Ideas for Future Development: Music and Abandonment to Divine Providence

Most Catholics have heard of J.P. de Caussade's famous book Abandoment to Divine Providence, a.k.a. The Sacrament of the Present Moment.

This book has been a lifesaver for me. But I have long thought that we are desperately in need of a practical means to teach people what exactly living the Sacrament of the Present Moment looks like in day to day life.

I have recently begun learning how to play the electronic keyboard from sheet music. This seems to me to be a very good arena to teach the practice of Abandonment.

An "arena" in the same sense, perhaps C.J.S. Hayward in his Technonomicon describes wine as a training area to cultivate the virtue of self-control:

One classic attitude to wine was not “We forbid drinking wine,” or even “It would be better not to drink wine at all, but a little bit does not do too much damage,” but goes beyond saying, “The pleasure of wine was given by God as good” to saying: “Wine is an important training ground to learn the Ascesis of moderation, and learn a lesson that cannot be escaped: we are not obligated to learn moderation in wine, but if we do not drink wine, we still need moderation in work, play, eating, and everything else, and many of us would do well to grow up in Ascesis in the training arena of enjoying wine and be better prepared for other areas of life where the need for the Ascesis of moderation, of saying ‘when’ and drawing limits, is not only something we should not dodge: it is something we can never escape.”

(C.J.S. Hayward, Technonomicon, #39)