Amid the busyness of semester's end, I've been keeping myself happy and motivated via music---and some modest new blog posts about favorite music. Here is a post from Jan. 2011 about the contemporary composer Ned Rorem.
Rorem was born in Richmond, IN in 1923. He lived in France from 1949-1958 and wrote about those years in "The Paris Diary" and "The New York Diary." Among his hundreds of works are "Spring Symphony," "Sunday Morning," "Evidence of Things Not Seen," "Eagles," symphonies, concertos, chamber works, and songs. Many artists and conductors have performed his music, including Bernstein, Ormandy, Previn, mezzo Susan Graham, Itzhak Perlman, and others. Time magazine once called him "the world's best composer of art songs," a quote one often sees in any discussion of his music. According to his bio (http://www.nedrorem.com/bio.html) he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for "Air Music," and also a Fulbright Fellowship and a Guggenheim fellowship. Among many other honors, he won the ASCAP's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the French government named him Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Much of Rorem's music is available. So far I've downloaded some of Rorem's chamber music like "Book of Hours for Flute and Harp," and also the "String Symphony," "Sunday Morning," "Seven Motets for the Church Year," "Three Motets on Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins," "Three Hymn Anthems," the second piano concerto, and the cello concerto. I also have a CD of Susan Graham's lovely recording of several songs.
Rorem is well known for his prose writing. "The Paris Diaries" (1966) made Rorem "a pioneer of modern gay culture, speaking freely and fearlessly of his desires," according to Alex Ross in his appreciative article, "The Gentleman Composer: Eighty Years of Ned Rorem" (New Yorker, Oct. 20, 2003: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/01/20/031020crmu_music) Rorem has also written essays, a memoir called "Knowing When to Stop" (which ends at 1951, the year of his first published diary), and a series of diaries, two of which I love to dip into.
I discovered Rorem via a book catalog listing of the diary "Lies" (covering the years 1986-1999). The description introduced the book as a compendium of musical analysis, gossip, cultural observation, and sexual fantasies, a combination which sounded intriguing. There aren't many of the latter (one concerns the sunglass-wearing cop who questions Janet Leigh in "Psycho"). But I've enjoyed Rorem's many comments on music, culture, celebrities whom he knows, and the domestic life of him and his partner, organist James Holmes. The entries for 1995-1999 are heartbreaking as Rorem writes of Holmes' decline and death from cancer and AIDS. As the introductory essay states, a diary may be among the best ways to depict the tragedy of AIDS and its slow, cruel progress.
Not long afterward, I found a copy of "The Nantucket Diary," which covers the years 1973-1985. This longer diary is also very enjoyable to dip into as Rorem similarly makes judgments and observations about the musical world, grumbles about slights and medical problems, and shares aspects of his and Holmes' domestic relations and their lives in both New York City and Nantucket.
Here are a few representative entries---I hope I haven't quoted too much.
*****
"In writing vocal music I have never used special effects--no whines, shrieks, whispers, elongations, nor even world repetitions. My aim toward poetry is, I suppose, to intensify rather than to reinterpret. In a word, my music is expressivity, rather than novelty." (ND, p. 39).
"Alcoholism, like homosexuality, is something outsiders never quite grasp. But whereas alcoholism is by all standards bad, homosexuality is not. Homosexuality is only a problem to those who make it one. Yet even during the sixties, when youth practiced tolerance in the antiwar movement, gayety was never a real part of the scene. Radical liberals have always been more queasy about sexual "deviation" than have capitalists, while tolerating, even encouraging, drugs and drink." (ND, p. 153)
"Sopranos, like cheesecakes, are of two kinds: velvet or satin, vanilla or chocolate, silver or gold. The moist voice of Leontyne Price versus the diamond streak of Judy Collins." (ND, p. 165)
"An artist declares: "I never repeat myself: that way lies sterile boredom," and the public thrills: an artist never repeats himself! Well, you know and I know that they know that the declaration is pure bunk. An artist may consciously try to avoid self-imitation, yet it's not for him to know, finally, whether in fact he succeeds.... The best of us have no more than four or five ideas during our whole life; we spend that life chiseling those ideas into various communicating shapes. that sentence states one of my four or five ideas, and I've said it over and over." (ND, p. 409)
"The startling lack of charm in all of [Elliott] Carter's music, early and late, when he himself possess so much of it. To say that his music "reflects our time" and can't afford charm is to know all times. You who know all times, tell us: What time was ever without anguish? (Tom Prentiss in his latest letter: "Concerning repetition: E. Carter declares his dislike of it, which is just as well; we need listen to his work but once.")" (ND, p. 443)
"Has anyone, even Britten in War Requiem, made music about war that is as harrowing as the bare bones displayed daily in newscasts? The whole question about what should and shouldn't be set to music (and why one chooses this text and another chooses that text, and how their musical--as well as their literary--approaches differ) is settled only by the realization of the mad illegitimacy of any setting of any text." (ND, p. 535)
"Poulenc never penned an original note: every measure can be traced to Chopin, or Mussorgsky, or Ravel, or Stravinsky, or even Faure whom he reviled. Yet every measure can be instantly identified as sheer Poulenc, by that mad touch of personal chutzpah that no critic can define" (Lies, p. 15)
"Debussy looks like Mandy Patinkin" (Lies, p. 56)
"I gave you the best years of my life.
