The Slender Bridge

When I met the man who is now my husband back in 2006, Larry introduced me to a genre of literature that was new to me; writings by modern day mystics from the British Isles. These writers seem to have a special gift for perceiving the beauty and value in natural things, for perceiving the breath of God in the created order. 

This morning a section from John O'Donohue's book, The Invisible Embrace of Beauty, resonated with me as I read it early while listening to the birds and enjoying a cup of coffee on the front porch. This section celebrates the unique powers of the human voice in song:

A beautiful voice raises our hearts and stirs something ancient in us, perhaps reminding us of our capacity for the eternal. Such a voice can claim you immediately even before you have time to think about it. I have often been at a music session where someone might be asked to sing and as soon as the beautiful voice rises up all noise and distraction cease and everyone becomes enraptured as the beauty of the voice brings out the music of the heart. When you hear a soprano like Joan Sutherland scale the highest mountains of Mozart, it takes your breath away, or Jessye Norman singing the Four Last Songs of Strauss.

But why does exquisite song stir us deeply? Perhaps, more than any instrument, song can capture us because the human voice is our very own sound; the voice is the most intimate signature of human individuality and, of all the sounds in creation, comes from an utterly different place. Though there is earth in the voice, the voice is not of the earth. It is the voice of the in-between creature, the one in whom both earth and heaven become partially vocal. The voice is the sound of human consciousness being breathed out into the spaces. Unlike things of clay which contain themselves, the soul always strains beyond the body. A stone can dwell within itself for four hundred million years, take every sieve of wind and wash of rain, yet hold its Zen-like stillness.

From the very moment of birth, consciousness is already leaking from our intense yet porous interiority. To be who we are, we need the consolation and companionship of the outside. Utter self-containment is either the gift of the mystic who has broken through to the divine within, or the burden of one who has become numb and catatonic because the outside was too terrible. The human voice is a slender but vital bridge [italics mine] that takes us across the perilous distance to the others who are out there. The voice is always the outer sounding of the mind; it brings to expression the inner life that no-one else can lean over and look into. 

Yet the voice is not merely an instrument, nor a vehicle for thought. The voice is almost a self; it is not simply or directly at the service of its owner; it has a life of its own. Its rhythm and tone are not always under the control of the conscious, strategic self. Each person has more than one voice. There is no such thing as the single, simple self; a diversity of selves dwells in each of us.

In a certain sense, all art endeavours to attain the grace and depth of human mystery. There is wonderful complexity in nature and indeed in the world of artificial objects; yet no complexity can rival the complexity of the human mind and heart. Nowhere else does complexity have such fluency and seamless swiftness. Whole diverse regions within the heart can quicken in one fleeting thought or gesture. A glimpse of an expression in someone's eyes can awaken a train of forgotten memories.

The mystery of the voice lies in its timbre and rhythm. Often in the human voice things long lost in the valleys of the mind can unexpectedly surface. As the voice curves, rises and falls, it causes the listener to hearken to another presence that even the speaker might barely sense but cannot silence. Sometimes, without our knowing or wanting it, our lives speak out. In spite of ourselves, we end up saying things that the soul knows but the mind would prefer to leave unsaid. 

Beauty, by John O'Donohue, ©2004, HarperCollins Books, page 72-73

What voices will you and I hear today? Hopefully, one will be our own, giving praise to God for the gift of this day. 

My heart is steadfast, 
O God, my heart is steadfast; 
I will sing and make music.
                                           Psalm 57:7

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Joan Sutherland, December 1959 singing

ALLELUJA from Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate

 

Jessye Norman - Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss

Nº 1.  Frühling

Nº 2. September

Nº 3. Beim Schlafengehen (Hermann Hesse)

Nº 4. Im Abendrot ( Joseph von Eichendorff)

 

I Thank You God for this Most Amazing Day

choral setting by Eric Whitacre

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

                                e.e. cummings
                                1894-1962