The experience itself was not tiresome, but I realized it could not be an end in and of itself. Such extraordinary beauty is no good if it only makes us dissatisfied with the beauty of the ordinary. The highest peak of a crescendo must in the end return to the sustained quiet of the melody, or it is simply another over-drawn high note.
Because the best sorts of beauty are the ones I distinctly do not plan. The best sorts of beauty are the ones I do not expect. I expected to go to that concert and see and hear beautiful things - and I did. But it was a glimpse of the beauty of this world as God has made it, and the full enjoyment of all the good gifts he has given to man - the rain he sends on the just and the unjust. There is a beauty better still. It is the beauty of the commonplace, the beauty of the million little ways that he shows his particular love for his children as they stumble about their everyday paths. They are the tremendous little things, the pinpoints of light that provide windows into a world that is still to come, a world that has been wholly renewed, if we will see them for what they are.
I am glad to be home.
"I am going to Battersea," I repeated, "to Battersea via Paris, Belfort, Heidelberg, and Frankfort. My remark contained no wit. It contained simply the truth. I am going to wander over the whole world until once more I find Battersea. Somewhere in the seas of sunset or of sunrise, somewhere in the ultimate archipelago fo the earth, there is one little island which I wish to find: an island with low green hills and great white cliffs. Travellers tell me that it is called England (Scotch travellers tell me that it is called Britain), and there is a rumour that somewhere in the heart of it there is a beautiful place called Battersea."
"I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you," said my friend, with an air of intellectual comparison, "that this is Battersea?"
"It is quite unnecessary," I said, "and it is spiritually untrue. I cannot see any Battersea here; I cannot see any London or any England. I cannot see that door. I cannot see that chair: because a cloud of sleep and custom has come across my eyes. The only way to get back to them is to go somewhere else; and that is the real object of travel and the real pleasure of holidays. Do you suppose that I go to France in order to see France? Do you suppose that I go to Germany in order to see Germany? I shall enjoy them both; but it is not them that I am seeking. I am seeking Battersea. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. Now I warn you that this Gladstone bag is compact and heavy, and that if you utter that word 'paradox' I shall hurl it at your head. I did not make the world, and I did not make it paradoxical. It is not my fault, it is the truth, that the only way to go to England is to go away from it."
-G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, "The Riddle of the Ivy"
That's funny, I was just looking at the website today trying to figure out if I had missed him coming through Atlanta (I had, but it was way back in June even before Tim had told me to pick up the CD, so there was nothing I really could have done, short of not arriving so late to the party).
But the point is well taken; music, when played sufficiently loud and in the company of others of like mind, has a way of creating a longing that it is not quite sufficient in itself to fulfill. Without being too long-winded about it (what, me?), I'll simply say that I don't think that is always entirely a bad thing.
Alright, enough distraction, now back to NaNo.
Oh, no, certainly not a bad thing - just so long as the sensation of that longing is not mistaken for the object. I love my concert-experiences, and I wouldn't wish to forget them or minimize them, but I wouldn't want to live there. Real life is far too extraordinarily ordinary to miss it for experiential-highs.
Yes, I quite agree, but I often find that my own problem is not that I spend too much time chasing after the Mountaintop of Experiential Highs, but that I get distracted with picnics in the Meadow of Complacency or lie dreaming under the Tree of Excuses of the life I once loved whilst I wait out a Rainstorm of Mildly Inconvenient Trials, and don't ever get to setting sail across the stormy Sea of Getting Off My Butt and Actually Living for the Kingdom (ouch, I think I hyper-extended my metaphor).
So, top of your head, what's the best show you've ever seen?
And I find that the root of such complacency is so often being taken with the Experiential Highs, and failing to find joy and meaning in the day-to-day Kingdom work. Chasing Experiential Highs is usually more a state of the soul than anything else - and one that rarely leads to activity in any direction, except discontented stagnation (which is action, if only that of sliding downwards).
As for the best show, I have not seen many; I am not a habitual concertgoer. I only go to see artists I really like (shows being expensive, and time more expensive still). I don't know if any of them can be held to such strict comparison as to determine The Best. This is a subject, however, that could probably occupy a whole blogpost - and most likely will, now that you have asked the question.
Hmm, I suppose I never thought of it like that - that the failure to engage more fully in the present given work is due not to hyper-contentedness and a mindset of "good enough," but rather to discontentedness at not being allowed to do more. It seems plausible, that not being given a Big Thing, we disdain the little things. But as I think about it, I am doing kind of a Big Thing - I've recently been given a large amount of responsibility and the ability to serve as a very visible witness to a number of people of the life and mind of Christ, but I find myself caught up in either the minutiae of the work and my cleverness at doing it or in the thrill of being The Man, and either way I end up worshiping Self instead of mortifying him. And I forget that the Big Things are actually comprised of little moments where I must choose, again and again, to deny, rather than gratify, myself, and to rely on His strength and wisdom, not mine; to keep my eyes on my Only Hope, lest I blink and get swept off the narrow road. It's so much easier to be complacent, or make excuses.
...and here I promised not to be long-winded. Yikes. Well, that being the case I will save my comments on the second issue for the promised post, now that you've decided to answer said question.