Free Bird

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  “. . . A light broke in upon my brain,—  It was the carol of a bird;  It ceased, and then it came again,  The sweetest song ear ever heard,  And mine was thankful till my eyes  Ran over with the glad surprise,  And they that moment could not see  I was the mate of misery.  But then by dull degrees came back  My senses to their wonted track;  I saw the dungeon walls and floor  Close slowly round me as before,  I saw the glimmer of the sun  Creeping as it before had done,  But through the crevice where it came  That bird was perched, as fond and tame,  And tamer than upon the tree;  A lovely bird, with azure wings,  And song that said a thousand things,  And seemed to say them all for me!  I never saw its like before,  I ne’er shall see its likeness more;  It seemed like me to want a mate,  But was not half so desolate,  And it was come to love me when  None ...

Music, Mushrooms and Truth

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John Cage (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992), a contemporary American composer, believed that the universe is impersonal by nature and that it originated only through pure chance. In an attempt to live consistently with this personal philosophy, Cage composed all of his music by various means of chance. He used, among other things, the tossing of coins and the rolling of dice to make sure that no personal element enters into the final product. The result was music that has no form, no structure, and for the most part, no appeal. This is a video of one of his most well-known piece, called "4'33"":



Though his professional life accurately reflected his belief in a universe that has no order, his personal life did not, for his favorite pastime was mycology, the collecting of mushrooms. Due to the potentially lethal results of picking the wrong mushroom, one cannot approach a mushroom on a purely by-chance basis. Concerning that, Cage stated, “I became aware that if I approached mushrooms in the spirit of my chance operations, I would die shortly.”
John Cage believed one thing, but practiced another. In doing so, he is an example of the man described in Romans 1:18 who “suppresses the truth of God,” for when faced with the certainty of order in the universe, he still clings to his own novel theory.

(Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There.)

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