Musical

I recently binge-watched Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. If you like musicals, it's a good show with a clever concept and a good heart for the most part. If it bothers you that people suddenly break into song backed up by 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, Oklahoma (naturally), Godspell, Passion, Chorus Line, Cabaret, Camelot, The Garden, Waitress, Sunday in the Park with George, Fiddler on the Roof, Gypsy, ... oh, the list goes on and on.

I've never completely trusted people who can't respond to musicals. I wonder what they lack in their souls. How sad their worldview must be when it can't admit the possibility of music and wonder in their lives. I've known many people who sneer at musicals. I pity them because of all they miss, and worse, because of all they're incapable of understanding. It is the suspension of disbelief that is sadly lacking.

Of course, we don't live in a musical world. We live in a world of indiscriminate viruses, senseless wars, drive-by shootings, murderer martyrs, child molesters, serial killers, and a thousand horrors that we accept as being the real world. We 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 self-righteous smugly give us the moral justification for sitting on our lazy butts. You think I don't understand what this world is because I'm autistic? I understand better than most could ever realize. I watch the parade of broken lives and senseless sorrows, and I rage. I cry.

For a few minutes, an hour or so, I like to pretend that a better world exists somewhere where people sing their dreams and feelings and can express their love in a song with an invisible orchestra that accompanies them on cue. I like to think maybe dreams matter and the good guys win and we are capable of being more than tiny creatures who shame creation.

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. But 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.