Disney

I love Disney movies.  Some of my favorite films are, in fact, Disney movies.  Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Aladdin, to name a few, each occupy a high place in my list of favorite movies.  A central reason for this has to do with the masterful music comprising many of these films, which makes a lot of sense, especially if you've read any of my other posts on this relatively brief blog.  In fact, I'll post a video of one of my favorites for your enjoyment:


"Under the Sea" from the Little Mermaid


But despite Disney's wonderful music, family-friendliness, and encouraging messages, I have one major problem with it:  Disney has propagated the modern cultural understanding that romantic love is the end-all and be-all of human existence.


What do I mean by this?  It's probably not a surprise to you that the American culture tends to venerate romantic love as the Mecca of human life.  The ideal life is one in which a person is born, grows, gets educated, works, falls in love, and lives happily ever after.  And key to living happily ever after is the part where he or she falls in love.


Think about it.  Why do dating services abound?  Why do (typically married) people tend to regard singles over the age of 30 as though something is wrong with them?  Why do so many films and TV shows center around the idea of consummated romantic love as the most important thing that can happen in a person's life?


To be fair, I'm not bashing the idea of marriage, or even dating, or anything like that.  I definitely believe that covenental marriage between a man and a woman is part of God's design for human life in a broad sense.  But I don't think that necessitates the idea that the modern concept of romantic love is correct.  Just because Eve was created by taking something out of Adam doesn't mean that men are missing out on something without being united in love with a woman; or vice versa.


Chrsitian theology is clear that all humans are unequivocally sinful, even after they become Christians.  Their sin causes them to deserve eternal separation from God in an actual, physical place called hell.  We require the saving grace of God manifested in the person of Jesus Christ who lived, suffered, died, and rose from the grave in order to fix our sin problem so we can live eternally with God.  But despite this, we Christians still sin; we're by no means better than anyone else simply because we believe in Christ.


And so what kind of sense does it make that one sinful, wretched person can make complete the life of another sinful, wretched person?  Both are in desperate need for God to fulfill and satisfy them, and in fact, God is the only one who can do that.  For me to think that a mere human can somehow complete, fix, heal, fulfill, or satisfy me is not only ridiculous... it's idolatry.  It's replacing a role that only God can fill with something that is not God, and trusting in that rather than in God.


Again, I'm not saying that marriage is bad, or that having a romantic relationship is bad.  In fact, I strongly believe God uses human relationships, and intimate relationships such as marriage in particular, to change, sanctify, and make people more like Christ.  What I'm saying is that too often, I buy into the lie that I need a woman in my life and that somehow, that will make everything better.  And whenever I think that, I'm admitting that God is not enough for me.


Ouch.


So have you bought into our culture's Disney understanding of love?  I think many of us have, perhaps even unwittingly.  I know that I didn't really begin to think about these things until relatively recently.  I hope that if you have, you begin to consider that while good, a romantic relationship with that special someone, that ideal mate, that soulmate you haven't yet found... will not bring you lasting fulfillment, satisfaction, and joy.  Only God can do that.

Dream

Last night, I had a dream.  I don't remember a whole lot about it, but here is what I do remember...

A friend and I were walking back from somewhere (who knows where?) in the dark.  Somehow, when we arrived at our destination, it was the same place as it was supposed to be, and the same people were there, but my friend and I soon became aware that we were no longer in the same world we had been in before.  Because as we began interacting with friends, we realized that everyone was much sadder and melancholy than they should have been.  And there was one other noticeable difference between this "other-dimensional" world and the one we had come from... there was no music.

I love music.  If you read my last post, you'd know this.  Music is one of my very favorite things in the entire world.  I think music is one of God's most brilliant inventions, because humans, with our nearly limitless creativity and ingenuity, along with our sense of beauty and desire to express ourselves, can do practically anything with music.  Music is awesome.

But here we were in a world (exactly like the world we all live in now) with no music, no concept of it whatsoever.  In my dream, I remember trying to explain to someone what "singing" was.  I said, "Don't you hear the birds in the trees singing?"  They replied, "You mean chirping?"  I realized that the melodies created by birds were heard by these people only as chirping, a series of disconnected noises.  And I realized why people were so sad:  because in my estimation, a world without music is a very empty place.

