humor, math, music

Like a Good Priest

Posted on by Mellow Curmudgeon in humor, math, music
I did not have pen in hand when a bemused radio announcer commented after playing Bach’s 4th Brandenburg recently, so the following quote may not be perfectly exact.  It is very very close.

How can anything so complicated and so mathematical be so beautiful?

Imagine a priest who hears one of the great settings of the Mass (or a tour of a Gothic cathedral) followed by

How can anything so complicated and so religious be so beautiful?

That is essentially how I felt.  With considerable effort, one could make enough dissonant noise to be as grating as the remark.  Scratch a chalkboard with the fingernails of one hand.  Bang on the cracks between a few piano keys with the fingers of the other.  Step on a cat’s tail and fart loudly.  Doing all that would suffice.

Amiens_Rose_Window_640x480

A good priest would redirect any shock or anger at the remark into sorrow and pity for the wayward soul of a heathen who meant no harm.  In this one respect anyway, I try to be like a good priest (or a good imam).

Selimiye_Mosque_640x427

Image Sources

Photos were downloaded from Wiki Commons and are used under Creative Commons licenses.

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7 thoughts on “Like a Good Priest”

  2. When we create without guidance, assignment or structure the results often are far greater than anything intended. As we apply rules, laws and procedures we tend to devalue the beauty to assign structured values to the entity. Sometimes, we simply need to step back and let our senses be the judge.

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    1. Thanks. My 1st thought was to pair a Gothic cathedral photo with something modern and explicitly math-based (like the Fractal Snowflake), but the Wikipedia entry on fractal art remarked that the way traditional mosques are decorated anticipates fractal art. I decided that I liked their mosque example better than their fully fractal examples, both by itself and as a companion to the rose window in my list of cathedral candidates.

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