Unseen Beauty: A Journal

The music of creation

I have always envied artists, those gifted with making something of almost supernatural beauty. From the time I was a child, I was drawn to them. Some of my happiest memories are the times spent in the presence of that miraculous flow of beauty from someone’s pencil or their keyboard. I can sit for hours, watching someone draw or paint, barely breathing because I know that I am in the presence of something not quite of this world. I love to lie beneath a piano, letting the wash of sound overpower me in the dusty shadows and transport me to a world of wonder and safety. There is something amazing in that creation, a spiritual drug, if you will, that is utterly intoxicating.

In the Bible, the first Creator is, of course God. The next are a pair of artists, the men inspired to create the Ark of the Covenant. According to scripture, they are directly inspired by God, touched by something beyond any human experience. That touch may have been millennia ago, but its implications ripple down through history. True artists are always a little other, not because being different is artistic, but because they have touched something that is so great that it changes them merely by the contact.

That artistry, the ability to be a conduit for a power beyond comprehension is a magnificent gift, and a gift given only to a precious few. But it is not the only gift given. I know that I will never play music or sing it; four years of piano lessons as a child produced only a profound dislike of my piano teacher. I will never draw or paint. Yet I too have a gift; I too can touch the light of creation, for I can appreciate the beauty given.

Back in Stratford, I was able to see Schaeffer’s Amadeus. It changed my life in many subtle ways. I empathized with Salieri’s pain, and yet I learned from it. I learned that in hating what he saw as his mediocrity, in obsessing over his inability to create the dazzling beauty that he saw in the work of Mozart, Salieri crushed his true gift. Salieri was given the gift of appreciation. Of all those who listened to the work of genius, only Salieri truly heard it. Only his soul ached with the beauty, with the inexpressible wonder and emotion of the work. And yet that gift was not what he wanted, and he scorned it.

That gift is mine. No matter how I try or how hard I strive to twist the words to my will, there is no way to express the beauty of a beautiful piece of music, beautifully played. No words can express the swell of emotion when a poem or painting says exactly what we need to hear, its images, coupled with the well of imagination, playing out on the mind’s eye. I yearn for beauty, because I can appreciate it. It touches me, pulling me out of the crowd while others hurry by. It makes me weep while others pass unmoved. When I dare to allow it, it sweeps me away. Even in my darkest moments in college, days when I was bent on self destruction, I remember sneaking into the balcony of the chapel, huddling in the shadows so that I would not be noticed, stealing beauty as I listened to rehearsals for upcoming concerts. For those moments, I was not alone and miserable; I was caught up, flying on the wings of Mozart’s Requiem or peering through the frames at Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

I think that passion is the thing that drew me into teaching. I am aghast at the cultural illiteracy of the adult students at the college where I work. They do not see the wonder or the beauty. For most of them, art is an annoyance rather than a pleasure. My burden is to draw back the curtains of superficiality and show them what lies beneath, to sensitize them to the wonder and let them catch a glimmer of the light of creation that lies just beneath the surface of any true art. I do not know how to express to them the great truth that not all of us are born to be artists, but so many of us are capable of appreciating, of fulfilling the great purpose of art. Every artist strives to communicate, but he must have a willing audience to communicate with. My goal, my passion is to make my students hear, to let the music of creation roll over them and open the eyes of their soul. It is a lonely zeal; even most of my friends are easily bored by my outpourings and plans for illustrating the ache within me, but it is an obsession, and I cannot walk away.

Perhaps the bar is set too high, and yet as I square my shoulders and face another semester, I must have faith. And, of course, when all else fails, I put on my headphones, cue up Mozart and sail free.