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This piece of music, from Bach, has always been one of those pleasant pieces that never really spoke to me in any real way. I never heard anything in the melody that spoke to joy or desire in any way. It just seemed light and pretty, extremely repetitive, the kind of song that my fingers would play over and over on an imaginary clarinet.<br><br>
Friday morning in Southeast Kansas was foggy, damp, gray, chilly. The winter has seemed so long this year, perhaps because I'm approaching middle age, facing those fears that we all face at certain stages of our lives. We've had a couple of warm, sunny days, though, and I've been starting to feel like Spring was really on its way.<br><br>
But on Friday morning, I had such a dread of getting to work, where things are stressful to an insane degree, and the cold, gray morning just made my spirits sink. The sun looked like a flat silver disk in the fog. So, I drove to work, listening to one of my favorite classical music CD's, the melancholy of Bach's Bist du Bei Mir taking me further and further into a dark place.<br><br>
Wherever I looked, Kansas was brown and gray.<br><br>
But as I took the final highway exit into the town where I work, and turned toward the east, the next song started - Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. At the same time, the fog thinned out and I was just able to see a blue sky. I passed over a bridge on the little wooded road leading into Chanute, and in the little valley by the river, some farmer's crops were green in the field. The way the notes joyfully climb up and down, played on a harpsichord in this particular recording, seemed completely in concert with the breaking of the fog, the green of the field, the flowing of the river, and the soaring of my spirit.<br><br>
For the first time, I heard the desire and the joy in this piece of music, and it will never be just a light, pretty, pleasant piece to me again.
Friday morning in Southeast Kansas was foggy, damp, gray, chilly. The winter has seemed so long this year, perhaps because I'm approaching middle age, facing those fears that we all face at certain stages of our lives. We've had a couple of warm, sunny days, though, and I've been starting to feel like Spring was really on its way.<br><br>
But on Friday morning, I had such a dread of getting to work, where things are stressful to an insane degree, and the cold, gray morning just made my spirits sink. The sun looked like a flat silver disk in the fog. So, I drove to work, listening to one of my favorite classical music CD's, the melancholy of Bach's Bist du Bei Mir taking me further and further into a dark place.<br><br>
Wherever I looked, Kansas was brown and gray.<br><br>
But as I took the final highway exit into the town where I work, and turned toward the east, the next song started - Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. At the same time, the fog thinned out and I was just able to see a blue sky. I passed over a bridge on the little wooded road leading into Chanute, and in the little valley by the river, some farmer's crops were green in the field. The way the notes joyfully climb up and down, played on a harpsichord in this particular recording, seemed completely in concert with the breaking of the fog, the green of the field, the flowing of the river, and the soaring of my spirit.<br><br>
For the first time, I heard the desire and the joy in this piece of music, and it will never be just a light, pretty, pleasant piece to me again.
