God is a dotted crotchet

Dorothy Searle considers language, metaphor and the divine

by Dorothy Searle 22nd June 2018

I belong to Southampton Philharmonic Choir. We’re not connected to any particular religious group, but we perform many masses and other religious works. Our conductor, who is probably the main reason we’ve achieved such a high standard, has made two remarks that have stuck in my memory. ‘God is a dotted crochet’ was a strange idea that sent my mind off at a tangent, but of course it made perfect sense in its original context. On another occasion, when he was indicating the approach we should take to a particular work, he commented that it didn’t matter what we believed – as long as we believed in something. This struck a chord with me.