³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Spiritual reflection to start the day with writer and broadcaster, Anna Magnusson

Good morning.

I’m thinking about the wonder of music. And how it brings light.

Not long ago I was driving along the shoreline of Loch Fyne - a beautiful sea loch on the west coast of Scotland. The sun was glinting on the water, and I was listening to a piece of music which launched me into the past.

The Icelandic pianist, Vikingur Olafsson, was playing Bach. The Andante from the Organ Sonata Number 4, transcribed for piano. I first heard it during one of the Covid lockdowns, sitting in the living room window of our flat, looking out onto empty roads and deserted streets. On my phone, I was watching a video of men and women gathered together on an island, under a huge sky. They walked towards the music, to a huge barn where Vikingur was sitting at the piano under a shaft of light, playing this exquisite, perfect music.

I’ve never forgotten how that music calmed me and made me weep. How it somehow brought light into the heart of the darkness and sadness of that time. And it makes me remember, too, a small music shop in a town in Arizona, where we were on holiday last year. I very much miss the piano when I’m away from home because I play every day. I miss the light of music. In this small town we found a music shop with an old upright piano in a back room. ‘Of course you can play it’, the man said when we asked. So I did, and I was comforted. I was restored. Just as if someone had switched on a light in a dark room.

My prayer this morning is for whatever brings us light, and whoever comforts and delights us; may we know God’s love and peace, and share it. Amen.