I have been intrigued by the unfinished compositions of some of the most famous composers: Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Elgar as well as Mozart. How did someone manage to complete their work?
Have you heard that they dug up Mozart’s grave and discovered that he was decomposing?
I can imagine what it was like when one day Mozart arrived out of breath at the archbishop’s palace in Salzburg, Austria, lugging his manuscript for the requiem that he had been commissioned to produce.
His Grace admonishes him, “You’re late, Wolfie!” Then leafing through the manuscript, starting at the end, he stops and with astonishment says, “Its not even finished, what’s the idea?”
Mozart: “I am sorry Your Grace, but my dog ate the last movement.”
The archbishop: “ Am I supposed to believe that? How is your dog?”
Mozart: ”Well Your Grace, he ended on a minor chord. First thing I knew he stopped having movements and then expired, no coda”
The archbishop: “I am sorry about your loss, well, I’ll get Soliery to finish it”
Mozart, under his breath, “ O doggone it, Soliery can’t tell a movement from a hole in the ground!”
Modern composers don’t often worry about closure, they just let the music fade out. Sound technology allows them that subterfuge.
In life, of course, all of us leave things unfinished. Politicians leave matters of state undone, having run out of money or just to give their successor a hard time. I understand that as his term is coming to an end President Bush is preparing to leave behind some nasty and unfinished business particularly in Iraq that might well lead to his successor’s undoing or at least hardship. “Let them declare failure and bring the troops home just like Vietnam. Mission accomplished. Ha!”
Many professionals do little more than lay the groundwork on which others will have to build. The business man/woman hopes fervently that what has been started, a company or corporation, will be continued by someone else, rather than end in bankruptcy One could go on.
When I became grandfather last year I was assured that my name and family was not dead-ended. Not yet.
Life has been likened to a journey. We come to an end but life goes on. We do not perfect anything. Hopefully we leave behind a better world but certainly not perfection. There is no utopia, the very term means ”no place”.
Changes are happening much more quickly than used to be the case, exponentially some say. Life went on in the same way for long periods. No longer so. I have recently seen a book of pictures taken of the same place but 20, 30 or 50 years apart. The places are unrecognizable.
People a long time ago believed that when God created the world it was a finished product. “God saw that it was very good.” Then humans made changes, seeking to improve the world. How can you possibly improve on God’s handiwork, some asked.
Unfortunately all our tinkering was not always for the better. Of course, many things have improved. In medical health we have managed to get rid of diseases that were once a plague. Life is easier.... for some. We travel faster, communicate quicker, eat better, live longer.
However the belief that life is getting better is questionable. Humans are exhausting supplies, oil, water, and polluting the environment in the course of it. Some are thinking seriously of whether there may come a time when we shall have to evacuate this world for another planet. To begin all over again? How will we finish off this human journey? Will it be left unfinished, abandoned to the cockroaches or finally absorbed by the terminal expansion of a dying sun? Will a meteor out of the blue give us the coup de grace and send us spinning off in an untenable direction?
It is the nature of life that “perfection” is never at hand. Life is open ended, “unfinished.” But there is a dynamic underlying all of living, an urge to move forward. Our life is certainly terminal and hopefully we have accomplished something in those “three score years and ten, or if by reason of strength, they be four score years.” I’m getting close to that, I better hurry and do something important, make some positive contribution. Perhaps that’s why I’m writing for this blog.
There was a song in the sixties that had the line: “Love is a verb not a noun.” True, love is a dynamic. It’s what makes the world go round. At the end of our journey hopefully we shall be able to say that we have loved.
Remember, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Ours’ is an unfinished symphony. So is God’s creation, it is in the making still. We are called to participate with love.
There is a spirit that is a’ movin.’
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