The featured menu item for today's little Super Bowl gathering. (We have a very limited budget.) Is it really February already?? Anyway.... Since I have been trying to avoid dying these past few days, I have been spending a lot of time (too much time, apparently!) doing pretty much nothing. Okay, that’s not a whole lot different than any other day, except most of THIS time I have spent lying about in bed! So the other day I got tired of watching cooking shows (I don’t know what half that stuff is), so I grabbed my CD player and headphones and settled back to listen to some good music; Laurisden’s “Les Chansons des Roses.” Now, I am not a huge fan of choral music, I like singing it, but to just sit and listen, well, not so much. In small doses. But this piece just takes me to another place, especially the fifth movement, “Dirait-on.” The way the different parts weave in and out of each other - it’s pure magic. (“Two enthusiastic thumbs up!”). (If you have iTunes, and you’d like to hear a sample, click here; O Magnum Mysterium.) But as I was listening, eyes closed, a pillow over my head (keeps my balding head warm), I got to thinking about all that was involved in making this simple moment possible. I mean, think of it... First there was the composer. I imagined him in a dimly lit attic studio. He needed a desk to sit at, a pen and paper to write on. And likely there was a piano there too. Someone had to make that stuff. And he needed a teacher to teach him, who needed all that stuff too. And that teacher needed a teacher... Then there were each of the musicians; there were the instrument makers to make the violins and cellos and horns. But they needed materials to work with, so they needed lumberjacks and miners and truckers to deliver the raw material to the mill or processing plant. And each of those performers needed teachers and instructors, who all needed instruments and all the people who made those possible too. And then there had to be the place to perform in. I imagined a candlelit cathedral, with deep-colored stained glass windows, and vaulted ceilings - a majestic pipe organ. Someone had to make that. It required an architect and a contractor and a great host of skilled craftspeople and laborers... and again truckers to get all the materials to the site, and still more people to cut down and dig up the stuff in the first place. And then there was the whole recording process; engineers and sound techs; and of course the people to design and manufacture the amazing equipment they used; the microphones and digital recorders and processors.... and again back to some guy in a big yellow back hoe digging up rocks from the ground; and a potbellied, cigar-smoking trucker to haul it to be smelted, refined and processed... (or a fit and slim, bespectacled trucker... though probably not as likely!). And once the recording was made, a whole NEW host of people and technology and material to distribute it; manufacture the CDs, host the files on iTunes... and ALL the people and engineering and manufacturing needed to make THAT possible! And then another whole layer to make the CD player and headphones to listen to what that great multitude of anonymous people had made possible... someone to make the little foam ear bud covers (well, the ones I used to have... you can never keep those buggers!). Just think, some company had to make those little foam covers... which required design and testing and manufacturing and sales people in dusty offices, and office people with yellow stickies on their cubicle wall, and more truckers... just to make 2 little foam pieces! All of THAT so I could lie in bed and listen to a few minutes of music! All this stuff to make a few simple, fleeting moments of joy possible - all this stuff that never even crosses my mind when I reach over to my cluttered night stand for another CD to play. ...I was driving over to Quizno’s to pick Dani up from another night of making sandwiches. It was a gorgeous night. The air was crisp and clear, the stars were bright, the light of the street lamps shown on the blanket of new snow... ...and I considered all that God had to do to make just that simple, everyday moment possible. Just think of it. He had to make the EARTH, to begin with... this giant ball of rock and metal and water hurling through space... well, first He had to make the space it is hurling through! (I wonder how hard it was to make infinite nothing???) Then he had to make the sun, this colossal ball of fire, to warm the earth and give it life... And then He made the moon and stars, He made the snow and trees, and the light, the air I was breathing, the music I was listening to on the radio. ...ALL of that just to make one simple moment of life possible. So I asked myself, Why did He go through all that trouble? I can't help but thinking it says something about just how much He loves us. What do you think? 02/01/09 © 2009 Paul Dallgas-Frey