Growing up Johnny Cage was the cool kickboxer in Mortal Kombat who cared as much how he looked as how he fought. He had his styling early 90's raybands and an attitude to match. To be honest I was alway parshal to Subzero, but I was often accused of cheating by mercilessly freezing my opponants and then kicking them in the face-what in fighting game vinacular was called being "cheap." When my brother or friends would get sick of this they'd force me to pick someone other than the masked ice-cold dinamo who could manifest coldness at will (insert cold hearted girl parallel joke if you so choose). I was tempted to pick Scorpion with his skeleton head and that rope that flew out of his hand, but since he was Subzero's rival and sworn enemy it didn't feel right. I couldn't cheat on my prized fighter. So I turned to Johnny Cage. The professional actor who got his jollies by kicking people in the head in illegal tournaments to the death.
Fast foward 8 years. My Sega Genesis gathered dust (yeah I had a N64 but everyone knew not to play Mortal Kombat on that, there was no blood.), and I was off to college.To get music credits I took a history of American music class. Early in the class we were told to pick an individual musician to do a research report on. Now my knowledge of American music at this time was pretty much relegated to screaming and punk rock angst, so I had no idea who I was picking. I would let chance be my guide... or was it fortuidous?
The way I picked my subject was simple, he had to meet three criteria: 1) he had to be someone who was scheduled late in the semester to maximize my ability to procrastinate. 2) He had to not have anyone else sign up for him so I wouldn't have to partner with a weirdo. 3) He had to have a cool sounding name.
Enter Johnny Cage, the ficticious kickboxing superstar of my youth.Okay his name was actually John Cage but it was close enough. And if he was cool enough for the creators of Mortal Kombat to name a character after him then he was cool enough for me (I may have been giving the creators too much credit in being cultured, I've found no proof that he was intentionally named after the musician John Cage, it could just be a coincidence...).
John Cage was a professional musician who was also a philosopher and adapter of his own form of Buddhism that bares only slight resemblances to the easter religion. He was, what could be described as a rouge musician/composer. He developed his own rules and used his music to communicate his philosophies on life, art, and existance.
At one performance he created a piece that was named after the measure of time it was to be performed in. The thing was he had no music. He sat at the piano and counted the time, at the appropriate moment he would turn the page of nonexistent music, all the while sitting in utter silence. Certainly many people were uncomfortable with this unorthodox performance. Some people must have assumed a joke was being performed on them. Others, completely terrified by silence shuffled in their seats as they waited for eternity to pass.
What was the point? Cage wanted people to hear the music in silence. He claimed that silence was never silent as all, that there was music in the rustling of seats and heavy breathing of patrons. Even when no external noise can be found at all the body provides a symphony of its own: heart pounding, lungs sucking in oxygen and pushing out carbon dioxide, and stomach churching in gluttonous hunger. Music was everywhere. There was beauty in the beats of life. There was beauty in silence.
The weeks that have passed have been busy ones. There is always something to distract me, entertain me, or challenge me everywhere I turn. I can fill my life with noise quite easily until I pass out from exhaustion. Even then I'm half tempted to doze off into darkness to the toon of Further Seems Forever or Johnny Cash's My Mother's Hymnal album.
I have friends who need to talk to me, and friends with whom I desperately need to speak. I have an endless supply of sound at my disposal.
Then I broke down. Not in any dramatic way, this wasn't anything fit for a soap opera. My body just had enough. I went to my barn and laid in silence. I sat alone. I was quietly. The rhythm of the fan my only companion.I listened to my heard beat and felt my brain pulsate in my temples. Wind crept through the broken screen creating a faint whistle. And I remembered John Cage.
I remembered that there was music in silence. That silence could energize me and refresh me. I could, if I allowed myself, be covered in the silence of my apartment and there find rest.
In that silence I found not only music, but miracles to inspire. As I breathed in I was a witness to a personal miracle, life continuing. In the chaos of day to day life I take advantage of breathing, I'm not a doctor but I know enough to understand that the whole breathing thing happens pretty much on its own, without my willful contribution. As I'm dealing with disgruntled customers at work, or teenagers in need of time and care at church I continue breathing like its my business.
Every breath reminded me that I'm still alive, here by a will external to my own. In that silence as I listened to the music of my own breathing I was reminded that God isn't finished with me yet. Each breath is a miracle given by the Lord, and eventually those will cease. Eventually those breaths which have been numbered since my birth will end and I will go home. I don't fear that day. And I don't watch for it with morbid curiousity. But I am aware its coming. The music of silence shows me that time has not yet come. There is still work to do. I'm still living.
I believe our culture acts against us when it makes us uncomfortable with silence. With so much entertainment and noise at our disposal silence feels like the enemy. But this is a trap. This is a lie. The enemy wants us surrounded by noise to keep out the time of silent reflection. To keep us from enjoying the sound of our own heart beat, and the reminder that our creator has not given up on us. It keeps us from enjoying the music of silence, which is a great tragedy.
