©2016 by John LaTorre
“I’m here to find out our purpose in life,” the young girl
told the middle-aged man seated next to her. “Isn’t that what tonight’s lecture
is about?”
They were sitting in the back row of the assembly hall of
the seminary, where visiting religious scholars gave lectures not only for the
seminarians but the general public. The seminarians and faculty members were
sitting up front, in a section separate from the rest of the crowd, and every
seat there was taken except for the one reserved for the dean of the seminary.
The man seemed to be familiar with the surroundings, so the girl assumed that
he was a regular attender of these lectures. Or was he perhaps studying there,
but had come in too late to claim a seat in his usual place? They both were
waiting for the evening’s lecturer, a prominent British theologian; the girl
was attending in hopes that the lecture might offer some insight into the
confusion in her life. It was now a quarter of an hour before the lecture was
to begin, and already the hall was nearly filled, all the way to the back row.
They made an odd pair. The girl was a senior in high school,
with a nose stud, black-painted fingernails, and sandaled feet ... not the type
of person one associates with seminaries. The man, on the other hand, was
dressed in old jeans and a faded flannel shirt and loafers with paint stains on
them. He looked to be a working man, maybe a carpenter or a plumber. His hair
was blond and cut short, and he was clean-shaven. She guessed that he might
have been somebody who had discovered in his middle years that something was
missing in his spiritual life.
“What were you taught?” the blond man asked. “Surely the
question must have come up in your religious upbringing.”
“Well, I was raised a Catholic. They said that we were put
on earth to praise God, that that was why He created us.”
“What did you think of that explanation at the time?”
The girl flashed a brief smile. “At first, I accepted it.
But as I got older, that didn’t make sense to me.”
“Of course it didn’t,” the blond man replied. “It must have
taken an enormously egomaniacal divinity to create beings whose sole purpose
was to praise Him and pray to Him, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s what I thought! I mean, were we supposed to sit
around Heaven all day, saying ‘You’re doing great, God! You’re the best! Keep
up the good work!’ I think I would go crazy being in a Heaven like that.”
“Or working for a God like that. Your instincts were sound.
But, in a way, I think that your Catechism was right. It’s just that your
teachers never understood what praising God was all about. Hardly anybody
does.”
“Do you?”
“I think so. At least, I have a theory.”
“Well, then, would you mind telling me?” There as a slight
mocking quality to her voice, as if she was challenging him.
The blond man sat silently for a minute. Then he spoke
slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. As he spoke, he fingered the small
worn book (a Bible? a breviary? A Quran?) in his hands, tracing the borders of
the cover with his finger.
“Some time ago, I was putting together an art exhibition for
a gallery. Among the paintings was one that stood out from all the rest in its
beauty. It would have gone into that exhibition, no question, except that it
didn’t blend well with the rest of the exhibits. To be frank, it stood out like
a sore thumb! Its colors were a shade too bright, its size was a shade too big.
It didn’t fit. But it was beautiful.
“I ended up putting it in anyway. I got a lot of criticism
for it, from people who wondered why this ... odd-duck ... picture was
included. I told them that I had no choice. The picture was simply too
beautiful to omit. If I had done so, I would have cheated the artist, I would
have cheated the attendees, and I would have cheated myself. That much beauty
deserved to be seen. It cried out to be seen.
“It came to me then that If I had dropped that picture from
the exhibition, I would have sinned against myself and against my humanity. We
humans, every one of us, are constructed so as to appreciate beauty. It’s wired
into us. Every culture makes art, adding decoration to function in nearly
everything they create. It’s what makes us human. Do you follow me so far?”
The girl nodded. “I think so.”
It was drawing near the time for the lecture to begin, but
there was no sign of the lecturer. One of the faculty members looked around,
and then rose and left the hall. The girl looked around her at the others in
the back of the hall. They were a true slice of humanity: some dressed as if
for a night on the town, others in the clothes they wore to work each day. They
were young and old, fair and dark-complexioned, patient or restless. The room
became warmer, and some started unbuttoning jackets. The man, too, was looking
around, as if he was looking for somebody. His figures continued to trace the
edges of the book in his hand.
“I was just thinking of something else,” the man continued
at last. “Beauty doesn’t have to be consciously created. It can just be there.
If you have ever found yourself in a place where you suddenly think ‘By God,
this place is beautiful,’ then you know what I’m talking about.”
The girl was silent for a minute. “I think I see what you mean.
I was hiking last spring with some friends of mine, and we climbed a mountain,
and when we got to the top we just stood there for a while. We just looked down
into the valley. There was a river there -- it looked so tiny -- and it was
glistening in the sun. Nobody talked. Nobody wanted to break the silence. All I
could think was ‘this is so God-damn beautiful’ ... oops! Can I say that in a
seminary?”
