It's a big day:  the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (it's also International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which we will consider tomorrow).  Around the world, people continue to be astonished by the immense creativity and wonder of this Austrian's music.  Fluent in all genres of classical music, Mozart, though he died sadly, at the tender age of 34, produced an array of musical expression that most musicologists agree is unmatched.  As a contemporary said of him, "He was like an angel sent to us for a season, only to return to heaven again."  Most of us can only stand mute and marvel at Mozart's immense ability.  How could one person write works of such extraordinary beauty?

     Genesis tells us that God created people in his image, in his likeness.  For this reason, every person who has ever walked through the history of this planet has the potential to duplicate and express, albeit in finite form, the creativity that birthed the cosmos.
     Rightly do we weep and swoon at the beauty of Mozart's compositions; they are works of unsurpassed wonder.  Yet rightly do we marvel equally at God, the personal infinite God who made and fashioned this artist--with all his prodigious talents--and enabled him to be and become who and what he is.
      As he does for all of us, we who are gifted in an nearly infinite number of ways, we who are made to create in unabashed wonder.
     Enjoy and appreciate the people--all the people--whom God has made.
     Thanks, God, for giving us Mozart.
     (And, God, help us to ponder, tomorrow, the horrific darkness of human choice.)