I just came home from a high school holiday concert, where choir members lined the aisles as well as the stage, giving us surround sound. The music rose to the heavens and filled all our hearts. What struck me particularly was the view of the students in the aisles singing with their faces half lit by the stage lights. Alternately intent and joyous, their profiles seemed beatific, embodiments of hope. These, our children, captured in moments of utter focus and experience, giving their best and receiving it back in thundering applause in a continuous feedback loop. We were all filled.
It struck me as metaphor for ecology -- the connectiveness of our experience in that theater. Had people gotten up or let their cell phones go off or started talking or tossed trash on the floor, our typical boorish behaviors, the experience would have been lost. The connections suddenly disrupted. Or if some of the singers started getting out of line or mocking their roles or walking out. But everyone was focused on the common experience, with many different functions being fulfilled with joy and wonder. And Love. There was a feeling of the Love beyond us all pouring in and through us and to each other like the wave of music and applause.
It struck me as metaphor for ecology -- the connectiveness of our experience in that theater. Had people gotten up or let their cell phones go off or started talking or tossed trash on the floor, our typical boorish behaviors, the experience would have been lost. The connections suddenly disrupted. Or if some of the singers started getting out of line or mocking their roles or walking out. But everyone was focused on the common experience, with many different functions being fulfilled with joy and wonder. And Love. There was a feeling of the Love beyond us all pouring in and through us and to each other like the wave of music and applause.