The worldview of death is that it’s a demise to be feared and avoided. A concert about death might seem macabre for some. But I can assure you, the music you’ll hear this evening doesn’t come close to embracing that concept. Tonight, we will celebrate the Feast of All Saints with a concert, to which you are all invited. The focal point of the evening will be John Rutter’s setting of the requiem mass, an ancient liturgical text known as the “mass for the dead.” But this evening will be more about the living, I promise.

The liturgical year allows us to focus on the full spectra of human existence – joy, pain, struggle, and even death itself. All Saints is a time to reflect on death, but not the worldview of death. Wayne Dyer once stated that “Life is a sexually-transmitted, terminal disease.” That’s one way to look at it – that we’re all headed for the cemetery. But that’s a surface-level understanding of life, just like fear is a surface-level understanding of death. That’s because there’s so much about death we don’t know. But life has unknowns too. That’s called substance – nonphysical truths upon which life is built.  

Life has substance. Death also has substance. Substance is not tangible, so why should we fear any of it? Music is one way to help us with this. Worldview modernity is about going from one ending to the next, focusing on destinations, finishing goals, or checking things off of the list. Music isn’t about getting to the end. If that were so, then only the fastest musicians would be the best. Music is about going “nowhere.” It’s about deepening experience itself, rather than completing it. And the true nature of living is exactly the same. Music helps us wrap our minds around what it means to be alive, something we all need help with from time to time.

Tonight’s featured composition, Rutter’s Requiem will be moving, uplifting, inspiring, and thought-provoking. It contains seven poignant, contrasting movements with traditional Latin texts interspersed with passages in English. The only time you’ll hear what might be considered the traditional worldview of death is at the beginning of the piece, in the first few measures. The harmony evokes images of the grim reaper, creepy and chilling. The first few bars are dissonant with a dark, somber, and empty-sounding texture. But as the piece progresses, you will hear transformation. The music eventually brings the listener to a peaceful image, an intimacy with death, not a fear of it. This is most obvious in the final movements, culminating with the exhilarating, Lux Aeternam “Light Eternal.”

I’ve read about people who receive a terminal diagnosis and eventually come to terms with surrendering to their inevitability. Tonight, you’ve got an opportunity to do that very thing. It’s not a scary thought, it’s an unarguable truth. Death is a kind of ending, just like music has a kind of ending. But to get to the end is never the point. A lot of people miss their life, trying to get to things and go places that don’t amount to much. Tonight’s concert won’t be about endings, those are pointless objects. Tonight’s concert will be about the eternal subject; the ongoing nature of life itself; and the profundity of what it all teaches us. Words fall short, but if you have a chance to be there, this music will give you a glimpse of that substance of which the world is bereft. I hope you won’t miss it. Soli Deo Gloria!