![\"Philip](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2020\/02\/Dublin_Guitar_Quartet_with_Philip_Glass.jpg\")
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\u201cThere is no music in hell, for all good music belongs to heaven.\u201d \u00a0(Brigham Young)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We\u2019re just back from a fantastic, really wonderful, concert in BYU\u2019s Madsen Recital Hall by the Dublin Guitar Quartet<\/a>. \u00a0I thoroughly enjoyed it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n They are the first classical guitar quartet entirely devoted to new music. \u00a0Since its formation at the Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama, the Quartet has made an effort to expand the limited repertoire of contemporary \u201cclassical\u201d guitar music both by commissioning new works and by adapting modern pieces from outside of the guitar repertoire. \u00a0Their concert tonight, which was excellently balanced and diverse, included both kinds of pieces:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One of the best concerts that I\u2019ve attended in recent memory.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From an incomplete manuscript of mine:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some of those who have undergone near-death experiences report having heard majestic, beautiful music.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 One experiencer says that the music was strangely familiar.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 A nurse in Osis and Haraldsson\u2019s database related her experience with a seventy-six-year-old woman who had been hospitalized following a severe heart attack:<\/span><\/p>\n Her consciousness was very, very clear\u2014no sedation, no hallucinogenic history.\u00a0 She was cheerful and confident that she would recover and return to her daughter who badly needed her at home.\u00a0 Suddenly she stretched out her arms and, smiling, called to me.\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t you see Charlie [her dead husband] there with outstretched arms?\u00a0 I\u2019m wondering why I haven\u2019t \u2018gone home\u2019 before.\u00a0 Describing the vision she said, \u201cWhat a beautiful place with all the flowers and music.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you hear it?\u00a0 Oh, girls, don\u2019t you see Charlie?\u201d\u00a0 She said he was waiting for her.\u00a0 I feel she definitely saw her husband.<\/strong>[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAfter several days of passing in and out of consciousness,\u201d reports the author of one family memoir about his father, who was hospitalized following a severe heart attack,<\/span><\/p>\n Howard had not shown much improvement.\u00a0 But one night he awoke and looked at the red digital clock on the wall\u20142:05 a.m.\u00a0 At that moment he became aware of the most beautiful music.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t so much hearing it as he was immersed in it, being filled with it.\u00a0 Far away, beyond the wall with the clock, someone was walking toward him surrounded by mist and dressed in luminous white.\u00a0 Fear seized Howard.\u00a0 He was not sure what was happening, but it was unlike anything he had ever experienced.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n As the figure approached, Howard recognized his [deceased] son.\u00a0 Randy was radiant and appeared so happy.\u00a0 Standing in the air, level with his bed, Randy smiled.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHey Dad.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRandy?\u201d Howard whispered.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s me.\u201d\u00a0 There was a marvelous serenity and joy emanating from him.\u00a0 He continued, \u201cDad, you can come with me now, if you want.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Howard was frightened and with urgency replied, \u201cNo, no.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Randy smiled.\u00a0 \u201cOkay, okay,\u201d was all he said.\u00a0 Then the image receded and was gone.\u00a0 The music faded.\u00a0 Howard was alone in the darkened room with the tubes and the monitors and the graphs and the beeps. . . .<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n After a week, Howard was still in intensive care.\u00a0 He was awake and in pain and bored.\u00a0 Around noon, Howard heard the music again\u2014wonderful, sweet, and holy.\u00a0 He saw a personage approaching from a distance; it was Randy.\u00a0 Again Howard saw how happy Randy was\u2014his expression was completely joyful.