Alleluia

Maybe some day I shall sing once more; I shall sing “Alleluia” at sunset. Lord, open my throat & give me long breath – let me sing.

“Ah, yes, that’s what it feels like to be alive,” I thought, as I listened to the little snippet of Eric Whitacre‘s Alleluia (posted on YouTube by him a short while ago). I felt an Autumn breeze & saw leaves dancing on it, playing with the sun’s late afternoon rays, even as I listened… & I remembered what it was like to make beautiful music. What a gift! If only I had treasured it in the right proportion –  perhaps then my throat would not have been shut & I would still be singing today.

And what exactly would the right proportion have been? Well, I’m looking at Augustine’s theory of loves as it presents itself in his De civitate Dei. In it, he puts forward that the wo/man of God gives loving primacy to God, who loved us first, and who directs our affections for created things in the proper proportion. This does not come naturally to humankind. In pride, we set ourselves up in God’s seat, cleaving ourselves to mutable things (misdirected loves) & setting ourselves up for disappointment, when they fail to bring about the peace of mindbodyandsoul to which we naturally strain. But God, in love & at great cost to himself, makes it possible for humankind to find peace in Him. Now I know I called this “Augustine’s theory of loves,” but it is a thoroughly biblical paradigm. “This is love,” writes the apostle John, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). And having done that, God has made it possible for me to love Him… & to love the gift of song proportionately. Alleluia.

It’s strange that just listening to some of Whitacre’s meditation on the word “alleluia” managed to elicit all of this… this emotion… this memory of what it is that God created me to do — that He created me to sing! Now, before my fellow Whitacre fans (“whitacrites”? would that take off, d’you think?) haul me over the coals for taking his work & intentions, & twisting them to suit my own blogging needs: I know that he does not share my views, & I respect that. Still, let me quote Debussy, to legitimise the forgone reflection: ”Music is a free art; boundless as the wind, the sky the sea!” Let us not, out of our admiration for the artist, seek to bind his art to the story it was born with.

Here’s the video that reminded of one of my “sparks“… that brought very specific memories of feeling alive flooding back:

“[...] man, this part of your creation, wishes to praise you. You arouse him to take joy in praising you, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” (Augustine’s Confessions 1.1.)

Maybe some day I shall sing once more; I shall sing “Alleluia” at sunset. Lord, open my throat & give me long breath – let me sing.
Alleluia. Hallelujah. halălūyāh