When Time Slows

On transcendence and glimpses of the eternal.

I recently went to a concert where they mashed folk/rock with the LA Philharmonic. Ambitious? Yes. A pairing that worked? Also yes.

The concert was at the famous, stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA. The venue contrasts an ultra-modern brushed-steel exterior with a glowingly-warm blond-wood, earth-toned interior. And mind-boggling acoustics.

I was poised for the rock/orchestra fusion, with my favorite artist, Gregory Alan Isakov, and a world-class symphony. Gregory Alan had a stand-up bass and electric violin in his band, so I thought the pairing might work well. So I sat on the edge of my seat, my musical senses taut, my anticipation high.

Then it happened. It was good. It was just what I expected.

But it was only good. Not awesome.

The philharmonic was as good as it gets—that was clear from the beginning. But they were measured, playing a limited role, seeming to enjoy the tete-a-tete. Gregory Alan was also good, but reserved, not quite himself.

As the night went on, I found myself wanting more, wanting them to relax, to let themselves go a bit. I shifted in my seat. I told myself to enjoy the experience. I looked around and admired the hall.

But the tug continued. The subconscious desire for more pulled at me, subtly, gnawingly.

It was nearing intermission and the source of my longing became more apparent. I wanted them to let the music take over and elevate the energy of the hall. I wanted order and organization and predictability to give way to spontaneity and spirit. I wanted the musicians to get lost in the music and let the music raise us all up. I wanted Gregory Alan to do live what he has done to me a thousand times before over a speaker: to hauntingly evoke eternity in me.

Then it happened. The song before intermission started to get a cadence, a repeat, a roll, the musicians letting themselves go, the brass playing with a crisper sound, the cellist swaying like a willow, the band playing with abandon, the music elevating every willing spirit, the mass of us enjoying the upswell, muting all sense of time and place … it was just the music now … it was just the amalgam of energy … I didn’t want it to stop … I wanted the song to go on forever.

Whew!

Now that’s why I go to concerts! That’s what I love.

But that’s also what I love when I read, and I get lost in the story, intrigued by the struggles of someone I’ve come to know, wanting him to see himself for who he is, feeling like I’m in his skin, wanting him to overcome his addiction, and empathizing with him when he rationalizes, and rooting for him either way.

That’s also what I love when I watch a game, immersed in the competition, feeling the paralyzing effects of nerves, flinching at nervous mistakes, then loving it when he relaxes and flows like silk.

That’s also what I love when I admire a painting, the setting somehow expressed in a way makes it more than it was, the colors more vibrant, the mood perfectly captured by brush strokes, the expression timeless, taking on different nuance each time you take it in.

That’s also what I love when I watch a show, the dialogue so perfect, the tension so taut, the couple saying exactly what I would say in that setting, my spirit jumping when I guess the next line, the ache so real I can feel it in my gut. Oh baby! Let’s play that scene over again!

That’s also what I love when I’m in my yard, when I walk into an area that years before I envisioned and planted and watered with a ten-year horizon, and on a cool spring day I walk into it that ten years later, and I’m taken aback at its beauty, this elegant little spot of earth I created, what was once just plain dirt, now brimming with life and new growth and shading, creating its own microclimate, its own satisfying terroir.

I want these moments of surprise and admiration and awe, whether at the Walt Disney Hall or in my own yard, when time slows down, when you drift into a higher space, when your spirit takes over and consciousness falls away, when everything flows as it should. I live for these moments. I long for these flashes. Not pathologically or addictively. I just want them in my life, salted here and there.

I think—and I know this is a stretch … but a stretch I deliberately make—that these moments are a peek at eternity, a glimpse of more, a tantalizing foretaste of that which is beyond the material, when time slows down, when the spirit takes over, and we know, without a doubt, that there is more than just the incarnate.

We are flesh. But we are also spirit. And these experiences … these moments … these elevations … as the music swells in a great hall … might be when we are closest to God.