These meditations define a great arc, spanning the distance from Augustine's marvelously formulated insight that "only he who loves can sing" all the way to the anguished cry of Hlderlin's ode entitled "Wherefore Poets in a Time of Distress?" The intent here is to make one thing clear: that music, the fine arts, poetry - anything that festively raises up human existence and thereby constitutes its true riches - all derive their life from a hidden root, and this root is a contemplation which is turned toward God and the world so as to affirm them.