology book in his entire life. This - this is eucharistic. This is a glimpse into the Life that liturgy celebrates. This is the all too human beauty beauty that dances within the mystery, And I feel like I'm seven years old again.
My grandmother is no longer here to share it with, so I am passing the beauty on to you.
Happy Sunday. You are Loved more than you could possibly imagine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iQmPv_dTI0
