An Extravagant Universe

Designing the universe must have been fun. I can imagine the thought process.

Okay, under the principle of having the end in view from the beginning, let’s think about the highest form of life that we’ll end up with, and for lack of a better name, let’s call it ‘people.’  The universe will need to support that life form. And life will be hard, so let’s try to lighten their load with something totally unnecessary, and for lack of a better word, let’s call that ‘beauty.’ What form should that take? Well, they’re going to have to eat to live, so let’s add the opportunity for beauty in the mundane activity of eating.

But let’s go above and beyond, into a realm totally unnecessary for life and health. Again, for lack of a better name, let’s call it ‘music’. Let’s design trees, cats’ intestines, horses’ tails, and various metals so that in the hands of skilled craftsmen, tools can be built that they’ll call violin, cello, harpsichord, and organ. These and many similar tools will be available to skilled users of those tools to produce sounds pleasing to the hearers. Not only that, but we’ll make their own voices capable of producing other such sounds. And then we’ll have skilled people who can write special instructions so the same sounds can be produced for hundreds of years, and some of those people will have names like Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi. But what would be really cool is having special places to play and hear those sounds. We’ll make things like stone that can be carved, sand that can be melted into a form that can be colored but let the light pass through, and that will last for hundreds of years. Then people can temporarily escape the tiring and boring parts of their lives and get a glimpse of what life can be like.  Wouldn’t that be a good idea?

So we get places like Notre Dame.

And we get smaller churches like St. Severin, a few blocks from our apartment.

We were just standing there today, reading the history of the church on a placard in the front, and we heard the strains of organ music, so we went in and found this lovely instrument, where apparently a lesson was in progress. I was reminded again that not only is the music itself important, but the teaching of it to the next generation is also a key part of the whole process.

But the crowning moment of the day took place that evening in Ste. Chapelle, built in 1248.

We experienced a lovely concert of Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi. Vivaldi’s contribution was the Gloria, a short but exquisite choral masterpiece.

So there we were, suspended in space and time, remembering again that life can be beautiful. 

I hope you are able to find a few minutes for beauty from time to time in this extravagant universe.