Silent Music

In a strange twist of events, I've moved to Indianapolis to teach a one room high-school, and I live in the basement of my employer's home. Since, on the advice of St. Thomas to his Brother John, you must "love to be in your room frequently, if you wish to be led to the wine cellar," I must make my new room lovable. How to do it, and how to unlock the door to the wine cellar? Well, I consider the chief circumstance: but for the occasional rumble of household machines, the basement of the Brill family is beautifully quiet. I figured the time was right to stop playing recorded music, a thing which has grown to dominate my various physical homes and even my mental order. I would devote my room to true spiritual silence. But alas for the flesh! I found after just a day I couldn't stand the vacancy.

So I bethought to myself, "self, wither mayest thou look for a music in concorde with the spirit of silence?" Then I remembered the plainchant of Gregory the Great which filled the monasteries of Western Europe. And indeed, after enjoying a few days of chant, testing whether I might hold to the firm principle of silence with the aid of this ancient artifact, I found that it had no addictive power, and yet it played a marvelous peace upon my soul. So I settled that chant, a capella developments of it as but no more complex than the music of Palestrina, and absolute quiet would compose the auditory architecture of my room.

In this experiment, I have discovered two curious properties of plainchant:
1) Through rooms and floors which are generally quiet, the music carries a clear and satisfactory sound much further than does other music at a similar volume. In other words, one never knows discomfort when listening to the distant sound of chant. But the distant sound of any other music drives me mad. I can't ignore it completely, but I can't piece it together either.
2) Plainchant is retiring. It hides in the background of almost any other noise.

At least two interesting conclusions follow.
1) Plainchant requires a special place, set apart for its purposes. A man may feast on the rewards of plainchant only if he cultivates his home diligently and thoughtfully.
2) Plainchant is fundamentally at odds with a world of machines.

The central function of plainchant is, of course, worship, which is the heir of the mind of God and the elder brother of philosophical contemplation. It is not clear to me whether the background playing of plainchant, however well it orders the mind in the habit of contemplation, contributes anything to a habit of worshipfulness, but it seems possible, since contemplation is so closely related to worship. And I assert the possibility that an engineered pattern of silence irrigates a place with a sanctifying grace. All men everywhere have found this. The Orient has found this, and practised it with fervour (though the Buddhists take this practice too far, and so commit both idolatry and intellectual error.) Since Christians inherit the special blessing of God, let them all the more so labour to engineer their homes and their churches with silence, let them pray that the Holy Spirit may irrigate with his grace, and let them look for aid in their labours to the singers of silent music.

And while they're at it, smash the machines.