Last week's SGM meeting was centered on the topic of music. Each of us brought (on CD or tape) a favorite piece of music, 3 to 5 minutes max. Each person introduced his/her music and described how and why this music is central or important.

People brought German Lieder, Bach Inventions, Country and Western songs, folk, rock, blues, Gregorian chant. I brought music of the Celtic Harp (The Chieftains) and played Turlough O'Carolan's Concerto as my selection.

Carolan's Concerto (how I wish I could play it for you!) is instrumental, with harp, fiddle, flute and bodhran. The fiddle is wild, pushing the musical edges, the bodhran beats the heart of the piece, and the harp is the solid, musical middle, tone and harmony together.

I was put in mind of a responsive reading we did a few weeks ago. It recounted how the marginal people of the world have provided us with poetry, music, art, political and social innovation--and have often been rejected, reviled, and despised for not "fitting in" and for pushing the edges of what is legal and socially acceptable. The ones who are different; the dreamers.

Yet it is the margins that hold the center. Without the margins (the riverbanks), the floodwaters would spread chaotically and amorphously over the plain. Society would have no boundaries, no standards, no civilization. The margins define and are essential to the center.

Just as in Carolan's music the wildness of the fiddle defines as well as pushes the musical boundaries, the harp, deep and musical, flows along with the melody, the mainstream melody.

The margins hold the center.