The man chuckled. “In this context, it’s fine. Besides, I
think the rules are probably different for visitors.”
“And there was another time,” she added. “I haven’t thought
about this in years! I heard somebody playing a Bach partita on a violin, and
all of a sudden I found myself crying. Crying like a baby. I wasn’t sad or
anything. But I felt something inside me being released, somehow.”
“Then you know. What you didn’t realize, and what I didn’t
realize until I thought about that painting, was that this was we were all born
to do. When you wept, it was because you were suddenly doing what you were
created to do; you saw beauty around you and you reacted to it. Beauty has no
meaning … no value … where there is no appreciation of beauty. When we make
ugly things, or do ugly things, or simply don’t appreciate the beautiful things
and deeds that we see every day, then we are sinning against our nature.
“And appreciating beauty, and creating it, and fostering it,
are all things that move us closer to our finest selves. If God is beauty, then
when we praise beauty we praise God.”
The girl frowned. “So then, what’s with people praising God
in their prayers? Are they wrong?”
“Well, they’re misled, I think,” the man replied. “You know,
just about every religion has adherents who devote their lives to prayer. They
do this because they’ve been told to, by people like your Catechism teachers.
They come to appreciate the meditative properties of prayers, and maybe it
helps them down some path that eventually leads them closer to God. But God
doesn’t need their prayers. They don’t do it for God’s sake, but for their own.
God doesn’t need you to perceive beauty, for that matter. But that’s not the
point. You don’t do it for God’s sake, but for your own, because it enriches
you.”
“So you don’t think prayers are effective?” the girl asked.
“I mean, ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ and all that?”
“If you ask me, I think that most prayers are a form of
blasphemy. I mean, where do you come off advising God what to do ... whom to
bless, whom to damn, whom to bestow some special favor on? If He’s omniscient,
He already knows what to do. As far as I’m concerned, the only necessary prayer
consists of two words: ‘Thank you.’”
At that point, the faculty member re-entered the room and
addressed the crowd. “Our guest lecturer is now here,” he said. “It appears
that our dean will not be joining us tonight…” He shot a dour glance at the
empty seat on the dais. “But the lecture will proceed as soon as our guest is
ready. It will be just a few more minutes.” He sat down and stared forward, as
if to enjoin the audience to be as patient has he was.
As they waited, the girl spoke again. “You know, I’m here
because I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’ve been torn between two
things. I want to be a musician, but I don’t know if I’m going to be any good
at it. I mean, I’m good, but I don’t know if I’m good enough to support myself
with it. My family wants me to do something else, like science or law or
accounting or something. I think I can do that stuff, but I don’t know how long
my heart would be in it. I keep thinking that the next thing I know, I’m forty
or fifty, and I may be secure and stuff, but will I wonder what would have
happened if I’d stuck with music ... what I might have done with that?”
The two sat in silent thought for a minute, and then the man
spoke. “Well, I’ve known a lot of artists from my gallery days. Just about
every one of them was an artist because they had to be, because it was the only
thing that kept them interested in life. One of them said something to me that
I never forgot. He said that every time he puts paint to canvas, something
happens that surprises him. He tries something that used to work, and now it
doesn’t, or he tries something that didn’t work before, and now he’s found out
how to do it. And he said that if he ever sat down at a painting and that surprise
didn’t happen, that would be the day he would quit painting.
“Now you have to ask yourself: do you feel that way about
music? No matter how good you get, will you ever get to a point where it’s so
utterly predictable that nothing will surprise you anymore? Or will you still
be exploring, trying things that sometimes work and sometimes don’t, wondering
what the next twist is going to be?”
“That’s it!” the girl cried. “That’s why I sing! I hear
something, and I just know that there’s some way I can make it different, make
it mine. And I just can’t stop until I figure it out. Hell, a lot of times I
don’t figure it out, and I get frustrated, but I put it aside and sooner or
later it comes to me how to make it work.”
“That’s because you’re still learning your art,” the man
replied. “You are acquiring new tools with each new song you hear, with each
development of your control. Then you use those tools and apply them to your
art. That’s what art is really all about. And the true artist keeps picking up
new tools, or using old tools in different ways to do new things.”
“But what if I can’t do it at a professional level? Suppose
I can’t cut it?”
“You haven’t been listening. This is not a process that you
can count on to make you money, and you don’t do it to make money. You do it
because you have to. Maybe, just maybe, you get good enough at it to persuade
other people to give you money to do it. But for every artist who’s that good,
there are a couple of thousand who aren’t. And yet they still do their art,
because they can’t help it. They’re always looking for that surprise, that new
twist, that rush you get when things are going right. And believe me, their
efforts are just as important to them as the professional artist’s efforts
are.”
“Wow!” the girl said. “We’ve really gotten off the subject.
