Music as Mystical Union

Well, I am taking this course this semester called "Love, Sex, and Marriage," and it is quite the money's worth of a course. We're reading excellent authors like Plato, Lewis, Aristotle, Pope John Paul II. An excellent reading adventure.

One of the concepts we've been talking about is the idea that sex represents the union between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that it also models for us the closeness that we ought to desire with God. In some ways, the connection is abstract--but, man, is it there.

I realized today that music might be one of the only other things that comes close to revealing the essence of this mystical union. My buddy Joel and I were jamming early this evening, and I was getting caught up in the music. My eyes were closed. My pulse was pumping. I was astonished at the tones that were reverberated off the walls and at the power and beauty of what we were creating together. I was connecting with Joel and with the music--this abstract notion of music--that is outside myself.

And that's very much like sex. Union with another being and Beauty--God--shows up.

Hmm. Maybe that's why people always chase after sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. They confuse the mirror with the Man, and settle for the quick fix rather than the Long Trip.

Hmm.