Music For Contemplation: Eight Minutes of Transcendent Listening with Arvo Pärt

When was the last time you did nothing but listen to a piece of music?

Can you remember a time when maybe you were sitting down or lying down, either blessed with a quality hi-fi stereo system or satisfied by the intimacy of headphones, maybe eyes opened or closed, and simply listened?

Well, although I love the insight from neuroscience that music is the only thing that activates all parts of your brain – in the end what I love most is the spirituality of music and how through the simplicity of a song, one can be transported into the complexity of God’s holy mystery. What a lovely place is that to be.

Even better is that this kind of traveling can be done from the confines of one’s home. It’s a time to let your mind, spirit, and heart soar free and simply see where the notes take you, like stairs to the upper room of your awareness, on the lookout for God.

The Holy Spirit can come at the most curious times in the most curious of songs, and perhaps it’s time to share a piece of music that takes me deep beyond, until I am stunned by a beauty that feels rumored to belong to angels. It’s the singer’s voice in this particular interpretation – the cadence of it is unmistakably monastic and it’s a timbre that hollows me out to heaven. It is perhaps one of my very favorite pieces of music. This true jewel is composed by minimalist Arvo Pärt whose classical and liturgical creations have been awarded the Ratzinger Prize from the Vatican, with lyrics based on a poem by Scottish poet John Burns, and sung by a counter tenor so pure it belongs to the angels.

Go ahead and gift yourself eight minutes of listening solely to magnificence, and perhaps this song can give you a brief touch of the eternal.