Little Glimpses of Heaven

Driving home from work in the afternoon, I always tune in the jazz station and listen to the gorgeous strains of Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Emily Remler, et cetera. And at that particular time of day, the sun is hanging just at the tree tops, and everything is either bathed its warm, golden light or immersed in blue shadows. Sunset is my favorite time of day, and jazz is my favorite kind of music, and when you put the two together, something magical happens within me. I feel a peace come over me, a contentment that very little can mar. Suddenly the world's problems seem very far away. I don't concern myself with Wall Street and its Robber Barons, revolutions and civil wars, poverty and crime. I'm lost in the moment. Carried away by music and light to a world where none of these things exist. When all around you is beauty, how can you be bothered with the sordid and the ugly. And for that short 45 minutes, while my body navigates my car along the back roads of New England, my spirit enters other realms, my souls flies free, and I think to myself, "Treasure these few brief moments, because they are a gift from God." Justin Bua understands this feeling that jazz can bring to you. You can see it in the faces of the players in his Jazz Trio. Edward Hopper understood it too. In his paintings of vast empty landscapes, you can feel the serenity, the peace that can come when the failing light strikes the hillsides and buildings at just the right angle. They blaze with the suns golden fire, and even the dirtiest and most dilapidated structures become beautiful. And a vista devoid of human life becomes not a picture of emptiness, loneliness and despair, but one of peace and contentment beyond anything you may have ever known. Or maybe you have. Maybe you too gaze a Hoppers paintings - like Corn Hill - and feel something stirring in your breast. Maybe you don't talk about it to anyone else, because you're afraid to give voice to those kinds of feelings. Not that anyone would think you were weak, but maybe they would begin to wonder where you were planning on going and if you were planning to return anytime soon. That's okay. Let the world wonder about you. It's good for them. And as for you, revel in those feelings. They come so very seldom in this lifetime. They are bits and pieces of heaven tossed down to us by a merciful God who only wants to remind us that the place we came from, and the place we are going to, are so much better than the place we are right now.