Our Lady of Fandom, Thursday
It was Thursday again, which meant Castiel was behind the pulpit. He seemed especially interested this week in keeping an ear tuned to the choir -- apparently he'd finally gotten over finding himself involuntarily singing for his first sermon.
When it came time for him to speak, he remained silent for a long moment, looking over the congregation with his usual blank, but slightly curious expression, his hands resting lightly on either side of the stand where he had a distinct lack of laptop, bible, or notes of any kind.
"Music is an interesting thing, isn't it?" he said finally. "Ethereal and intangible, created purely for one's auditory senses. It exists, as so few things do, only in the very moment of its creation, every note born in the 'attack', lasting only a moment or two, then fading off in the 'decay'. The note can be solitary, plaintive against the darkness of silence, or one of many, a parade of aural soldiers marching to fill an empty world. Music can be soothing or jarring, smooth or staccato, poetic or vulgar or anything in between. However it is played, whether live performance or reproduced on plastic or in electrical impulses, it is that which simply is until it isn't until it is again."
He was clearly quite pleased with these thoughts on music. Then his expression turned, if not actually dour, then at least more serious.
"There are those that would claim some music to be the work of the devil, leading man down the path of evil. While forces of power, such as angels and demons, may and certainly do make use of music -- 'hark, the herald angels sing', while perhaps a little excessively florid, is not a fabrication -- it is only through human voices, those of our vessels, that we may create voices that you can even hear without worrying about your eardrums exploding. And the majority of demons, and most certainly the devil himself, have other things to do rather than possess heavy metal bands. And finally, while there certainly no denying that words have power, influencing people through popular entertainment is actually far more subtle than most demons tend to be. A demon wishing to use rock music would be far more likely to, say, promise to grant a musician great fame and ability in return for his soul, or perhaps create exploding compact disc players, than simply try and tell you what to do in lyrical form.
"And so I would urge you, each of you, to find time to spend with music this week. The format of the music, and the way it's created, doesn't matter. Music, like man, is free to follow what style it likes. And music, like man, is a fleeting, momentary thing, that somehow, despite its apparent insignificance, manages to do great things."
[ooc: and here comes the minor OCD is up. Watch out, I've reversed some of the threads. . . .]
When it came time for him to speak, he remained silent for a long moment, looking over the congregation with his usual blank, but slightly curious expression, his hands resting lightly on either side of the stand where he had a distinct lack of laptop, bible, or notes of any kind.
"Music is an interesting thing, isn't it?" he said finally. "Ethereal and intangible, created purely for one's auditory senses. It exists, as so few things do, only in the very moment of its creation, every note born in the 'attack', lasting only a moment or two, then fading off in the 'decay'. The note can be solitary, plaintive against the darkness of silence, or one of many, a parade of aural soldiers marching to fill an empty world. Music can be soothing or jarring, smooth or staccato, poetic or vulgar or anything in between. However it is played, whether live performance or reproduced on plastic or in electrical impulses, it is that which simply is until it isn't until it is again."
He was clearly quite pleased with these thoughts on music. Then his expression turned, if not actually dour, then at least more serious.
"There are those that would claim some music to be the work of the devil, leading man down the path of evil. While forces of power, such as angels and demons, may and certainly do make use of music -- 'hark, the herald angels sing', while perhaps a little excessively florid, is not a fabrication -- it is only through human voices, those of our vessels, that we may create voices that you can even hear without worrying about your eardrums exploding. And the majority of demons, and most certainly the devil himself, have other things to do rather than possess heavy metal bands. And finally, while there certainly no denying that words have power, influencing people through popular entertainment is actually far more subtle than most demons tend to be. A demon wishing to use rock music would be far more likely to, say, promise to grant a musician great fame and ability in return for his soul, or perhaps create exploding compact disc players, than simply try and tell you what to do in lyrical form.
"And so I would urge you, each of you, to find time to spend with music this week. The format of the music, and the way it's created, doesn't matter. Music, like man, is free to follow what style it likes. And music, like man, is a fleeting, momentary thing, that somehow, despite its apparent insignificance, manages to do great things."
[ooc: and here comes the minor OCD is up. Watch out, I've reversed some of the threads. . . .]