Music in Uncommon Time

Written for people who are deeply moved by certain pieces of music and wonder whether they may have something to do with their spiritual life, this book digs deep into ten well-known and much-loved works—Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s B-minor Mass, Beethoven’s Ninth, Mahler’s Third, and more. It lifts up the way they lift up uncommon time—the temporal processes in which the human spirit encounters the divine spirit. It shows how they miraculously hold together opposites such as secular with spiritual temporality, predictability with uncertainty, peace with movement, not-yet with already, linearity with all-at-onceness, fulfillment with continued growth, light with darkness, despair with hope, and, above all, uncommon time with common time.