Something else…

…is also contributing to my joy, and it’s so unexpected that I think it’s worth an entry of its own.

A screensaver.

One of my more unusual musical pleasures of recent years has been a group called “Sons of Korah” who basically put the words of the psalms (From the Old Testament. Yes, from the Bible.) to music. They do it in English rather than ancient Hebrew, but apart from that I can’t help feeling that they capture the spirit of the original works, which were intended to be sung rather than read, far better than anyone else. Our hymn books and song books at church are filled to the brim with versions of the psalms, but few if any of them have the emotional range that the Sons of Korah display.

I don’t listen to their music nearly as often as I think I should, for something so musically satisfying and spiritually satisfying at the same time. A friend I introduced to their music reminded me about it recently, and I realised she listens to it far more than I do.

As a result of the slight pang of guilt this induced, I pulled out the two CDs of theirs that I own and noticed something for the first time. Well, probably not literally for the first time, but this time I was paying attention properly. The album “Redemption Songs” includes a screensaver.

The artwork for the album consists of a series of stylised and often quite dramatic pictures of hands. Okay, strictly speaking upper arms and hands. All in monochrome, but with distinct personalities, and all reaching up to the heavens. The screen saver takes these and combines them with a (apparently very large) selection of verses from the psalms. The verses change more quickly than the images, and the two cycles are quite independent of each other.

It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen on a computer screen.

I can’t think of anything better for a computer at rest than a series of quiet contemplations, which is really what it amounts to. There’s a sense of peace to it, and depth of thought, and timelessness, and a call to worship.

And sitting at this computer typing has prevented it appearing for about 30 minutes, so I’m going to stop!