Today’s prelude is a whimsical number by French composer Louis Vierne. It delights. But that’s the nature of a piece that’s full of spirit. It titillates, tickles, and teases. It is wiggly like a small, free-spirited creature. How fun!

The creative act is spontaneous. You never know when the spirit will nip at you. Like a thief in the night, it surprises. It flits about, ideas coming and going in the ether. Try to “catch” the spirit. People do, but like a lightening bug in a jar, its effervescence will diminish if you entomb it. The spirit knocks and must be free to come and go. That’s also the nature of love – it’s free. Gripping it or hoarding it kills it.   

Tapping, flashing, knocking are rapid successions of on-off. Sound is like that. It’s a wave. The two dimensions of the creative process are inhale-exhale, crest-trough, and back-forth. It’s the birth-death principle. When something is seemingly taken away, a new idea, inspiration or motivation arises. This is our ongoing story, life is “waving” at us. From tomb to womb, nothing is forever. The spirit flits about, dodging obstacles, even in something like blindness, a condition that seems debilitating to those unplugged from the alternating current of AC/DC of the electrifying spirit.

Vierne, organist of Notre-Dame de Paris was nearly blind. But that was no disadvantage. His ear was refined to levels unknown to us “mere mortals.” At age two, his neighbor played a Schubert lullaby for him, and he immediately was able to pick out the notes on the piano. He was at Notre-Dame for 37 years and left us with some of the most remarkably whimsical, fresh, and unique music. He died while playing an organ recital. He suddenly pitched forward and fell off the bench. He lost consciousness and his foot rested on a low “E” that resounded in the cathedral. He had thus fulfilled his lifelong dream — to die at the console of the great organ of Notre-Dame, his student Maurice Duruflé by his side.

In 1881, when Vierne was 11, he heard an organ performance of the great César Frank:

The organ played a mysterious prelude, quite unlike any I had heard … I could not hold back my tears. I knew nothing; I understood nothing; but my instinct was violently shaken by this expressive music echoing through every pore.

Vierne was not overcome by his disability but overcome by the spirit and triumphed over his so-called disadvantage. This music wiggles around obstacles, reminding us that we’re never stuck in the tomb, but merely on our way to the womb – new life. What some might consider loss, the spirit sees as gain. His aurality brought him to heights of compositional envy and superior creative ingenuity that few achieve. To get there, we must let go of our ideas of obstacles. Obviously, Vierne lived the fullness of life promised to us. Fullness doesn’t mean sightedness, but wholeness, connected to spirit.

It’s easy to gain, not easy to lose. But in letting go, we realize the ephemeral nature of everything – tap, tap, tap. Touch and release. Can you hear it in the music? The spirit dances. When it’s time to let go, release with love. Don’t worry, there’s unlimited dazzling supply, no need to keep it entombed in a jar. Soli Deo Gloria!