1 :: Soundscapes

I stood at the sink tonight, in a tiny house in a country I've never visited before, up to my elbows in sudsy water. I'm on a brief, and wholly working holiday with half of my family. Tomorrow, we work on a project, and work darn hard. Tonight, however, after a trek to a village shop for a week's supply of crusty bread and cheese, we rested. And ate with relish. A little of the weariness of the travel day sloughed away with the salad and bread, the dark wine and soft cheese. We lit candles. Listened to music. And as I washed up, my brother sat facing me over the counter playing samples from Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for Interstellar. Funny how weariness can both heighten and blend the senses. In the slowed consciousness of my growing exhaustion, the warm water was a grip on my skin, the music not just a melody in the room, but somehow suffused throughout it, one with my gentling pulse. I felt that I stood soaked in music as in water. "Listen, listen," said my brother, explaining the intricacies of harmony and counterpoint that made the rich soundscape, that made of notes and instruments a narrative unfolding in my imagination. "He's not just making music as a background, he's using the whole soundscape to help tell the story."

Show, don't tell, says every writing instructor I've ever met. Taste and see, says the Psalmist. Abruptly, immersed in music and sleepiness and grace, I wonder if God evokes as well as dictates his love. For weeks now, I've studied the Incarnation. I finished my doctrine project on the train this morning, thank you very much. My mind is crammed with theological points about the embodied Word that speaks in the tiniest particular of human physicality and experience, that narrates itself to us in touch and taste and sound and sense. But my mind and body have been in ceaseless, unseeing movement; I have been too busy with outlining the Incarnation to experience it.

Yesterday, I had an hour of panic over many things. I fretted. I squirmed. And wondered why I couldn't gain center again.

Stop and taste. Halt and see.

I stood at the sink tonight, beloved souls near me, the water hot and gentle on my hands. food in my stomach, a tender, pink sky fading out the window, music, that music like air in my lungs, and in my weariness, I stopped. I tasted and saw. I savored every sense as it tingled with given life, even felt the heavy, rich exhaustion of the moment. And I saw.

This Word of ours, he's not just making beauty as a background, he's using all the world to tell his story...