"Original Instruments"

Last night I wanted to relax and read. I decided I wanted to listen to woodland bird sounds. I had my windows open, so the sound of peepers was very loud. I really didn’t want to hear them anymore, so I put on some bird sounds.



Spring Peeper

Then I realized something, something that I have been thinking about in relation to music recordings vs. live music: these frogs, crickets, and owls were singing to me; God has inscribed in their natures specific parts to play in the symphony of nature; the entire production was for my benefit as human person, the pinnacle of physical creation.

I would not listen to an mp3 of a classical piece if I were at a classical concert. Why would I listen to a pre-recorded nature when I had a front-row seat to the most splendid concert in the universe, with God my Creator conducting?

The symphony of nature is the composition of the Creator; maybe next time I want to “relax” to artificial reproductions of nature, I should listen to the magnificence of live performance on the ‘original instruments’, the actual creatures for which the natural symphony was composed.