C

91.      Words communicate concrete images (codified sensual perceptions) from mind to mind. The music of the voice—its tonalities and expressions—communicate feelings (non-programmable emotion) from heart to heart.

92.      We orchestrate our verbal communication with our hands, our faces, and every gesture; or by holding our fingers just so or our eyes thus. We direct a symphony of interrelationship to those around us.

93.      Each human being is a symphony played out with its overtures, its accents, and its crescendos. There is far more to be learned from the music than can be derived from the analysis of the individual words or sounds that make up what we generally believe to be communication.

94.      Thus, it is in music that we are most often caught by unexpected surges of emotion. It is the unique, though not fully explored gift of the musician to communicate a direct experience of emotion to a listener. And, indeed, the criterion for judgment of whether or not any series of noises is music, is the communication of emotion.

95.      A “song” then is the combination of elements which superimpose the emotional onto the sensually perceived. A song, therefore, engenders the emotional context in which any given “facts” (sensual perceptions) are to be understood.

96.      “Law” is weakened by a preponderance of words and a lack of music. It is no longer possible to mete out justice when the situation is stripped of its emotion or music, and judgment must be made on the basis of words alone, weighed against the unstable standard of each other.

97.      It is possible to attune oneself to the music of the universe and thereby see all things in the light, not of the responsive emotion, but of the emitted emotion. There is true communication born—when we can see and accept the emotions coloring the sensual perceptions of another without interrupting the flow of emotion generated from ourselves.

98.      This empathic response to another individual may open channels of energy between people that have been hitherto untapped. For example, the empathic response would enable total honesty. It would bear the ability to communicate across cultural and language barriers. It may even open channels of physical and most certainly psychological healing.

99.      The empathic response is latent in every human being. Some have experienced it to some degree or another. The husband who wakes up with morning sickness or labor pains during his wife’s pregnancy is one example. The mother who awakens in the middle of the night knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that her child needs her is another. These are examples of the response that is more primeval within us than even our most elementary forms of communication.

100.  The search for meaning is endless. It turns ever in upon itself. And the further in you turn, the further out you get.

 

Editor’s Note: Verses 91-93 are often referred to as “the pencil section” of the First Hundred as Wesley abandoned his fountain pen and wrote in a soft lead pencil. Speculation suggests that he intended to come back to this section to rewrite or perhaps even erase, but this has never been confirmed.

It is widely assumed that Wesley intended to summarize his entire philosophy and understanding of life in these 100 verses. Therefore, the last ten have the feeling of a frantic scramble to cover everything a little.  It has recently been discovered, however, that Wesley was unable to stop at this First Hundred and the editor has endeavored to transcribe Wesley’s sometimes unreadable notes. The Second Hundred will follow.