Another Way of Knowing

The other day I was listening to a music review. It was vintage NPR--the reviewer was an academic, a professor somewhere, his tone and vocabulary properly urbane. The subject of the review was a new release by a pop band based in London. The clips played during the review featured raw, unpolished voices and lyrics that spoke of loss and longing and evoked in the listener intense emotion.

I laughed at the utter incongruity of the tone and style of the review and the reality of the music. Not that I can imagine any better "tone and style" for such a review. A review of music is a different way of knowing from "enjoyment."

"Enjoyment" is a higher form of knowing when it comes to music. Rational analysis has its place, but it is derivative. There would be no rational analysis without the prior reality of emotional, musical knowing.

The same is true for other art forms. Writing "about" a painting has its place, but we know a painting better by gazing at it. Rational analysis may enrich our viewing. Still, rational analysis is derivative or secondary to the knowing that comes by viewing with open eyes and receptive spirit.

The same is true in spirituality. Theology--rational discourse about God--is secondary to the experience of the divine. The power and richness of spiritual experience is the original motivation for theology. Theology does not arise out of philosophy and logic. Rather all of these--theology, philosophy, logic--are attempts to process data or experience that is prior to the rationalizing efforts.

Just as it is possible to become so engrossed in rational analysis of music or art that we are diverted from the best knowing that comes through enjoyment, so in the religious realm we can become so engrossed in rational analysis (e.g. theories of inspiration, the atonement, the incarnation or the covenants) that we fail to devote adequate time to enjoyment.

Rational analysis is at least as inadequate for spiritual life as it is for music and art. If you want to really know spirituality, at some point you have to shut up and enjoy.

So do it, already.