Nathan bought me tickets to the symphony for Christmas. Yesterday, it was time for our date. We heard some Rachmaninov, a stunning violin soloist, and the second half was Beethoven’s 5th symphony.
We go to the symphony once or twice a year, and it is always a very nostalgic experience for me. Music was my life in college. I lived and breathed it. I rehearsed and practiced and performed for hours every day. I loved it, but got completely burnt out, and I rarely even touch my clarinet these days. I’ve always stayed involved in music, though, even if in only small ways. Nathan and I play in the hand bell choir at church. Now that I have my mom’s piano, I play almost every day.
This time was a bit different, though. I found as I listened to and watched the musicians performing yesterday that my faith in humanity was being restored bit by bit. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the evil things humans are doing around the world. It’s easy to forget that there is good in us too. It was amazing to behold…the beauty of the music. It was heartening to know that such beauty was created by a human, and that people are still interested in playing and listening to it. We aren’t only capable of destruction, but are capable of so much more.
Maybe it’s when we are creating such beautiful things that we feel closest to our Creator. In creating beauty we are imitating Him, like a child imitates his parents. Each melody, each pull of a bow across a string, each collective breath from the group on stage brings us closer to Him who created so much beauty Himself.