My brother-in-law sent me a book because he knew I’d enjoy reading it (which means he knows me pretty well!). He was right. The book is “How Music Works” and it is by David Byrne, an icon in the New York music scene. He is a brilliant and innovative musician and songwriter, who defies being defined by a label or two. Byrne described writing the music for a very complicated stage piece and referenced those times when great trauma—war, natural disaster, terrorist attack—draws people together in muscular and compassionate response.

He wrote, “All these events have in common a magical and all too brief moment when class and other social differences vanish, and a common humanity becomes evident. These moments often last only a few days, but they have a profound and lasting impact on the participants, who witness a door cracked open a little to reveal a better world, one whose existence they never forget.” As much as I respect David Byrne and his wide-ranging education, I think he lacks the perspective to describe the “better world” to which he points. What is seen in the response to wrenching trauma is the kingdom of God, the life that God always had in mind for us. The reason the participants never forget is because they resonate with the knowledge that such a world is the way it’s supposed to be; it’s the way we’re supposed to be.

“And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will he kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:26-28 ESV).

There is a way the world was always meant to be and it didn’t include death, sickness, disaster, and malicious bloodshed. All people everywhere were meant to live in harmonious interaction, farming and maintaining the earth in such a way that we participated in God’s joyous creation. We were commanded to “be fruitful,” not to overwhelm and conquer and crush all other life, but to cultivate and tend and groom the world as it demonstrated the power and beauty of God. Instead, we seized it as our own property, in competition with all other life, especially other people, intent to bend all creation to our own desires, no matter what. But sometimes our selfishness snaps back on us and forces us to admit, just for a bit, that God’s way is right and ours is wrong.

People swarm to rescue others, to heal and comfort and support and bless those wounded. For a moment the glory of God breaks through as we act like we should. This is what Jesus proclaimed in His ministry—redemption, the possibility that we can be restored to God’s true purposes. This is what He effected in absorbing all the cruelty, the lies, the exploitation, the hatred, the raw human nastiness, in His death on the cross. This is what He inaugurated in His triumphal resurrection and ascension to the throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The door is cracked open and the light bursts into our darkness and we thrill to the glimpse of the life we were always meant to live.