Michael Rose on Spiritual Music

From its earliest usage, the word "spiritual" has always been set in dramatic tension alongside the word "temporal." Together, the two words express the bridge between the sacred and the profane, between God and His Creation, between the next world and this world. Music is nothing if not temporal. As it moves through time, music reflects back upon us our own sensuous natures, our earthly desires, our fleeting humanity, our fragile mortality.

Music-in the hands of those who recognize and uphold its freedom, joy, and power-is the space where spirit most eloquently becomes flesh. It is the truest image of the Incarnation, of God breathing life into Adam (which means "Earth"), of every loving act bringing new life into being, whether creative or procreative.

Music is spiritual only insofar as it emulates the ultimate risk the Almighty took in relinquishing the Absolute in order to inhabit Creation, which is fatally ephemeral, contingent, and perishable. Music, like every living creature, strives to perpetuate its own being; but it can only go so far. Its grace lies in its willingness to let go, to come to an end, to fall into silence. Mozart knows this, as do all his cohorts, including John Lennon and Phineas Newborn, Jr., George Gershwin and Hank Williams, Sr.

How can we know if music points towards transcendence? We can't. If it does, it does so from a radical position of the here-and-now. If music is spiritual, it fulfills its spirit by being wild about living. It is free because it knows it will melt into thinnest air.