Some years back, I apostated. I rejected Christianity and all its nefarious works. I could not raze cathedrals but I could root its works out from my mind. Henceforth, nihil in mente nisi prius in sensu. And not just in general but in sensu meo. No more games. I stood here; God knew where to find me. He could ring me up anytime. If not, well not, but no more convoluted conundra. Fuck that shit.
And if God, then a fortiori no one else. In all of history there were perhaps 20 geniuses, no more than 100 at most really worth reading. I had read them; they had solved nothing. No more chasing after a babble of opinions. I packed away my books. Henceforth, I would listen to no one. I scoured my mind and became a Fundamentalist Positivist.
There was only one problem. I loved Bach. I hadn’t grown up in a Lutheran tradition. The little Bach I knew was secular and fell into the category of nice but nothing special. Certainly not Beethoven. But at college I was forced to parse the St. Mathew Passion. Dragged through it I should say, measure by measure, until one day something cracked in the roof of Aristotle’s cave and I heard, as if for the first time, an indescribable beauty. To this day, I can recall walking through the quad and hearing with deep assurance and delight the strains of Bach emanating from a window. If I came away from college with anything, it was with an appreciation of Bach.
What to do? I pondered. I convinced myself that had Constantine chosen Mithras over Christ; had Zoroastrianism conquered the West, Bach would still be Bach with minor adjustments in the text. The obnoxious theology could be ignored. It doesn’t work. For Bach, every composition was an act of christian prayer and when you listen to him you join him in prayer. He would not say otherwise. The story of Christ is not the story of Mithras; but if it were it would still be the story of Christ and Bach’s prayer would be the same. In short, try as I might, Bach’s music was an echoing tether that kept me ever within earshot of Christianity, in sensu.
And if God, then a fortiori no one else. In all of history there were perhaps 20 geniuses, no more than 100 at most really worth reading. I had read them; they had solved nothing. No more chasing after a babble of opinions. I packed away my books. Henceforth, I would listen to no one. I scoured my mind and became a Fundamentalist Positivist.
There was only one problem. I loved Bach. I hadn’t grown up in a Lutheran tradition. The little Bach I knew was secular and fell into the category of nice but nothing special. Certainly not Beethoven. But at college I was forced to parse the St. Mathew Passion. Dragged through it I should say, measure by measure, until one day something cracked in the roof of Aristotle’s cave and I heard, as if for the first time, an indescribable beauty. To this day, I can recall walking through the quad and hearing with deep assurance and delight the strains of Bach emanating from a window. If I came away from college with anything, it was with an appreciation of Bach.
What to do? I pondered. I convinced myself that had Constantine chosen Mithras over Christ; had Zoroastrianism conquered the West, Bach would still be Bach with minor adjustments in the text. The obnoxious theology could be ignored. It doesn’t work. For Bach, every composition was an act of christian prayer and when you listen to him you join him in prayer. He would not say otherwise. The story of Christ is not the story of Mithras; but if it were it would still be the story of Christ and Bach’s prayer would be the same. In short, try as I might, Bach’s music was an echoing tether that kept me ever within earshot of Christianity, in sensu.
