I am concerned that I have been pushing my metaphor too far. It is time to take a moment and chuckle at myself; time to write a little about how music is simply music. Alone, it will never deliver you to the holy. Music itself has no power to condemn and can never deliver you to the darkness.
Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries was beloved by people responsible for the extermination of millions of their neighbors in a place and time not so far from here and now. That piece of music is still a tremendous piece of music. Some of those same people sang hymns that are sung today in my own worshipping community-a place of reconciliation, acceptance and peace. An artist such as Marilyn Manson, accused of promoting violence and hate with his music, is revealed as a person with integrity and an insightful social critique in an interview following the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
A group like They Might Be Giants and music from Once Upon a Mattress express fun, light things that allow us to inhabit a world of silly and simple for a time. A group like Metallica and music from Requiem for a Dream express darker, angrier, bleaker things, and touch the terrible depths of our human experience. That is not to say that one set of songs is safe, and the other set is dangerous. That is not to say that one musical expression is good and the other is evil. What it is: we are responsible for the uses to which we put the powers at our command. That should not be mistaken for the purposes to which another would put the same powers.
Music is simply sound. Soul is what gives it power, and the soul is human. Many humans with many different kinds of souls are always tuning in. Many humans with many different kinds of souls are always singing out. May we be wise in choosing which sounds we will empower.
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