There are times when listening to music or seeing a piece of art that the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, I get goose bumps and a shiver passes through me.
There are times when experiencing a particular experience, listening to a piece of music, seeing a piece of art that I can’t help myself grin and laugh at the beauty and happiness of it all.
Both these things are touching the divine. Not the divinity of a deity, but where someone has created (perhaps even myself) something that reaches inside me and speaks to me in ways that I cannot verbalise more than I have above. What works for me is not necessarily going to be the same as what works for you. For example, the music that makes me shiver is often
hundreds of years old, acapella choral music – usually in Latin. I know what the words mean, but its never the words that hit me first, its the massed voices and the music. The experiences that make me grin and laugh are things like diving into a body of water and just being surrounded by so much of it.
Why have I chosen to use the word divine? Because I like it, and because it isn’t always associated with a god or theology. The Macquarie Dictionary (go and subscribe – its cheap and Australia’s official dictionary), says that some of the meanings of “divine” are:
As adjectives
* heavenly; celestial.
* of superhuman or surpassing excellence
* (Colloquial) excellent
And as a verb:
* to have perception by intuition or insight
These experiences of mine, the music, the art, the other, they all make my life a better and more excellent place to be. What works for you?