The rest of the dream is more indistinct in my memory.  I believe my friend and I began to demonstrate music by singing a duet (for some reason, I think it was "Till There Was You" from The Music Man, sung by Robert Preston and Shirley Jones).  By the way, The Music Man is one of my favorite musicals.  The person we were singing to in my dream was flabbergasted by our song.  I think we proceeded to teach him how to sing:  it's just sustained talking (again, my dream was taking on a definite Music Man flair by this point, as this was directly stolen from the part where the con artist Harold Hill is teaching the school board quartet how to sing).

I used to think dreams were just random thoughts and leftovers of my day that my brain collected and threw together in a blender while I was sleeping.  For the past year or so, though, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for dreams.  Now I believe they can often provide insight into the things our subconscious mind is dealing with on an ongoing basis that we may not even be aware of.

So what does that mean about my dream about a world without music?  Probably just that at the very core of my being, I value the experience of music so highly that I really do think that a world without it would not be a place worth living in.  That's all.

Canon

Pachelbel's Canon in D Major
In my opinion, the most beautiful musical work ever composed by a human is Canon in D by Pachelbel.  I have a strings and harpsichord version of it on a CD that I often listen to while driving places.  I find that if I'm anxious or worried about something, I often find that it helps me relax and reorient my perspective; take a step back and remember what's true.  I hope this is also the case for the employees who work at Ripley's Aquarium in North Myrtle Beach, SC, where the piece is played on continuous loop all day long outside next to the ticket booth and inside at the snack station.


I see on Wikipedia that Johann Pachelbel was a German composer who lived during the second half of the seventeenth century.  It seems that most of his musical pieces have been lost to time, and Canon in D was only discovered in 1919, at which time it became enormously popular and began to be played at weddings and included in classical music compilation albums.  In fact, some scholars speculate that Canon in D was written to be played at Johann Christoph Bach, who was the older first cousin, once removed of the more widely-recognized Johann Sebastian Bach.  By the way, it should be noted here that most German composers who lived during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were named Johann; it was sort of like saying, "Hey, I'm a German composer!  You should listen to my music because one day I'll be really famous."


So what is it about this piece that has made it so popular?  I mean, it doesn't even have words!  I'm not counting the lyrics added on by Trans-Siberian Orchestra for their Christmas Canon Rock and probably a lot of other bands and musical groups, too, for their renditions of Canon.  And that brings up another point:  Canon in D is perhaps the most-referenced (musically speaking) piece ever written.  A lot of groups have made their own versions, and on top of that, you'll find that the bass lines of many modern songs are identical to the familiar eight-note bass line from Canon (D-A-B-F#-G-D-G-A), though of course the key may vary, but the point is that the interval patterns are the same!  I found a comedian who has a five-minute tirade about this very issue; you can watch his Pachelbel Rant, a hilarious stand-up/musical skit which unfortunately contains two swear words.


So again, why the popularity?  I think it's simply due to the inherent beauty of the music.  The piece itself is very structured, typical of Baroque music of the day.  I've already mentioned the eight notes that comprise the bass part; everything that happens melodically builds off of that.  Additionally, the harmony that's employed in this piece is a practically perfect series of thirds and fifths.  Again, quite typical of the era, but sometimes simplicity can be more wonderful than complexity.


Music is one of my favorite things in life.  It has the potential to lift one up and take him/her to a different place, at least for a little while.  And some music, like Canon, can actually change people's emotional state and behaviors.  Music, therefore, can be a powerful force that can influence people positively or negatively.  My opinion is that music is not actually a human invention, but was instead written into existence by God, similar to other powerful forces, such as the physical laws that govern the universe and the moral laws that govern how people interact with one another.  The Bible speaks of heavenly creatures such as angels singing and playing musical instruments as they worship God.  To think that mere humans are also capable of producing such artistry (though of course to a lesser degree of wonder) makes me think... well, it makes me think of Pachelbel.

A Long-Expected Party

Good morning, sunshine!  The earth says, "hello!"

Welcome to my first-ever blog!  I don't really know what I'm doing here yet, but I hope that this will soon be revealed to me...

In the meantime, I hope I will remember to visit this place on a quasi-regular basis and fill in the white space with intelligible words (so as to impress my constituents).

So whether you've been invited to this realm of flying thoughts, or perhaps you've encountered it by chance, I hope you will find food for thought enough at least to chew on for a little while.

So until next time, a soliloquy:

To be or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The Jabberwockies and Bandersnatches of Carroll's imagination,

Or to take arms against a sea of Alice's tears,

And by imbibing "Drink-Me" potions end them?