MATHETΩN

So several times I have thought what to write here (to write—to write anything—is what I must do here; to write earnestly, violently, doggedly and without fear or shame; perforce to write embarrassingly) …

Nothing so much as music impassionates me (this singular characteristic I share of course with half the world), yet music generally prompts in me poignancy or high spirits or anger—or awe at its sounds; it rarely prompts in me tears. And yet it does: Yesterday as I drove to work all unsuspecting, music crept up and drowned my eyes. Why? It was far from the first or only time, and I recognized the pattern: What is it a fugue of J.S. Bach, the “Messiah” of Haendel, the voice of Ms. Jennifer Knapp, and the arrangements of Jars of Clay have all in common? They are superior exquisite music certainly. But they cry out God and Truth and other things the world forbids me: I have no oxygen perhaps a month and then Bach gives it me: So infrequent a so-dear thing—a breath a month!—would it not drive grateful desperate tears from any eyes?