Yes, and it's I who made them the best years" (Lies, p. 107)
"Last night reread Letters to a Young Poet for the first time in 45 years. I never quite bought it in 1943 while a student at Curtis, and I still don't buy it. Humorless biblical clichés about dedication and sacrifice. But Rilke was not that much older (only 27) than the Young Poet when he penned these truths, and still no doubt felt there were formulas for a good life." (Lies, p. 134).
"The Beaux Arts Trio, for whom Spring Music was written as a gift from Carnegie Hall, have had the music for close to a year without giving a sign of its receipt, much less of whether they like it. Since the premiere is tomorrow, I swallowed my pride last week and phoned the Trio. It hadn't occurred to them that the composer might want to hear it. Rehearsal yesterday.
"Spring Music lasts 31 1/2 minutes--seven minutes longer than I'd projected--and I'm glad: Its imminent public failure will carry more weight." (Lies, p. 207)
"Went to Angels in America, from duty and guilt (I never go the theater anymore but am always sounding off about it), and from opportunism and curiosity (maybe Kushner will write me a libretto). Well, you can't laugh it off, and I did sit through till the end. But nothing that long can be all good, and much of it is easily trimmed. Well-acted but unmoving, often vulgar. Not just the endless "fuck you" screams from one and all, but also the pandering to the all-too-willing audience..." (Lies, p. 255)
"I do read. The usual Simeon, including the dud Maigret et le voleur paresseux and the Balzacian masterpiece Le Petit Homme d'Arkhangelsk. The short stories of William Maxwell, which, in their potless New Yorkerish idiom, never quite take the plunge, though they move the non-intellectual heart. To re-examine the last of Flaubert's Trois Contes, called "Hérodias," is to discover how much of a slave the master was to brand names, like Judaic tribes and types of precious stone; how the story, paradoxically, is high camp without humor; and how Wilde's Salomé owes its very existence, if not its superiority, to this narrative." (Lies, p. 336)
*****
To me, living a very artistic and cultural life holds an analogous and perhaps even greater attraction as Thoreau's Walden. But not many of us are going to live a solitary life beside a pond, and fewer of us are going to contribute importantly to art and culture and to share time with famous people. (Rorem shared a cab with John Updike and later regretted his testiness to what seemed like Updike's foolish question about composing.) But how enjoyable to imagine such a life, as one reads Rorem's thoughts about other composers (he was friends with Barber, Copland, Thomson, Bernstein, and others), and his complaints about the acclaim lavished upon certain performers (Itzhak Perlman is a frequent irritant) while many composers are treated indifferently. (In an interview, Rorem notes that "America is the only country in the whole world that is embarrassed by art. The minute art is mentioned, it becomes a conspiracy. Like Mappelthorpe and the NEA. With all of this discouragement, a composer is not even a despised parish, because in order to be despised he has to exist. A composer doesn't even exist in the ken of the intellectual public. The irony is that there are more young composers around than there ever were before." Quoted from: http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/distler/rorem-interview.php)
In the earlier quoted article, Alex Ross notes that "Rorem was among the last American artists to pull of a plausible Parisian exile, and when he came back, in 1957, he found that composers were being hailed not for the excellence of their craft but for the extravagance of their theories. Time passed, and Rorem kept writing. The high-powered modernists who dismissed him as irrelevant became irrelevant themselves."
