13 November

Today’s the day when in 1940 Walt Disney’s film Fantasia was first released. The unusual animated film had no plot; it was an ambitious, artistic attempt to marry music and animation in a new way. The film's many animated sequences ranged from Mickey Mouse in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" to dancing hippos in "The Dance of the Hours." In 1999, the film was updated and re-released as Fantasia 2000, with new sequences to music including Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Disney had successfully shown that music does not just have to be the background to films – it can be the subject, because music is a wonderful gift from God that has great power to move us deeply and enable us to express ourselves in a way that words cannot. So it’s no wonder that God commands a fantasia of praise from the full orchestra of created things. This is how Psalm 150 puts it:

Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.