More Truth, Beauty, and Mystery, Please

Or whatever it is that transcends the rest of life

Here’s my December column for the @HollandSentinel…

Reading the editorial page in the Sunday paper is not for the faint of heart (or the weak of faith).

Just last Sunday I read “Self-Defense Is Becoming Meaningless in a Flood of Guns,” “Omicron Is Coming, US Must Act Now,” and “Her Heart Was Beating Too: The Women Who Died After Abortion Bans.”

Guns, COVID-19, and abortion—and that was just the beginning. (In the paper I read most Sundays, opinion essays and op-eds take up an entire section, like real estate and sports.)

After years of practice, I know how to read these essays. I figure out within the first few words whether I’m for or against. If I’m for, I savor each word, like a chocolate sundae. If I’m against, well, I light the fire of outrage and remember all the counter arguments. I’m good at this—better than most, I like to think—but I am also exhausted from the work of it.

My outrage is running on empty lately, and being outraged is not what I would call life-giving. Surprisingly, I’m even tired of savoring opinions that I happen to agree with. At some point recently—I forget the exact day and hour—I discovered that I was finished with it. All of it. Not finished with caring, certainly, and not finished with having opinions, but finished with the entire exercise. I’m done. It’s time for me to move on.

But here’s the question: what else is there? The national pastime these last few years has been choosing up sides and fighting and then feeling good about the take downs. Winning can be deeply satisfying. The Michigan-Ohio State football game thankfully happens only once each year; this other pastime gets played every single day. It’s on every news program at all hours of the day. I’m ready to say: Enough is enough. But in the silence that follows, what will take its place?

Months ago, at the height of the pandemic, I talked with a neighbor, someone I had never met because I was staying inside so much. In our conversation I learned that she was a singer. She was on her way, she said, to a school on the east coast to continue her voice training, but before leaving, she and her husband were going to offer a concert in their backyard. She would sing, and he would accompany her on an electronic keyboard. Anyone who wanted to listen was welcome to stand or sit and or simply open a window. A free concert for everyone in the neighborhood!

I felt a sudden rush of tears as she told me about this. (I cry easily, so not a big surprise.) I realized as she spoke how much I had been missing art or beauty or whatever it is that transcends the rest of life, whatever it is that lifts our spirts and allows us—however briefly—to think about something bigger and more important than ourselves. I said I would be there. And I was. I enjoyed every minute.

In the months that followed, I went looking for more beauty. Most of what I found was in the form of music, but once I went to an art exhibit. My younger sister and my father (who died a few years ago) exhibited a few of their drawings and paintings at a small gallery in Grand Rapids. I was the only one there that afternoon, but being there was beautiful and meaningful and life-giving. I looked around, sitting in the quiet of the gallery, and felt good about having been there.

One Sunday, at church, not many weeks ago, I found that I couldn’t sing the last song. I knew the song well, but I couldn’t manage to croak out a single word. I was too overcome with how beautiful it was, how much the words meant to me, and how many memories I have of singing that same song over the years. So, instead of singing, I cried, which what I often do in the presence of truth or beauty or mystery. I don’t even remember what the sermon was about—well, I do, a little—but what I remember mostly was how good it was to hear music and people singing.

For a few minutes I wasn’t competing with anyone. I wasn’t trying to be right. I didn’t feel the need to correct anyone’s views. Frankly, in that moment, politics seemed distant and unimportant. All of my energies were focused on a series of notes that, taken together, form one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. I want more of that.