A bar's rest is as important and significant as a bar of demisemiquavers that precedes it. What I'm trying to say here is that if ever I'm asked if I'm religious, I always reply that, yes, I'm a devout musician. Music puts me in touch with something beyond the intellect, something otherworldly, something sacred. These pieces speak to me in the only religious language I understand. It's very hard to talk about music in words.
Words are superfluous to the abstract power of music.
We can fashion words into poetry so that they are understood the way music is understood, but they only aspire to the condition where music already exists. Music is probably the oldest religious rite. Our ancestors used melody and rhythm to co-opt the spirit world to their purposes, to try and make sense of the universe. The first priests were probably musicians, the first prayers probably songs. What I'm getting round to saying is that as musicians, whether we're successful, playing to thousands of people every night, or not so successful, playing in bars or small clubs, or not successful at all, just playing alone in the apartment to your cat, we are doing something that can heal souls, that can mend us when our spirits are broken.