Last night I decided that I need to treat myself to good music more often. And not just any good music, but the kind that speaks to your soul. Deeply, softly, poignantly, when there’s no mistake that you’re experiencing something bigger than yourself just by listening to another person’s creation.
Partaking in this kind of experience can be deeply spiritual for me, whether or not the song’s creator is intending for it be. When a person’s creation stirs up meanings or reminders of great beauty, truth, or emotion, spirituality is present.
I truly believe that the heart of an artist is mustered from a longing to create something true. Something meaningful. To take reflections of this world and present them in a way that speaks truth. Sometimes this truth is immensely beautiful, but sometimes it is painfully ugly. Sometimes it presents further clarification and understanding, but sometimes it only creates more confusion or chaos even.
One of my favorite things about taking in artistic endeavours — be they song, painting, photography, installation, writing — is how they speak to you. You. How you are right now. This moment. If you came back tomorrow, they might say something different. The person standing right next to you, immersed in the same creation, is having a different experience. Hearing different whispers. Feeling different sensations and emotions. Or maybe he or she is not feeling much of anything but you are. Powerful art often stirs up similar sensations in its partakers, but in the end, each person’s experience is his or her own. At the end of the day, what you take away is different from what anyone else does, and its impact on you is unique.
That’s the beauty of creativity — art continues creating.
And that is the root of it. As created beings, we long to create something even an iota of what has been created before it. We have been graciously given the ability to appreciate beauty, albeit it only a glimmer of the beauty that God can experience. And this is why art is deeply spiritual for me. There is something in the heart of an artist that resonates with mine, whether or not they know my Savior. They are searching. They are reflecting on the truth that they know.
This is why I must be intentional with allowing myself the time and space to take in music that speaks to my soul. Because when my soul stirs, when I experience beauty, when I experience the depth of another’s emotion, when I see another artist searching, I am reminded of my Savior. I am reminded of how grateful I am for redemption as well as for the ability to create and to appreciate beauty.
I cannot wait for the day when God opens our eyes and we can behold the beauty He has laid out before us in all its fullness and truth.