Ross continues: "A paradox haunts Rorem’s career. He insists that he has no interest in making “Major Statements,” yet he has always longed to be taken seriously—to have major statements made about him. He has grumbled many times in print over the genuflections rendered toward an atonal showman such as Elliott Carter...Indeed, Carter has benefited from a version of the intentional fallacy, according to which any music that is complex in design is automatically held to be complex in effect. Rorem’s scores seem, by comparison, modest and naïve, but this description applies only to their surface, and not to their emotional or psychological import. Rorem resembles such latter-day figurative painters as Fairfield Porter and Jane Freilicher, who followed the onslaught of Abstract Expressionism with landscapes and still-lifes. Their deceptively conventional images conceal large, ambiguous worlds of feeling.... "
Ross concludes,"To read Rorem’s writing is to feel the agony and the bravery of composing in America. Anyone who writes music for a living is a hero, and Rorem is more heroic than most, because he has compromised so little of what he holds dear. His prose will outlast the sneering of his critics, and his music is too mysteriously sweet to die away." (New Yorker, Oct. 20, 2003: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/01/20/031020crmu_music)
After reading Rorem's many expressions of appreciation of and love for Holmes---and his inability to comprehend how he could live without Holmes' companionship and practical skills---I feel sad (for what it's worth) that Rorem has had to live without him for twelve years. (Holmes died in January 1999, aged 59.) I plan soon to order Rorem's more recent writings. A quick survey of the internet reveals recent performances of his works, for instance the new Hudson Chorale. And this afternoon I'm listening to the symphonic suite Sunday Morning and the lovely chamber work, Romeo and Juliet for Flute and Guitar.
Works quoted:
The Nantucket Diary of Ned Rorem, 1973-1985, by Ned Rorem. North Point Press, 1987.
Lies: A Diary, 1986-1999, by Ned Rorem. Da Capo Press, 2002.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Alberto Ginastera
Looking around at LPs and CDs on eBay the other day, I spotted a collection of choral music, Oratio: 20th Century Sacred Music from Spain and Latin America on the Guild label. Among the several pieces by a variety of composers, the first is Lamentations of Jeremiah, a short but moving choral piece by Alberto Ginastera.
I enjoy classical music that employs folk or national themes, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, my first acquaintance with this kind of music (before I knew of Copland and Vaughan Williams), was Ginastera, an Argentinian composer who lived from 1916 till 1983. The last movement of his 1961 piano concerto was recorded as a prog-rock song on a 1973 Emerson, Lake and Palmer album, and I wanted to hear the whole concerto. Of course, the only way I could find an unusual recording like that concerto (that is, an LP not typically carried in stores) was to order it through a record store, which I did: the LP directed by Erich Leinsdorf with the pianist (also renowned for his Bach interpretations) João Carlos Martins. The other side of the LP was Variaciones concertantes (1953), which I liked just as much. Eventually I ordered LPs of the Concerto for Strings (1966), the second string quartet, and the 1956 Harp Concerto. The record store in the St. Clair Square mall near St. Louis was quite helpful.
A good source that summarizes Ginastera’s life and work is: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/ginastera.php Checking out this and a few other online sources, I learned that Ginastera’s music fit into three periods, “Objective Nationalism” (1934-1948), “Subjective Nationalism” (1948-1958), and “Neo-Expressionism” (1958-1983), that latter of which still incorporates Argentine elements but in a more abstract way. Ginastera stands with Villa-Lobos as major 20th century Latin American composers.
Here is Ginastera's Lamentations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89dm67EHU5c Here are the lovely Variaciones concertantes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_XzPostC6g
Here also is that final movement of the first piano concerto---and I still have the LP after all these years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMVAQWTYw2A&feature=relmfu And finally, here is Emerson, Lake and Palmer's rendition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXZE5E-23Ck
I enjoy classical music that employs folk or national themes, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, my first acquaintance with this kind of music (before I knew of Copland and Vaughan Williams), was Ginastera, an Argentinian composer who lived from 1916 till 1983. The last movement of his 1961 piano concerto was recorded as a prog-rock song on a 1973 Emerson, Lake and Palmer album, and I wanted to hear the whole concerto. Of course, the only way I could find an unusual recording like that concerto (that is, an LP not typically carried in stores) was to order it through a record store, which I did: the LP directed by Erich Leinsdorf with the pianist (also renowned for his Bach interpretations) João Carlos Martins. The other side of the LP was Variaciones concertantes (1953), which I liked just as much. Eventually I ordered LPs of the Concerto for Strings (1966), the second string quartet, and the 1956 Harp Concerto. The record store in the St. Clair Square mall near St. Louis was quite helpful.
A good source that summarizes Ginastera’s life and work is: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/ginastera.php Checking out this and a few other online sources, I learned that Ginastera’s music fit into three periods, “Objective Nationalism” (1934-1948), “Subjective Nationalism” (1948-1958), and “Neo-Expressionism” (1958-1983), that latter of which still incorporates Argentine elements but in a more abstract way. Ginastera stands with Villa-Lobos as major 20th century Latin American composers.
