Friday, October 10, 2003
i woke up this morning and stared out of the window, i was only half awake but i had to catch my breath in delight (i know it sounds cliched...but there's really no better way to put it). the sun was rising...and the sky was a gradient of blue and purple and pink and orange. don't worry...not going to wax lyrical on morning again. morning is a whole array of sensations that move in and out of each other to form a larger state, beautiful though that may be...this morning's sunrise was a whole sensation in itself. i think it was all the more beautiful because i hadn't been looking for it...we like to idealize sunrises, but most of the time that image comes attached with a waiting period that comes before the sunrise. "we'll stay up and watch the sun rise", and the sunrise is diminished because of our anticipation. this morning's sunrise literally swept me away because it found me despite the fact that i wasn't looking for it. i couldn't quite believe that such a beautiful image was sitting right outside my window waving at me, i had to go back under the covers and reemerge to gaze out of the window and check that i hadn't dreamed the whole thing up. i was half-surprised when that palette of color was still there...gently, softly, greeting the day...gently, softly, reminding me that life is still beautiful in ways we don't even expect.
oh, forgot to talk about this last night. the guest speakers that came to navigators passed around the latest version of "the message" bible (called the remix by the way, how funny...trying to keep up with the times). anyway, for those of you who don't know, the message is a paraphrased version of the bible in modern english...so i was flipping through it and i came to the psalms. what i saw stopped me in my tracks, "i have been bad lord, i'm sorry". there may be advantages to rewriting the bible so modern folk can understand it, but when it come to poetry...i just think some things should be better left untouched. the beauty of the psalms had been totally lost in the (no doubt, good-intentioned) paraphrasing...leave me my "for i know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me" anytime...it might sound archaic, but i'll put up with it for beauty's sake. art can never be watered down for comprehension...that's what makes it lovely, the fact that you can only truly appreciate it if you dig into it...the beauty of art (poetry, song, movement) is the reward that comes from studying it and paying it full attention...it can never be laid out on a platter and dished out in portions. true art is a delicacy only few can enjoy, the few who know how to savor it while forgoing the need to understand the components that made up the creation, because beauty is one of those cases where the whole is larger than the sum of its parts.
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oh, forgot to talk about this last night. the guest speakers that came to navigators passed around the latest version of "the message" bible (called the remix by the way, how funny...trying to keep up with the times). anyway, for those of you who don't know, the message is a paraphrased version of the bible in modern english...so i was flipping through it and i came to the psalms. what i saw stopped me in my tracks, "i have been bad lord, i'm sorry". there may be advantages to rewriting the bible so modern folk can understand it, but when it come to poetry...i just think some things should be better left untouched. the beauty of the psalms had been totally lost in the (no doubt, good-intentioned) paraphrasing...leave me my "for i know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me" anytime...it might sound archaic, but i'll put up with it for beauty's sake. art can never be watered down for comprehension...that's what makes it lovely, the fact that you can only truly appreciate it if you dig into it...the beauty of art (poetry, song, movement) is the reward that comes from studying it and paying it full attention...it can never be laid out on a platter and dished out in portions. true art is a delicacy only few can enjoy, the few who know how to savor it while forgoing the need to understand the components that made up the creation, because beauty is one of those cases where the whole is larger than the sum of its parts.
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