Program notes

One of the banes of growing older is knowing more words but being unable to retrieve them from memory. As a writer I’m constantly pulling out my copy of Rodale’s The Synonym Finder or quickly clicking to the thesaurus feature in my word processing program. A few times I’ve visited this high-tech web thesaurus: http://www.visuwords.com/.

When you’re trying to describe music, the problem deepens. How do you portray rhythm and sound? Take Beethoven’s Sonata in D for Violin, a personal favorite (and one far beyond my personal playing abilities). The eight-note motif opening the piece stirs a longing in me that I just can’t put in words. It reminds me of something lost, just found. The pink promise of a sunrise. A shy smile.

I thought of that last week when my daughter, Inga, a violin teacher, made a quick trip across the state so we could both go to a recital in Leavenworth featuring world-class violinist Midori. Arriving early to get good seats, we had plenty of time to study the program notes.

Writers of such explanatory notes are no lazy lot. They unabashedly pour on the superlatives to express the effects of notes and rhythms. When I pointed out some clever phrases, my daughter remarked, “That’s what you do in program notes.”

Midori’s program consisted entirely of music composed during her lifetime of 37 years. Meaning: very modern. But even in the collision of sounds and rhythms that were outside my comfort zone (remember, I’m a Beethoven babe), the program writer heightened my anticipation with a verbal roadmap.

Yes, one piece lived up to the description of “excruciating heat.” Hearing another, I could understand the writer choosing words like glitter, surrealism, agitation, and pseudo-romanticism. Another piece was characterized as having “languid nonchalance.”

When I move from music to the mysteries of God, my word problem returns. How do you describe God? I think I understand why the apostle Paul, after carefully working through the theology of God’s grace, burst into a hymn of wonder about God: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).

In other words, Paul just couldn’t find the words. God is bigger than our vocabularies. Or, as an old hymn-writer put it, even if the sky were a parchment, and the oceans an inkwell, we’d never quit writing about the love of God.

Dare I say the Bible is like program notes? While the Bible doesn’t flaunt fifty-cent adjectives, it does use story, precept, praise and many other genres to reveal His nature and ways. And most of all, to lead us to wonder and worship.