Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Abraham Joshua HeschelRead
To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present.
Interpretation
Singing is an expression of the soul's reality and glorification.
Abraham Joshua Heschel suggests that singing goes beyond mere sound; it is a deep acknowledgment of the spiritual essence within us and the beauty of that existence. To sing is to connect with a profound reality and to celebrate the glory inherent in life and the human spirit.
In practice
During a spiritual retreat, this quote could inspire participants to embrace their creativity.
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls.
Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.
We worship God through our questions.
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
You may not, cannot, appropriate beauty. It is the wealth of the eye, and a cat may gaze upon a king.
The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose of the activity is an aesthetic response. The museum is actually about the object that lets you get into somebody else's life.
People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that's a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.
The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.
A writer of story books! What kind of business in life-what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation-may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!
The majority of the people think that noise is not music. I want to accept noise and even errors and glitches. I enjoy them.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.