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Again, Randy invited his father to come with him.\u00a0 But again, although the fear was gone, Howard declined.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNow, Dad, it\u2019s not your time yet, so you have your choice.\u201d\u00a0 Randy paused again.\u00a0 \u201cWill you come with me?\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Howard thought for a moment, and said, \u201cNo.\u201d . . .<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Randy smiled.\u00a0 \u201cOkay, I understand.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Randy slowly faded away.\u00a0 Howard listened for a moment to the music, then everything went black.<\/strong>[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI could see people from the other world,\u201d reported Ella Jensen, a fifteen-year-old girl suffering from scarlet fever in 1891, \u201cand hear the most delightful music and singing that I ever heard.\u00a0 This singing lasted six hours, during which time I was preparing to leave this earth, and I could hear it all through the house.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 In his famous\u00a0Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cEcclesiastical History of the English People\u201d), the early eighth century scholar and monk known as The Venerable Bede, tells of an Irish holy man named Fursey who<\/span><\/p>\n fell ill and entered a trance; and quitting his body from sunset to cockcrow, was privileged to see the choirs of angels, and to hear the songs of the blessed.\u00a0 He used to say that, among other things, he clearly heard them sing: \u201cThe saints shall go from strength to strength<\/em>\u2019, and \u2018The God of gods shall be seen in Sion<\/em>\u2019.\u00a0 Then he returned to bodily consciousness.<\/strong>[6]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Accounts elsewhere indicate that those in the vicinity of the dying person have sometimes heard such music, as well.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 The English historian Bede says that, at the death of the nun Earcongota, \u201cmany brethren of the monastery, who lived in separate buildings, said that they had clearly heard choirs of angels singing and a sound like that of a great throng entering the monastery.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The Gallup organization found that 17% of those claiming near-death experiences also reported audible sounds or voices.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 In Ring and Cooper\u2019s study of NDEs among the blind, 33% recalled noise or music.[10]<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0 $Moody,\u00a0Life after Life<\/em>, 29-30; $compare Barrett,\u00a0Death-Bed Visions<\/em>, 42; Myers,\u00a0Voices from the Edge of Eternity<\/em>, 32, 165-166, 199, 208, 224.<\/span><\/p>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0Kenneth Ring, \u201cAmazing Grace: The Near-Death Experience as a Compensatory Gift,\u201d\u00a0Journal of Near-Death Studies<\/em>\u00a010\/1 (Fall 1991): 29.<\/span><\/p>\n [3]<\/a>\u00a0$Osis and Haraldsson,\u00a0At the Hour of Death<\/em>, 82-83.<\/span><\/p>\n [4]<\/a>\u00a0Ron McMillan and Randy McMillan,\u00a0And Should We Die . . .\u00a0 A Young Man\u2019s Experience with the Miraculous<\/em>\u00a0(Idaho Falls: American Family Publications, 2003): 175-177.\u00a0 Ron McMillan is a former neighbor of mine, and a co-author (with Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, and Al Switzler) of, among other things, the 2002\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0bestseller\u00a0Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High<\/em>(McGraw-Hill\/Contemporary Books, 2002).<\/span><\/p>\n [5]<\/a>\u00a0LeRoi C. Snow, \u201cRaised from the Dead,\u201d\u00a0The Improvement Era<\/em>\u00a032\/12 (October 1929): 973.\u00a0 [See original.]<\/span><\/p>\n [6]<\/a>\u00a0Bede,\u00a0A History of the English Church and People<\/em>, III.19 (p. 172) [italics in original].\u00a0 Compare the story of St. Chad, bishop of the Mercians {d. 672 A.D.), recounted at IV.3 (pp. 209-210).<\/span><\/p>\n [7]<\/a>\u00a0 $See Barrett,\u00a0Death-Bed Visions<\/em>, 45-46, 96-104.<\/span><\/p>\n [8]<\/a>\u00a0Bede,\u00a0A History of the English Church and People<\/em>, III.8 (p. 154).<\/span><\/p>\n [9]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Moody,\u00a0The Light Beyond<\/em>, 6.\u00a0 [Find original.]\u00a0 An example occurs in $Nelson,\u00a0Beyond the Veil<\/em>, 2:139.<\/span><\/p>\n [10]<\/a>\u00a0Ring and Cooper,\u00a0Mindsight<\/em>, 38.<\/span><\/p>\n\n