Here is Ginastera's Lamentations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89dm67EHU5c Here are the lovely Variaciones concertantes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_XzPostC6g
Here also is that final movement of the first piano concerto---and I still have the LP after all these years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMVAQWTYw2A&feature=relmfu And finally, here is Emerson, Lake and Palmer's rendition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXZE5E-23Ck
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
God and Vending Machines
A post from last spring .... Reading the devotions in Augsburg Press' The Word in Season booklet (the January, February, Marcy 2011 issue), I enjoyed the March 7 devotion by Katherine Olson, reflecting upon Psalm 78:18. She writes, "Imagine that you put correct change into a vending machine, pressed the button for the soda you wanted, and ended up getting another kind instead. 'Lousy machine!' you'd grumble."
She continues: "Do we have a temptation to treat our gracious Lord like a faulty vending machine when our prayers are not answered exactly the way we imagined? We might think that by praying a certain way, we are putting in correct change and pressing the right button. When we don't get what we are looking for, we assume the fault lies with God." Olson concludes that we can seek daily to trust God to know what we what we need.
I enjoyed this devotion partly because of a personal experience. During a weekend trip, I tried to get a diet cola from a motel vending machine. Watching calories, and mildly allergic to corn (and thus the corn syrup used in soft drinks), I stick with diet varieties. But on two attempts, mindful that I pushed the correct vending machine button, I got regular rather than diet colas. Three's a charm, I thought.... but I got a regular lemon-lime drink! "Damn machine," I shamefully grumbled. Giving up, I took the sodas home in case my daughter wanted them when she returned home from college.
I hesitate to use myself as a devotional example for anything, but when I read Olson's piece, I thought that my experience might be a good way to think about unanswered prayer. If we don't feel like God is answering our prayers quickly enough, if at all, we might ask: what positive thing can I do with this disappointment? Could someone else be helped by this experience? What positive things can I be doing with my life (including helping other people) amid this situation of unanswered or not-yet-answered prayer?
The answer to your prayer might be found in the things you do while waiting! This may not always be the case, but it's worth being open, flexible, and watchful. God answered some of my prayers in amazing serendipitous events that happened while I was waiting to see why God was taking so long to help me!
She continues: "Do we have a temptation to treat our gracious Lord like a faulty vending machine when our prayers are not answered exactly the way we imagined? We might think that by praying a certain way, we are putting in correct change and pressing the right button. When we don't get what we are looking for, we assume the fault lies with God." Olson concludes that we can seek daily to trust God to know what we what we need.
I enjoyed this devotion partly because of a personal experience. During a weekend trip, I tried to get a diet cola from a motel vending machine. Watching calories, and mildly allergic to corn (and thus the corn syrup used in soft drinks), I stick with diet varieties. But on two attempts, mindful that I pushed the correct vending machine button, I got regular rather than diet colas. Three's a charm, I thought.... but I got a regular lemon-lime drink! "Damn machine," I shamefully grumbled. Giving up, I took the sodas home in case my daughter wanted them when she returned home from college.
I hesitate to use myself as a devotional example for anything, but when I read Olson's piece, I thought that my experience might be a good way to think about unanswered prayer. If we don't feel like God is answering our prayers quickly enough, if at all, we might ask: what positive thing can I do with this disappointment? Could someone else be helped by this experience? What positive things can I be doing with my life (including helping other people) amid this situation of unanswered or not-yet-answered prayer?
The answer to your prayer might be found in the things you do while waiting! This may not always be the case, but it's worth being open, flexible, and watchful. God answered some of my prayers in amazing serendipitous events that happened while I was waiting to see why God was taking so long to help me!
Saturday, April 21, 2012
The Bible is Thickly Wooded
“Trees in church! declared a Facebook friend, referring to the royal wedding between WIlliam and Catherine. Not having gotten up early to watch, I noticed in the film clips that, sure enough, Westminster Abbey was full of trees! Specifically, according to an online source, six field maples and two hornbeams.
Trees in church... what about trees in the Bible? It didn’t take me too long to realize that the Bible is arboreus. So in honor of springtime, and of Earth Day tomorrow, here is a lighthearted search form “woody” texts.
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water (Ex 15:27).
On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic trees branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days (Lev. 23:40).
