Musical thoughts

      I recently watched Rent. If you like musicals, it's an okay show with a so-so storyline but several really strong songs. If it bothers you that people suddenly break into song backed up a full orchestra, naturally you won't like it.
      My family is musical. We had voice lessons when we were children and sang endlessly at church and school. I have a great appreciation for music and enjoy many musicals. Especially the great ones, like Man of La Mancha, Into the Woods, Mame, Oklahoma (naturally), Godspell, Passion, Chorus Line, Cabaret, etc.
      Frankly, I've never really trusted people who can't respond to musicals. I always wonder what they lack in their souls. How sad their worldview must be when it can't admit music and wonder in their lives. I've known many people who like to sneer at musicals. I wonder if they realize that I pity them because of all they miss, and worse, because of all they're incapable of understanding.
      Of course, we don't live in a musical world. We live in a world of senseless wars, drive-by shootings, murderer martyrs, child molesters and serial killers and a thousand horrors that we accept as being the real world. We shake our heads and boast of our wisdom and maturity as we despoil the environment and let thousands of children die each day of starvation while we stuff another Big Mac down our gaping maws as the right-wing Lauras and Rushs give us the moral justification for sitting on our big fat butts. You think I don't understand what this world is? I understand better than you ever could realize. I watch the parade of broken lives and senseless sorrows and I rage.
      So for a few minutes, I like to pretend that a better world exists somewhere where people sing of their dreams and can express their love in a song with an invisible orchestra that accompanies them on cue. I like to think that maybe dreams matter and the good guys win and we are capable of being more than stupid creatures that even shame the apes.
      Sometimes I wonder if we're the fallen angels, cast out of heaven because of our greed and selfishness, our hatred and pettiness. And that maybe that spark of heaven in our soul still longs to fly, to throw ourselves into the river of stars, to be in His overwhelming presence again. And we can't so we lift up our voices and our songs spiral up, above the clouds into the black sky and the endless light beyond.