August 29, 2012 (Wednesday)
Recently I saw a well-known female performer, playing her guitar and singing with a band, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more miraculous it seems. What do I mean by that?
Well, to begin with, her brain gathered information from no-telling-how-many sources to write the song she was singing. The words needed to mean something, they needed to rhyme, they had to follow a certain tempo in their recitation, meter was vitally important, and all the rules of music had to apply. She was recalling every word. Then there was her voice, so different from her speaking voice, that transformed itself into a musical instrument itself, but accentuated by emotion, inflection, and charisma that locked the audience into intense interest and involvement in her song. All this was taking place simultaneously, but that’s not all.
She played the guitar with two hands, and ten fingers obediently followed the commands of her neural center, with many muscles obeying those electric impulses at just the right time and in just the right way. Each hand and every finger is functioning independently. All this while she is remembering the words and singing them.
Not only she, but her band is involved also. She must be aware of them and whether they are totally with her in the performance as each instrument brings forth its own special sound, tempered by the talents and abilities of the various musicians.
Of course, hardly any musician thinks about these things. People do very difficult and creative things as if they were instinctive traits like breathing. The Psalmist must have thought about it when he wrote, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:4 NIV). And how about durability? My body has been functioning for a very long time, without stopping. Yet. I can’t complain. I promise you, you will not be able to go to a manufacturer of any machine and obtain a warranty that lasts as long as the machine we call “the human body.”
“God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them .. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:27,31 NIV).