What are you longing for? Where do you long to be?
I went to see Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, the epic opera electronica by noted composer Eric Whitacre. This amazing piece of musical theater weaves together techno music, anime, manga, martial arts and Asian drumming with awesomely beautiful music. As a purely sensory experience, it soars. And for the past two days, I found that the memorable music stayed with me, haunting me, nagging me to remember the story it told.
In the story, lost angels are trying to get back to Paradise. They have been marooned for 17 years, since they were children. Two friends, a young man and woman, sing,
“All they ever think about
is being any other place than this…
They remember being home,
but they’ve forgotten what it’s like
to feel a paradise of bliss.”
In the end, they don’t make it. But just on the verge of death, they suddenly see what has been right in front of them all along. Realizing their love for each other, they finally embrace and sing,
“If there be a paradise of bliss,
it is this… it is this.”
This could have been my story. I am going through some difficult things in my RL right now. No paradise of bliss, to be sure. There are times when I can’t even remember what it was like not to be weighted down with stress, worry and pain. I find myself wishing, longing for peace. Someday, I think to myself. Someday I will find that happiness I yearn for. It seems so elusive. It is out there somewhere. Like the lost angels in the story, I can’t seem to find my way home.
The song. The song was just so beautiful. It kept spinning in my head. Trying to get my attention.
It was some time this morning when I finally woke up to the message of the song. In the cool of the early morning, the sun streamed through the trees, creating a golden glow in the humid air. Everything around me was green, and so beautiful, bathed in golden light. As I thought of how much I have to be grateful for, even in the midst of trouble, and of the One who loves me, I realized that the bliss I long for is not “out there” somewhere. It is here. Now. Right in front of me. I don’t have to go searching. I just have to open my eyes.
If there be a paradise of bliss… it is this.
the space between 