Do you listen to opera?  Not everybody does, and not everyone enjoys it.  Some operas, however, are worth listening to.  I say this because this month we remember the birthday of Guiseppe Verdi, the famous Italian composer of the late Romantic Era. You may have heard of some of Verdi's most famous works, such as the "Rigoletto," "Il trovatore," and "La Traviata."

    Interestingly, Verdi's innovative operas struck a chord in the European musical imagination.  They opened up all manner of new choral possibility.  As I ponder this and listen to a few of Verdi's most famous overtures, I often return to contemplating the remarkable way in which humanity has become itself.  Creativity bequeaths creativity, newness births more newness, and what has been, as Ecclesiastes observes, is always becoming what is.  Like Arthur Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being, as life opens more and more in history and time, music opens too, ever speaking to us of future and possibility, steadfastly reminding us of the near inexhaustible character of humanity and the cosmos.

    Music makes us see that reason alone will not give us meaning.  We need the emotion, the emotional moral force of music in our lives to tell us that life has hope and that life is more than mind.  For reason alone, as philosopher (and atheist) Kai Neilsen points out, will not lead us to what is moral.  We need the transcendent, a realm to which Verdi's delightfully soaring arias point us, to know what is most valuable and true.