GODS RADIO

GODS RADIO            (Originally posted December 9, 2012)

An Andrew ramble

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin'.”
― Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

For a very long time, I’ve wanted to believe in God.  I’ve wished for the comfort of faith through many phases of my life.  To be able to know that there is something beyond my fleeting existence or to know that my presence in the world has some type of meaning still partially stands as the yet unclaimed reward of my pursuit.  Year after year, decade after decade this “knowing” was unobtainable.  I conversed with that “small quiet voice” that resides within us all on innumerable occasions regarding the reality of a higher power and my desire to acquire faith.  However, the Small Quiet Voice always answered my queries regarding my quest the same way.

I would say something like; “I can’t believe that everything came together just right, so that a chance meeting with a girl at a backyard barbeque resulted in me ending up with the perfect wife and three healthy beautiful children.  It must be Gods will.”

Then the Small Quiet Voice” would respond in a high-pitched, somewhat shrill, sing song tone; “It’s all bullshit.”

Every so often I would say; “It would be great to join others in worship and share a common belief with them.”

Other times I would say; “So many people on the planet believe in God.  It’s not possible for everyone to be wrong.”

The Voice would inevitably give its typical three-word answer; “It’s all bullshit.”

In fact, every question regarding a divine being, nature’s beauty or any master plan for the universe, received the “It’s all bullshit” heckle from my Small Quiet Voice.  Then one Sunday night in 2004 I was watching a story on 60 Minutes, about a little boy who lived in New York City and had a rather remarkable, if unexplainable talent.  When the story concluded and the clicking stopwatch flashed on the screen proceeding the commercial break, I took a moment and asked again;  “So what do you think about that, Small Quite Voice?”  No answer came.  I asked again.  Still there was no answer.  Then closing the leg-rest on my recliner, I stood up and testified for all to hear.  “I got you this time, mother fucker!”  I haven’t heard from the Small Quiet Voice since.

A MOZART FOR OUR TIME?

The 60 Minutes story was about a then 12-year-old boy, by the name of Jay Greenberg.  Jay looked like a cross between Harry Potter and every prepubescent nerd I have ever seen.  (Myself included)  Even his self-appointed nickname “Blue Jay” was anything but cool.  However little Jay Greenberg had, and probably still has, a unique gift.  His gift is music.  Entire symphonies, in fact were playing in his head at any given time.  Now here is what sealed the deal for me and finally shut down the never-ending “It’s all bullshit” barrage.  They were all new compositions.  This little boy, who indecently, did not come from a musical family, was composing entire symphonies starting around the age of 6.  He was writing in musical notation from before the age of three.  All without being prompted or taught by his parents or his environment at the outset.  He told Steve Croft that at anytime he could be listening to as many as three separate yet original works in his head.  They played while he walked the streets of Manhattan or played in Central Park.  For him to compose a symphony, he simply had to listen to the music playing in his mind and transcribe it onto paper.  We must keep in mind the magnitude of this ability, being that many composers work a lifetime to complete just a few symphonies.  When this story aired, little Blue Jay was working on his fifth or sixth?  Would it have mattered if it were his first of his tenth?  The report never indicated this, but it was immediately my deduction that God was in the mood to listen to some classical music.  In this particular instance, Little Jay Greenberg was the radio he chose to play it on.

At this point it should be obvious that I love music.  Love is probably an understatement.  Connected to music would be a more accurate description.  This is a connection that for me is deeper than any religious experience or conviction.  All of this, and my love is simply a surface connection.  I don’t play an instrument, I don’t read music and I can’t even comprehend music’s, often-intricate structures.  I simply listen and I am connected.  It speaks to me in a way that no voice, prose or poetry ever has.  Like it does with so many people, it floods my mind with feeling, imagery, memory and desire in a nature that is unobtainable through any other stimuli our bodies can absorb.  As I said, I can only explain it as being God’s direct line into our souls and minds.

I started this entry with a lyric to a song.  I chose this particular stanza because to me, it contains information and imagery that can only be conveyed through music.  It’s power would undoubtedly be a religious experience if anyone was ever to experience it, a house of worship rather than Madison Square Garden.  So the question must be asked.  Is it any less the Lord’s words and work because a musician or a composer was His medium, and we all first heard it played back to us at thirty three and one third revolutions per minute rather than in a dusty old book or cavernous cathedral?

"THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS WERE WRITTEN ON THE SUBWAY WALLS."

The great music’s makers are universal yet unique.  They are often flawed yet they are devout.  They can be sublime while being witless.  In my mind, they are sages and profits in their own right.  The true greats are speakers of the divine.  Think of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman playing “notes that don’t even exist on a guitar” in the closing section of “Layla”.  Consider the likelihood of George, Paul, John and even Ringo coming together to spew out innumerable tunes beyond their years and experience.  Either they were divinely inspired or they were from another planet.  Then there was Louis Armstrong and that trumpet.  The Lord’s best use of man and horn since Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho.  Do we need to talk about Mozart, Brahms or Beethoven?  Their music is essentially imprinted on all of our DNA whether we know it or not.   They were the previous channels on God’s radio and they were definitely all rating’s winners.  Looking back through time and music, the Jay Greenburg’s seem to appear every generation or so.  Unique one-of-a-kind talents, one and all.  But at the level they produce music, we are almost forced to reinterpret the 1960’s era graffiti; “Clapton is God” to “Clapton is playing Gods tune.”

SAINT BRUCE AND A FEW DISCIPLES

Arguably, music matters more to its devotees than it does to its makers.  I have been put into a trance by song on more than one occasion.  I have seen people stop to listen to it’s message and recite along with it’s notes and lyrics more often then I have seen people bow in prayer and recite along with any spiritual leader.  This is simply because music touches us more deeply than any other form of communication.  If there is any logic to faith, then it must be accepted that this deep internal connection is the closest form of divine communication we are able to experience.  But then again, I often think back to the Small Quiet Voice and lay this question before my soul; “Is it all bullshit?”