Let's begin as we mean to go on - given that for some of us it's Holy Week - with the divine Agnus Dei from Faure's Requiem. (Yes, Mr Spellchecker, I said "Agnus!")
I was trying to explain to my spiritual director recently why I love this piece so much, and failed utterly. I simply can't put it into words. From time to time I'm brought up short at the sheer amazingness of a world where beauty can be expressed in so many and diverse ways. What could be a seemingly random jumble of sounds and words can be crafted into a unique creation that points to something beyond all words, sounds and emotions. Or - to adapt a certain classic advertisement: "Reaches the parts that other [words] cannot reach."
The effect certain pieces of poetry, prose and music have on me are again so difficult to describe. The best I can say is that what I experience is if not quite like synthesia (as when somebody appears to sense sounds as colours), yet on a similar spectrum; a hybrid of the senses: not quite sight, sound, touch, smell. To sense such a fleeting instance of beauty is to see the world shot through with a jewel-like patina. (Excuse the purple prose but I'm trying to write this against a backdrop of raucous laughter from Mr GP watching a re-run of "Whoops, Apocalypse!")
I've been sitting with another 'A' these past weeks also: one of Sieger Koder's thought-provoking pieces of artwork from his series of reflections on The Folly of God - Alive! and brooding on Christ's challenging words: "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"
I suspect that the two 'pictures' are not unconnected.
I'd love to know if there's a piece of music, art, poetry or something else that has spoken to you.
