Our Sound is Our Wound - Part 2

"In the beginning was the Word" - and I would imagine... a big man with a grey beard  and a booming voice ...shouting WORD to kick-start creation.  p11

The above are Lucy's childhood memories.  In this chapter (1) what caught my eye was the reminder that for hundreds of years people heard the Bible in community rather than reading it in isolation.  Yesterday I posted on the value of community, and in this idea of hearing scripture in community there is a difference not only in what is read, but in how it is interpreted.  There will be a community interpretation (assuming that the vicar doesn't encourage everyone to play "guess what is in my head") and a community living out of what is there.  People will often talk about the Holy Spirit inspiring new understandings - I think that the Holy Spirit works best in groups, rather than just individuals.

The score only becomes music when the players or singers take it up and give it life by playing it.  So it is with scripture. p18

Our Sound is Our Wound - Part 1

"their sound itself becomes a wound - a sacrifice that they willingly make, fashioning a beauty that needs neither explanation or excuse." p2 (talking about a string quartet)

I don't get it!  At least, not yet.  I am reading this as part of my lenten study (see here).  This post will record my thoughts on the introduction and there will no doubt be others.

Lucy Winkett is using sound as a metaphor and as a tone deaf non musician I am not finding this easy.  That said, in the introduction she also writes a lot of things that I do understand and which do resonate, and for which the sound metaphor adds not one jot (for me).

There is no normative experience against which everything everything should be measured, and, when we recognise this, our relationship with God and our understanding of human beings will be only expanded and enriched. (Sparked by the idea of the deaf musician - especially Evelyn Glennie) p5

Emotional or psychological wounds are harder to see and therefore easier to hide.  But part of maturing as people, whatever our circumstances, is that we learn to live with the wounds from our past.  It can be precisely from contemplating and accepting those wounds that we begin to mend, and that we learn that it is never to late to start again.  p6

Christians offer modern society the conviction that wounds, which are a part of the human condition, are given meaning by meditating on them in the light of the wounds of God, seen in Jesus. p7

All language that we use about God is metaphor... p8 

I found all of these quote immensely powerful, but so far I am finding the attempt to force them into a "sound" straitjacket unhelpful.  That said I am looking forwards to the rest of the book!