"The Aesthetic Life"

This is another long instrumental composition that I recorded in the summer of '07 or '08. I recently gave it the name, “The Aesthetic Life.” If Thinker Sensitive has to do with the life of the mind, the intellectual life, then Strings & Words has to do with the life of inspiration, the artistic life. I have always been profoundly moved by beauty—swept away by notes and chords, patterns and melodies, strings and words that animate the soul and breath life into the spirit.

To be inspired is to be moved by Spirit, the Spirit of inspiration, the life-giving Spirit of creativity. Music is a key that unlocks the door to heaven. Poetry is a window to the divine. Art is an ascending stairway that lifts us up to God. Beauty makes us believe. It awakens the soul. It kindles the sleeping embers of the heart. It illuminates the mind. Rapturous, breathtaking, spellbinding, it opens us up to transcendence, to spirit, to God. It is mystical and miraculous. It is super-natural, meta-physical. The creation and appreciation of it sets us apart from the beasts; it separates us from the birds of the air and the creatures of the sea.

Beauty makes us believe that life is full of wonder and majesty—permeated with meaning, purpose, direction, and providence. It makes us believe that we are not accidents, that we are irreducible, that we are more than the mere sum of our parts, that we are transcendental beings—endowed with spirit and soul and made in the image of the divine. Beauty reminds us of who we are and where we came from. It reminds us of our true nature, our true identity, and our true destiny. Beauty reminds us of our transcendence, proleptically unveiling the eternal in time.