Thanks, C.S.

There are two profound quotes from C.S. Lewis that I discovered several years ago (thanks to my friend Dr. Jeffrey Garner). Both quotes have helped me to find perspective on those weighty dilemmas such as those we wrestle with here on Notes.

We are certainly not the first group of sincere believers to ask ourselves what, exactly, it is that brings a smile to the face of God. We are not unique in our strong opinions about musical preference, theological integrity in song, and all the other unanswerable questions that drive our weekly dialogues.

So, for this week, I want to share with all of you one of my favorite quotes. It presents two ways by which God can be glorified in music:

Musical Intention

It seems to me that we must define rather carefully the way, or ways, in which music can glorify God. There is … a sense in which all natural agents, even inanimate ones, glorify God continually by revealing the powers He has given them. And in that sense we, as natural agents, do the same. On that level our wicked actions, in so far as they exhibit our skill and strength, may be said to glorify God, as well as our good actions. An excellently performed piece of music, as natural operation which reveals in a very high degree the peculiar powers given to man, will thus always glorify God whatever the intention of the performers may be. But that is a kind of glorifying which we share with the ‘dragons and great deeps’, with the ‘frost and snows’.

What is looked for in us, as men, is another kind of glorifying, which depends on intention. How easy or how hard it may be for a whole choir to preserve that intention through all the discussions and decisions, all the corrections and the disappointments, all the temptations to pride, rivalry and ambition, which precede the performance of a great work, I (naturally) do not know. But it is on the intention that all depends. When it succeeds, I think the performers are the most enviable of men; privileged while mortals to honor God like angels and, for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labour, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity they would have had before the Fall.

This was taken from an essay entitled "On Church Music" by C. S. Lewis..

So how does God get glory?

These words remind me that God gets great glory regardless of me. There are things in nature (a rock, a tree, a beautiful voice) that bring glory to God simply because He created it to be. Who am I to argue and try to say that those events, things or gifts should not give Him glory? But he also receives great glory because of me. Isn’t that profound?

I love how C.S. Lewis says that we need to define carefully how music can bring glory to God, and then goes on to demonstrate that God's ability to receive glory goes so beyond our own need to "put God in a box!"

I’m going into a busy season with two big local musical events in the next 4 weeks. I am SO glad that through all of the discussions, decisions, corrections, disappointments, temptations to pride, ambition and rivalry that God examines my intentions and that I can glorify him if I work to keep my motives pure. Just like C.S. Lewis, I do love those moments where we discover “that unity” as it would have been before the Fall.