You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off (Deut. 28:40)
When David inquired of the Lord, he said, “You shall not go up; go round to their rear, and come upon them opposite the balsam trees (2 Sam. 5:23).
He went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak tree. He said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” He answered, “I am.” (1 Kings 13:14).
But he himself went on a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” (1 Kings 19:4).
Over the olive and sycamore trees in the Shephelah was Baal-hanan the Gederite. Over the stores of oil was Joash (1 Chr. 27:28).
"[A]nd that they should publish and proclaim in all their towns and in Jerusalem as follows, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths (“tabernacles,” in Hebrew succoth), as it is written” (Neh. 8:15).
The lotus trees cover it for shade; the willows of the wadi surround it (Job 40: )
The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of lebanon that he planted. In them the birds built their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees (Ps. 104:16-17).
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste (Song of Songs 2:3).
You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters (Song of Songs 7:7).
He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it (Isa. 44:14).
The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs; the plane trees were as nothing compared with its branches; no tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty (Ez. 31:8).
The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple--- all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people (Joel 1:12).
In the night I saw a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen; and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses (Zech. 1:8).
Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit (Matt. 12:33).
There are more references to trees in the BIble, but among other notable ones are: Abraham’s tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba (Gen. 21:33), Jonah’s leafy tree (John 4), Jesus’ illustrative mustard tree (Matt. 12:33, Luke 17:6), the doomed fig tree (Matt. 21:19), Zacchaeus’ sycamore (Luke 19:4), Paul’s figurative olive tree (Romans 11:17, 24), the palm trees that supplied branches for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (John 12:13), the olive trees that stand before the Lord (Rev. 11:4), and many others. Could you describe ways that trees function within the Bible’s sections: Torah, History, Writings, Prophets, Gospels, and Epistles? Write me a ten page paper, ha ha ...
Most of all, trees are biblically connected with life and salvation, in the normal physical sense of being essential to physical life as well as connections to spiritual realities. Bible texts are interconnected with trees, beginning middle and end: the Trees of Life and of Good and Evil in Eden, the cypress wood that formed the saving Ark, the acacia wood used for the Tabernacle and its various components (Ex. 25, 30, 36-39), the Lebanon cedar and other woods used in Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 5-7, 2 Chr. 2-4), the wood of Christ’s manger, the cross (the “tree” on which Christ took our curse: Deut. 21:22-23; Gal. 3:3) and finally the restored tree of life of Revelation 22:2: On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Trees in church... what about trees in the Bible? It didn’t take me too long to realize that the Bible is arboreus. So in honor of springtime, and of Earth Day tomorrow, here is a lighthearted search form “woody” texts.
Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water (Ex 15:27).
On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic trees branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days (Lev. 23:40).
You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off (Deut. 28:40)
When David inquired of the Lord, he said, “You shall not go up; go round to their rear, and come upon them opposite the balsam trees (2 Sam. 5:23).
He went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak tree. He said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” He answered, “I am.” (1 Kings 13:14).
But he himself went on a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” (1 Kings 19:4).
Over the olive and sycamore trees in the Shephelah was Baal-hanan the Gederite. Over the stores of oil was Joash (1 Chr. 27:28).
"[A]nd that they should publish and proclaim in all their towns and in Jerusalem as follows, “Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths (“tabernacles,” in Hebrew succoth), as it is written” (Neh. 8:15).
The lotus trees cover it for shade; the willows of the wadi surround it (Job 40: )
The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of lebanon that he planted. In them the birds built their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees (Ps. 104:16-17).
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste (Song of Songs 2:3).
You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters (Song of Songs 7:7).
He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it (Isa. 44:14).
The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs; the plane trees were as nothing compared with its branches; no tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty (Ez. 31:8).
The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple--- all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people (Joel 1:12).
In the night I saw a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen; and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses (Zech. 1:8).
Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit (Matt. 12:33).
There are more references to trees in the BIble, but among other notable ones are: Abraham’s tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba (Gen. 21:33), Jonah’s leafy tree (John 4), Jesus’ illustrative mustard tree (Matt. 12:33, Luke 17:6), the doomed fig tree (Matt. 21:19), Zacchaeus’ sycamore (Luke 19:4), Paul’s figurative olive tree (Romans 11:17, 24), the palm trees that supplied branches for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (John 12:13), the olive trees that stand before the Lord (Rev. 11:4), and many others. Could you describe ways that trees function within the Bible’s sections: Torah, History, Writings, Prophets, Gospels, and Epistles? Write me a ten page paper, ha ha ...
