The handful of Christmas CDs I have stored away in a rack near my computer caught my eye several days ago... and I've been meaning to give them a break from what has been an eight-month sabbatical. With my mother and brother out of the house, I decided that last night was the night.

I love Christmas choir music. I love Christmas orchestra music. I love Christmas music so powerful that you can lay back, close your eyes and soak up its power and meaning through your entire being. Schubert's "Ave Maria" was the first thing I played... recorded by Leontyne Price with the Choir of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York. I cranked up the volume and let the music fill my house. It was beautiful.

It reminded me of the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) plays an opera record over the prison public address system. The music fills the prison. And even though the men have no clue what the music is about... it offers them a brief reprieve from being prisoners. That's a magical thing. Ave Maria (and several others) worked like that for me last night.

Red (played by Morgan Freeman) narrating: I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

copyright © 2001-02, Thomas Fletcher. all rights reserved.