Now we’re talking about artists.”
“Not at all. Artists are people who praise God in a special
way, because they have trained themselves to see beauty where others don’t, and
to create beauty where it didn’t exist before. They bring beauty into the world
for others to see and appreciate. Sometimes it’s appreciated, and sometimes it
isn’t. Sometimes it takes a while for public perception of beauty to catch up
to theirs.”
“Yeah, like those artists like Van Gogh. Nobody appreciated
him in his lifetime, and now he’s like gold.”
“Actually, there were people in his lifetime who appreciated
him. They weren’t rich or influential enough to make his life comfortable, but
they were there. Of course, he desperately wanted people to see his art, but he
didn’t do it for them. He did it because he needed to see for himself how
different some everyday thing could look, if you approached it with fresh
eyes.”
“Yeah, I get that,” the girl replied. “It’s like what you
said before: he needed the surprise.”
“Exactly. He needed the surprise. He needed it like people
need love, like addicts need drugs.”
“So was he praising God?”
“I think so. Even more, he taught us how to praise God
properly.”
“By creating beauty?”
“And by allowing us to share the surprise with him. By
getting that ‘this is so God-damn beautiful’ reaction from us, and showing us
how to perceive the world that way.”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” the girl said. “I
still don’t know if music’s the way to go for me.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. If you make music an important
part of your life, even if it’s not the professional part, you’ll be praising
God. And anyway, if music really is your destiny, it will let you know. It will
howl and scream at you and you won’t be able to ignore it. That’s when you’ll
know if you’re cut out to be an artist. But if you leave yourself open to
beauty, you’ll be doing what you’re designed to do, whether you make a career
out of it or not.”
“And that’s our purpose in life?” she asked.
“Can you name a better one?”
“I thought it had to do with loving other people, by doing
good in the world, stuff like that.”
“Well, that’s important, too, I think that’s going to be
what our guest lecturer will be talking about. But that’s not what we owe to
God. That’s what we owe to the other creatures we share this earth with. You
can live a perfect sinless life, and do worlds of good, but if you live that
life with no appreciation of beauty, you’re missing out on a critical part of
what makes you human.”
“How so?”
“It’s kind of like buying a new car and keeping it in the
garage all the time, never taking it out for a drive. It’ll be perfect forever,
and maybe become a classic and worth tons of money, but that’s not what it was
designed for.”
It was at this point that the guest lecturer entered the
hall and stepped up to the podium. And the lecture began. When it was finished,
the man nodded again to the girl, smiled, and quickly left the hall before the
rest of the audience streamed out.
*****************
It was some years later that the girl, now a woman, returned
to that city. In the intervening years, she had taken up the cello and found
that she had a flair for it, that its voice could do what her own could not.
She also found out that while she could take time off from school, and from
work, she could not take time off from the instrument. It demanded her
attention; even when it was safely in its case, she found her muscles wrestling
with fingering and bowing, and her mind testing the phrasing of the sound. And
when the instrument came out of its case, and all the elements fell into place,
and the warm sound washed through her, she knew that she had found an anchor in
life, and made it her business to take her talents to their limits. Somewhat to
her surprise, he found herself invited to give recitals, and it was one of
those recitals that brought her back to the city.
With her return, she found herself wondering what had become
of that blond man who had given her so much to think about. She felt that he
deserved some thanks for his wise counsel. Well, the seminary might know where
he was; for all she knew, he might have completed his studies there. If he wasn’t
registered there, but still showed up for all the lectures, somebody might have
gotten to know him well enough to get his name.
She found her way to the seminary office and inquired there
about the blond man, but nobody in the seminary registrar’s office remembered a
blond seminarian matching his description. But since she was adamant, the
secretary offered to call in the dean of the seminary himself. “He’s been here
for fifteen years. And he has one of those eidetic memories," she said. “He
remembers everybody.”
The secretary picked up the phone and pushed a button. “Dr.
Kimmel, there’s a young lady here looking for some information on a former student.
Could you come down and talk to her? ... Fine. I’ll tell her to wait.”
When he walked in, he was wearing a suit and tie, but she
recognized him immediately. “I thought you were one of the students or
something!” she exclaimed. “What were you doing sitting in the main hall with
the public?”
He smiled. “It’s so boring sitting with the rest of the
faculty, with everybody staring at you. Sometimes I prefer to sit with the
people out in the cheap seats. The people who have the answers are never as
interesting as the people who have the questions.”
She laughed. “Well, if you’re not doing anything Thursday
night, how about attending a cello recital?”
“Are you going to be in the cheap seats?”
“Not this time. I’ll be onstage.”
“Praising God?”
My God, she thought. He does remember everybody. “I’ll do my
best. Absolutely.”
“Then I’ll be there.” He grinned. “Couldn’t miss it.”
