Timelessness

I played in a big band. I might go back to it, if I can. It was great! Great fun! The folks were friendly. The music was pumping. We were very popular. An evening with the Pessac Jazz Band was a good evening.

But sometimes I would look at the music we played - swing, funk, blues, latin - and think, "All of this music dates from about 1940 onwards. It's been around perhaps 70 years at the most, and most of it will not last much longer. Already it's niche, old-fashioned, and soon it will probably be forgotten."

It's all so ephemeral!

I'd think of my love of classical music. Music of the 1900s (Prokofiev, Messaien, Milhaud, Poulenc). Of the 1800s (Saint-Saens, Mahler, Schubert). Of the 1700s (Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn). Of the 1600s (Purcell, Bach, Handel).

We're talking, what, 500 years? Maximum?

And it's the year 2014!

It's all so ephemeral!

Lierature. Dickens. Austen. Shakespeare. Even Chaucer. Even Marcus Aurelius or Aristophanes....

It's all so RECENT, so ephemeral!

How can you find something that endures? That lasts? Human culture that transcends the years and that remains relevant across the centuries, ever-living, ever-vibrant.

Being a Christian is so amazing. It's one reason why words like Evangelical, even Protestant or Reformed are so unappealing to me. These words date from the 1500s in their modern usage. The words don't matter much to me, though the truths they contain matter intensely.

But I belong in a line that goes back to the dawn of time, to when Adam looked at slain animals and wore his skins, to when Enoch just walked away one day, to when Abraham packed up his belongings and left the city...

Timeless!

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