Mario!

"If music be the food of love, play on ....."

--From Twelfth Night (I, i,1-3)

He's Greek and sings in Italian, Spanish, Greek, French and English, with a voice that is like that of an angel: it melts your heart and makes your spirit soar. And, unlike Pavarotti, he's young and looks like a movie star or male model. What else can I ask for? Mario Frangoulis, my hero of song.

In his first album Sometimes I Dream, he says, "Allow me to introduce you to my world. With humility and dignity, I offer you my dreams with love and colors from the Mediterranean world, the deep blue of the sea and sky, the warmth and the spirit of my ancestors and the rich heritage of my homeland, Greece.
A gift no longer in my hands, I give you Sometimes I Dream."

I first heard him sing the song Vincero, Perdero in a compilation of classic pop operas. I didn't know what the words meant but I loved listening to it over and over. Found out the meaning of the Italian lyrics online and hey, I'm learning Italian now. The boys and D got me his second CD Follow Your Heart for my birthday, as it was so obvious what I liked. They couldn't find the first, but I liked the second as much, especially the first song, Here's to the Heroes. I found the first CD in Singapore later, and now, I can listen to him in the car, in the house, from morning to night.

As Mario put it in his second CD, "For me, music is the greatest gift you can give to someone because music is life and life is love and honestly, I live for making good music." Well, long may he live to make good music for all the world to enjoy, and may he come to know too the Creator of Music, the One who gave him the gifts of voice and song, life and love.

Love is Stronger than Death

"In our time, as in every age, we need to see something which is stronger than death. Death has become powerful in our time, in individual human beings, in families, in nations and in mankind as a whole. Death has become powerful - that is to say that the End, the finite, and the limitations and decay of our being have become visible. For nearly a century this was concealed in Western civilization. We had become masters in our earthly household. Our control over nature and our social planning had widened the boundaries of our being; the affirmation of life had drowned out its negation which no longer dared make itself heard, and which fled into the hidden anxiety of our hearts, becoming fainter and fainter. We forgot that we are finite, and we forgot the abyss of nothingness surrounding us ... We kept the picture of death from our children and when here and there, in our neighbourhood and in the world, mortal convulsions and the End become visible, our security was not disturbed. For us these events were merely accidental and unavoidable, but they were not enough to tear off the lid which we had fastened down over the abyss of our being.

And suddenly the lid was torn off. The picture of Death appeared, unveiled, in a thousand forms. As in the late Middle Ages the figure of Death appeared in pictures and poetry, and the Dance of Death with every living being was painted and sung, so our generation - the generation of world wars, revolutions, and mass migrations - rediscovered the reality of death. We have seen millions die in wars, hundreds of thousands in revolutions, tens of thousands in persecutions and in systematic purges of minorities ...

But who can bear to look at this picture? Only he who can look at another picture behind and beyond it - the picture of Love. For love is stronger than death. For every death means parting, separation, isolation, opposition, and not participation. So it is, too, with the death of nations, the end of generations, and the atrophy of souls. Our souls become poor and disintegrate insofar as we want to be alone, insofar as we bemoan our misfortunes, nurse our despair and enjoy our bitterness, and yet turn coldly away from the physical and spiritual needs of others. Love overcomes separation and creates participation in which there is more than that which the individuals involved can bring to it. Love is the infinite which is given to the finite. Therefore we love in others, for we do not merely love others, but we love the Love that is in them and which is more than their or our love. In mutual assistance what is most important is not the alleviation of need but the actualization of love. Of course, there is no love which does not want to make the other's need its own. But there is also no love which does not spring from love and create love. Those who fight against death and disintegration through all kinds of relief agencies know this. Often very little external help is possible. And the gratitude of those who receive help is first and always gratitude for love and only afterwards gratitude for help. Love, not help, is stronger than death. But there is no love which does not become help. Where help is given without love, there new suffering grows from the help.

It is love, human and divine, which overcomes death in nations and generations and in all the horror of our time. Help has become almost impossible in the face of the monstrous powers which we are experiencing. Death is given power over everything finite, especially in our period of history. But death is given no power over love. Love is stronger. It creates something new out of the destruction caused by death; it bears everything and overcomes everything. It is at work where the power of death is strongest, in war and persecution and homelessness and hunger and physical death itself. It is omnipresent and here and there, in the smallest and most hidden ways as in the greatest and most visible ones, it rescues life from death. It rescues each of us, for love is stronger than death."

- Paul Tillich

(From The New Being by Paul Tillich, 1955,
reprinted in God's Treasury of Virtues, An Inspirational Collection of Stories, Quotes, Hymns, Scriptures and Poetry)