HEAVEN KNOWS - Music
Music, yes, but no one sitting on clouds with a harp.
Marching bands? Guess again.
Some newcomers, and rightly so, are just thankful they get here. Others act as if some great mistake must have been made in their case, and still others expect to be met by a marching band and 76 trombones!
The fact is that music has a special function here in Heaven, and it is celebratory, but not always the way you might think of it back on Earth.
You see, as broad as the reaches of Heaven are, there is little place anywhere for "bad" music, "bad" lyrics, music composed with an evil intent, and loud, screeching, ill-harmonized, plagiarized....you get the idea....music.
This is partly because some musically gifted students (we are all students of almost everything here) have set a high standard here where high standards are the only standards.
Please don't misunderstand. Music, as with everything else, has a place here. While we don't have harp players sitting on clouds and playing pae'ans to imagined Greek and Roman "gods," we do recognize that fine musicians, composers, and lyricists here never imagined that Heaven would be inundated with music that was not heavenly, even divine.
Mothers with babies here are notable exceptions to the expectation that all music in Heaven will meet an unerring standard of excellence. They are allowed, even encouraged, to hum or sing lullabies to their babies; this in recognition that there is no more heavenly music than the love songs of a mother for her baby.
Back on Earth there are many degrees of musical talent, many musical forms, traditional forms that embrace the varied forms of varied cultures. In short Earth music is diverse, and there is room, and there are ears for all of it here.
But when musicians ,conductors, composers, lyricists, singers, and choirs have all eternity to develop their God-given talents to regale us with nothing but their best, there has developed the expectation that nothing less will do.
Do beginners take up music here? Oh, yes, but typically in soundproof booths in which practice assuredly makes perfect, and from which perfected talents bloom to the eventual open delight of all.
There is one other exception made for truly loving family members, fathers, grandparents, older siblings, while not formalized, those who are also inclined to hum and sing soothingly to the babies, are never criticized for doing so. Babies here are seldom sent back to mortality, thus they need to experience and learn all the aspects of true love that will insure their happiness throughout eternity.
Some ask: "Are there no catchy jingles ever heard in Heaven, such as 'Halo everybody, Halo. Halo is the shampoo that glorifies the hair; so Halo everybody, Halo. Halo shampoo, Halo'?"
The answer is, seldom. And, as for that "catchy jingle," everything here is already glorified.
In Heaven it seems that even the flowers sing!
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© 2015 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.
