Hearing new music

In his great book Summoned to Lead, Len Sweet tells the story of Yousouf Karsh a well-known portrait photographer, who took pictures of some of the most famous people on the planet during the 20th century. Only once did he take a picture of someone’s back. It was that of Pablo Casals. While Casals was practicing Bach on his cello in a small French abbey in 1954 Karsh was so moved that he instantly took a picture of Casals bent over his cello right against the old chapel wall.

Years later some of Karsh’s portraits were on exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. There the curator noticed an elderly man who came to see the exhibition day after day. Every time he stopped in front of the photograph of Casals and stood there for what seemed to be ages. One day the curator walked up to this gentleman and kindly tapped him on the shoulder to find out why he came to see this picture every single day. Irritated the man frowned at the curator and said: “Hush, young man! Can’t you see I’m listening to the music?”

Beautiful! It reminds me of John Keats who, in his well-known poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” wrote the following words:

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.”

The secret of life is to dance to different drums and to hear music that no one else hears, or listens to. I think this is what the first verses of Revelation 14 convey to us. Followers of Jesus hear different music. They hear the sounds of heaven. The bandwidth of their lives is set to the victorious notes of the Lamb that was slain. They sing songs of praise and joy in sync with all the occupants of heaven. That’s why they also train their ears to hear this divine music more clearly day after day.

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