Unarmed Truth

Dear Eugene,

Recently I've been busy fooling around with my piano.

I think that's what I want to do for Christmas, as a gift to baby Jesus.  Songs would come out of you when you are ready to worship.  And I don't mean singing hymns.  I mean melodies would just naturally come out of you, sad or sweet and usually both.

A character in Doctor Zhivago said it well,

“Wait, I’ll tell you what I think myself. I think that if the beast dormant in man could be stopped by the threat of, whatever, the lockup or requital beyond the grave, the highest emblem of mankind would be a lion tamer with his whip, and not the preacher who sacrifices himself. But the point is precisely this, that for centuries man has been raised above the animals and borne aloft not by the rod, but by music: the irresistibility of the unarmed truth, the attraction of its example. It has been considered up to now that the most important thing in the Gospels is the moral pronouncements and rules, but for me the main thing is that Christ speaks in parables from daily life, clarifying the truth with the light of everyday things. At the basis of this lies the thought that communion among mortals is immortal and that life is symbolic because it is meaningful.”

"The irresistibility of the unarmed truth..."  That's it.  That's music.

Something's gotta give; so I guess I will need to write less, which is kinda sad.  Because there's so much to write about music, about playing the piano.  I must constantly remind myself my goal is to play the darn piano, not to write about playing the piano.

I will only say this for today: There's great joy in discovering what the songwriter has in mind.  I had three "Aha" moments just this morning.

"At the basis of this lies the thought that communion among mortals is immortal and that life is symbolic because it is meaningful."  Amen.

Yours, Alex

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