Most of all, trees are biblically connected with life and salvation, in the normal physical sense of being essential to physical life as well as connections to spiritual realities. Bible texts are interconnected with trees, beginning middle and end: the Trees of Life and of Good and Evil in Eden, the cypress wood that formed the saving Ark, the acacia wood used for the Tabernacle and its various components (Ex. 25, 30, 36-39), the Lebanon cedar and other woods used in Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 5-7, 2 Chr. 2-4), the wood of Christ’s manger, the cross (the “tree” on which Christ took our curse: Deut. 21:22-23; Gal. 3:3) and finally the restored tree of life of Revelation 22:2: On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Friday, April 20, 2012
LP Boxed Sets
When we moved across town recently, I brought a quantity of LPs to the new house along with favorite books. Somewhere in the still unpacked belongings in the basement is more vinyl, some of which I've owned since my 1970s high school days. Several of the LPs I brought over myself are boxed sets that I've own for a shorter time, but still 25 or 30 years.
I enjoy a book by Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (Da Capo Press, 2001). Koestenbaum has an ability to connect ideas about opera, sexuality, and art in dazzling ways. For instance, this quotation on page 60:
“I loved the idea of opera before I loved opera: and what I love, in this idea of opera, was the boxed set. I saw the gold and silver letters of mysterious words (I masnadieri, Götterdämmerung) engraved on the black spines of albums so thick they seemed books... Records for complete operas, since the advent of the long-playing disc in 1950, have come in boxed sets. A box is the antithesis of opera--the cult of the huge, the expressive, the uncontained, the grandiose. And yet a box is quintessentially operatic, for opera involves passing air out through the voice box, and because the most privileged patrons sit in an opera box. A box is a sexually suggestive figure: vagina. A boxed-set opera in the long-playing era most frequently holds three discs, and thus has the respectable, familial stability of the traditional three-volume Victorian novel. The boxed set contains and compresses opera’s immensity, and the mythically huge bodies of singers...” In his book, Koestenbaum pursues a remarkable journey of love, opera love, sexuality, language, and critical thought about culture and music. (“The opera queen must choose one diva...only one diva can reign in the opera queen’s heart,” he writes on p. 19, reminding me of my best friend’s passion for Julie Andrews.)
My own love of LP boxed sets seems such a mixture of minor insecurity and sincerity, at least in my original love for the sets. I had a passion for music and musical discovery; and yet, fearful of seeming pretentious (and thus not being liked), I wouldn’t tell anyone, allowing my boxed sets (broad and readable among the many single LP sleeves) to tacitly announce my passion for anyone who visited my dorm room or my home. And there were those “mysterious words,” read with a sideways-tilted head---Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, Tannhäuser, Peter Grimes, Falstaff, Sämmtliche Cembalokonzerte, Messa da Requiem, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni. Those sets warmed my heart and, as I discovered this music over a period of time, such words alerted me each day to music to the music I need to spend time. But so did the words on the spines of beloved one-disc albums.
I also tend to be an eccentric listener to music, in that I get into the mood of listening to genres (organ music, opera, etc.), and I also like to explore big areas of a composer’s output. I loved Wagner and Britten and Mozart so I began to collect several sets until I had the entire Ring of the Niebelung and the rest of Wagner’s operas from Rienzi forward, and nearly all of Britten’s operas recorded on Decca/London (with those sets’ black spines and gold letters). I enjoyed LPs as art-objects, so to speak. My heart beat a little faster whenever I’d visit the college library and see all these opera sets and LP collections lining a wall. I have several CD boxed sets, and of course love the music. But as an object, the CDs never bring me as much aesthetic joy as LPs.
LPs are heavy en masse and take up space, and over the years I gave away sets because I didn’t listen to the music so much, but later I wished I’d kept as a keepsake. For instance, during a lonely time of living in the country, I found a dandy small-town used book store that also carried LPs, and I found Verdi’s Luisa Miller on an old gold-and-white boxed set from the Everest label. Eventually it was passed along to another such store, but I still remember the joy the set brought me, with its gold-and-white box humble in its comparative lack of glitz.
Others I’ve certainly kept. The earlier mentioned Marriage of Figaro, directed by Karl Bohm, is an purchase I can’t imagine giving up. The same is true with my several Wagner, Bach, Britten, and Mozart sets. Twenty years ago I spotted the colorful cover of a 6-LP collection of Haydn’s London symphonies, conducted by Karajan. The clerk said they had wondered who might seize that nice set, and I thought: Someone else appreciates the joys and discoveries of music in a box!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
"Change the World"
Some colleagues asked me to share information about "Change the World" weekend in the United Methodist Church.
