Axar.az presents an article "Aquinas and Hilary Hahn" by John Samuel Tieman.

The medieval saint once said, “latens deitas, quæ sub his figuris vere latitas.” That is, “hidden God, truly hidden beneath these forms.” OK, fine. I've made my peace with Thomas Aquinas. But we've argued a lot lately. “In seven-plus decades,” I've argued, “I couldn't get one lousy burning bush, just a shrub, or just one teaspoon of water into wine, just once?” “No,” he said. Aquinas does say that one proof of God is in the orderliness of the universe, an orderliness that could only have been created by a divine intelligence. I understand the argument. It's a tight one. I just don't live in a tight universe. Every time I see order, I see the Middle East, Trump, Covid, a mass shooting at a high school. I spent a decade and a half teaching in a ghetto. I saw combat in Vietnam. I've not lived a tight life.

I wonder about the universe. The universe seems orderly only because we live for such a tiny amount of time, 100 years at best compared to the universe's 13 billion years and change. Our solar system looks orderly now. Go back a million or more years, and it looks more like rock rubbish and star vomit. Ask that last dinosaur for its opinion about the orderliness of the universe.

I'm not wise like Aquinas. I find his Scholasticism overwhelming. But I sometimes feel I glimpse God. A former student wrote that she got her master's degree. A couple out for a walk, and I hear them laugh. These make me feel better, but I don't think that's what God is about, feeling better. Yet these feelings, these thoughts, this life, this moment – sometimes, when I stop splitting scholarship and emotion, when I understand ideas and feelings not as separate but just this moment in this life, well – sometimes I hear something in a minor key.

The opening night of the symphony season was a few Saturdays ago. By coincidence, my beloved and I also celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary. We went to dinner, an Ethiopian restaurant, and then to the symphony. Hilary Hahn played Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, Opus 64.

With the very first note Hahn played, my wife whispered, “Oh, my God.” Hahn's playing wasn't simply skilled. There are – How many, 10, 20? – artists in the world that can play like that. The St. Louis Symphony is one of my hometown's true and beautiful treasures. That night, that combination, of Hilary Hahn and our symphony, was transcendent. Clichéd as it may sound, I wiped tears from my eyes. Why?

I have known God more often in a symphony hall than in a cathedral. Since I was a boy, in how many concerts have I thanked God for the creation of music? I can doubt the existence of God during the Mass. But that Saturday, when Hilary Hahn and the St. Louis Symphony played that concerto, I knew Aquinas was right.

Out of this chaotic universe, with its black holes and planets that collide, out of this world with its wars and global warming, out of this nation with its guns and crimes and insurrection, out of all that comes this woman with her violin, these musicians, this audience, this composition, and it was perfect. It was perfect. And in that perfect moment, I thanked God for all this life has given me, and all it has failed to give me, and for what it will give me tomorrow, and for what it will fail to give me tomorrow.

I felt order. I heard harmony. Within these moments, for these minutes, I simply held my wife's hand. But I didn't say a prayer. The concerto was my liturgy.