Quotes: “Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.” ― Johann Sebastian Bach

“Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.” ― Douglas Adams

Thought for the Day: Most of us take music for granted. After all, we can be surrounded by music all day, every day, simply by clicking a button. This wasn’t always the case. In Bach’s time, if one wanted to hear music, it meant travel to a conservatory, a palace, or a concert hall. Music was always and only a communal experience, shared by musicians and audience alike. As the orchestra swelled to the climactic ending of the first movement, the audience shared in the physical energy of the musicians, and the very physical movement of air by their instruments. Music was the first interactive media ever invented by humans.

Even though these days most of our music listening is done in private, through headphones, music itself hasn’t lost the power to move and change us. Every one of us has at least one song we can immediately recall that changed our lives in a very substantial way, either through its words, melody, or both. Music has power—real power, to change the world, because music still has the power to unite us, even if we’re not necessarily all gathering in a concert hall to hear Bach reveal the mysteries of the universe.

Music is more than a universal language, it is a physical and psychological system that stirs us on a cellular level. Experiment after experiment has proven that music very literally affects the construction of our cells, and that cellular communication is accomplished through musical exchanges. Our cells remember songs, and our cells are physically changed by frequencies.

Music is the language of the cosmos, and the most intimate way we can connect with the Universal Consciousness that is God. The music of God runs through every fiber of our being, connecting us with each other in ways we are only beginning to imagine. Music is the eternal humming of the stars, the singing of the planetary spheres, the key to unlocking all the love in the universe we’re keeping trapped inside our fear-filled souls.

But love is impatiently waiting to burst forth into the world. All we need to do to participate is simply let our songs be heard.

Prayer: I sing a song of love to You, my musical God. Accompany me on the symphony of my life as I try to compose a more loving, peaceful, just and magical world. I sing a song of love to You, my musical God. Sing through me a song of love to the world. Amen.