"CTW weekend is May 19-20, and the goal is to get church members outside of church walls to come together and make a difference across the world, whether in their local communities at a soup kitchen or some service event, or by raising funds to fight death from malaria in Africa.
"The goal is to show United Methodists that we can come together to make a difference and that serving God goes beyond the church walls and should be a part of everyday life." Several links about the event can be found at: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.7706447/k.9615/Rethink_Church.htm
Reasons to involve your congregation can be found at this link: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.5106857/k.C7F1/Rethink_Church__Why_and_How_to_Involve_Your_Congregation.htm
Also, registration information can be found at: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.7085949/k.AA60/Change_the_World_Event_Registration_2012.htm?tr=y&auid=8363638
"The goal is to show United Methodists that we can come together to make a difference and that serving God goes beyond the church walls and should be a part of everyday life." Several links about the event can be found at: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.7706447/k.9615/Rethink_Church.htm
Reasons to involve your congregation can be found at this link: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.5106857/k.C7F1/Rethink_Church__Why_and_How_to_Involve_Your_Congregation.htm
Also, registration information can be found at: http://www.umcom.org/site/c.mrLZJ9PFKmG/b.7085949/k.AA60/Change_the_World_Event_Registration_2012.htm?tr=y&auid=8363638
Saturday, April 14, 2012
"A Theology of Taxation"
What an interesting piece at Brian McLaren's blog, "A Theology of Taxation" by Jim Burklo. http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/jim-burklo-of-progressive-christ.html
Burklo's piece dovetails with something else I read, Warren R. Copeland's book Doing Justice in Our Cities (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), where Copeland worries that Christians feel warmer about building a house for Habitat for Humanity because it's somehow more a "good cause" than dealing with federal and local laws about housing. In his city, Springfield, Ohio, Habitat constructed 40 homes but in one year Copeland (serving in local government) voted to support construction of over 200 housing units for low- and medium-income families, and the city government supported nearly 2000 other units. He writes, "Voluntary organizations provide a human touch and often a spiritual dimension that may be missing from government programs. however, ware are not about to meet the huge needs of our urban communities through voluntarism" (p. 73). "Both [government and voluntary groups] are essential to a democratic society" (p. 124). "I believe that the ethical principles of respect for the integrity of other human beings, recognition of the jut claims of our neighbors, and concern for the common good deserve our commitment [in both voluntary and civic service]" (p. 124).
I also thought of Eric Mount's Covenant, Community, and the Common Good (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1999), where he writes, "The government and voluntary associations should be partners, not adversaries, with respect to poverty programs, family problems, and environmental protection. One of the encouraging outcomes of welfare reform has been the necessity for community employers, community organizations, and voluntary associations to work together with the government offices to help people meet deadlines and to keep them from being plunged deeper into poverty. Rejection of government is not the answer" (p. 104).
What is needed, argues Mount, is a "shared membership in a national community or a global community" in which---through our service, civic participation, taxes, and programs---we have a shared sense of responsibility for one another (p. 156)---which is a God-given, biblical value.
(A lesson series that consider these issues is the curriculum "Faithful Citizen" from the Center for the Congregation in Public Life: http://congregationinpubliclife.org/DVDCurriculum.htm )
Burklo's piece dovetails with something else I read, Warren R. Copeland's book Doing Justice in Our Cities (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), where Copeland worries that Christians feel warmer about building a house for Habitat for Humanity because it's somehow more a "good cause" than dealing with federal and local laws about housing. In his city, Springfield, Ohio, Habitat constructed 40 homes but in one year Copeland (serving in local government) voted to support construction of over 200 housing units for low- and medium-income families, and the city government supported nearly 2000 other units. He writes, "Voluntary organizations provide a human touch and often a spiritual dimension that may be missing from government programs. however, ware are not about to meet the huge needs of our urban communities through voluntarism" (p. 73). "Both [government and voluntary groups] are essential to a democratic society" (p. 124). "I believe that the ethical principles of respect for the integrity of other human beings, recognition of the jut claims of our neighbors, and concern for the common good deserve our commitment [in both voluntary and civic service]" (p. 124).
I also thought of Eric Mount's Covenant, Community, and the Common Good (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1999), where he writes, "The government and voluntary associations should be partners, not adversaries, with respect to poverty programs, family problems, and environmental protection. One of the encouraging outcomes of welfare reform has been the necessity for community employers, community organizations, and voluntary associations to work together with the government offices to help people meet deadlines and to keep them from being plunged deeper into poverty. Rejection of government is not the answer" (p. 104).
