Musicians use time to frame. Listen to note after note, listen to the silences. “Listen, the composer cries out, to the scrape of the bow and to the rush of breath through reed and brass.” Musicians also beg that we, “pay attention.” We listen to the sounds of the earth, as Mother Nature frames its majesty and mystery. She teaches us our own music, even our own silences. Great orators uses pauses, silence, and repetition to “frame” their word’s importance and to draw attention to their message. Art teaches us by framing to stop, look, and listen to life, including our lives, as vastly richer, deeper, and more mysterious than it ever occurs to us to imagine.
Jesus also frames the issue for us. He calls on us to simply love God and love our neighbor. In a sense he is telling us to pay attention to our surroundings. If we are to love God we must look and listen for him in what is happening around us and inside us. If we are to love our neighbor we must first see our neighbor. With our eyes and our imagination we must see not just their faces, but their life behind and within. We are called to use a special frame to see God and our neighbor and that frame is called “love.”
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