What is needed, argues Mount, is a "shared membership in a national community or a global community" in which---through our service, civic participation, taxes, and programs---we have a shared sense of responsibility for one another (p. 156)---which is a God-given, biblical value.
(A lesson series that consider these issues is the curriculum "Faithful Citizen" from the Center for the Congregation in Public Life: http://congregationinpubliclife.org/DVDCurriculum.htm )
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Bernstein's "Mass"
A few years ago I purchased a humorous, Avanti-brand greeting card. The front of the card depicts a very grouchy cat on a yoga mat, doing stretches. The inside of the card reads, “I meditate, I do yoga, I chant … and I still want to smack someone!”
There are other versions of the "Mass" besides Bernstein’s and Alsop's, but Alsop’s is very fresh---she finds "the elusive Bernstein groove," as a Gramophone reviewer put it----and Jubilant Sykes is an emotional, affecting Celebrant. The XM host called attention to the Mass’s early 70s, Vietnam-era origins, but I did not think Mass betrayed much of its Zeitgeist, any more than “West Side Story” sounds like a specifically 50s piece. In fact, allowing for a few “groovy” lyrics, the music and Stephen Schwartz's words sound quite contemporary. When I enjoyed my Bernstein LPs years ago, I didn’t realize I was listening to “music of the future” (the way I didn’t realize the significance of “Sgt. Pepper” and “Dark Side of the Moon” when I heard those records). Bernstein’s intermingling of musical styles seemed distracting and inappropriate to critics at the time but seems entirely appropriate today---and pursued by other composers like John Adams.
The other day I played my CD set of Bernstein's "Mass," conducted by Marin Alsop, as I drove to work. I first heard this set a while back during a long trip, In honor of Leonard Bernstein’s birthday, the XM-radio classical station played this then-brand new recording.
At that point, I hadn't listened to the piece for many years. I first heard it when our area PBS station broadcast a production of the piece in 1974 or 1975, then I purchased the first LP set of the "Mass," conducted by Bernstein. soon afterward. I loved it and played those LPs in my college and div school dorm rooms. The vinyl became worse for wear and I never replaced it.
So when the XM station played Alsop's recording, I hadn't listened to the piece for many years. Listening to an hour-and-a-half piece while driving in one’s car is not exactly an “experience,” but I was quite moved all over again by the Mass. Hearing the entire piece uninterrupted was valuable. Mile after mile, I enjoyed favorite passages: “A Simple Song,” which a friend used at her ordination …the jazzy "In Domine Patris"… the skeptical, honest “I Don’t Know”… the pretty “Gloria Tibi” … the fearful “World Without End”… the hopeful “Our Father”/”I Go On” … the most beautiful and uplifting song, “Sanctus” …the stomping, sarcastic “Agnus Dei” .... the protest march “Dona Nobis Pacem” … the aria “Things Get Broken”… and finally the hushed conclusion. If I ever see "Mass" performed live, I'm sure I'll bawl my head off the way I do when we see "Les Miz."
So when the XM station played Alsop's recording, I hadn't listened to the piece for many years. Listening to an hour-and-a-half piece while driving in one’s car is not exactly an “experience,” but I was quite moved all over again by the Mass. Hearing the entire piece uninterrupted was valuable. Mile after mile, I enjoyed favorite passages: “A Simple Song,” which a friend used at her ordination …the jazzy "In Domine Patris"… the skeptical, honest “I Don’t Know”… the pretty “Gloria Tibi” … the fearful “World Without End”… the hopeful “Our Father”/”I Go On” … the most beautiful and uplifting song, “Sanctus” …the stomping, sarcastic “Agnus Dei” .... the protest march “Dona Nobis Pacem” … the aria “Things Get Broken”… and finally the hushed conclusion. If I ever see "Mass" performed live, I'm sure I'll bawl my head off the way I do when we see "Les Miz."
There are other versions of the "Mass" besides Bernstein’s and Alsop's, but Alsop’s is very fresh---she finds "the elusive Bernstein groove," as a Gramophone reviewer put it----and Jubilant Sykes is an emotional, affecting Celebrant. The XM host called attention to the Mass’s early 70s, Vietnam-era origins, but I did not think Mass betrayed much of its Zeitgeist, any more than “West Side Story” sounds like a specifically 50s piece. In fact, allowing for a few “groovy” lyrics, the music and Stephen Schwartz's words sound quite contemporary. When I enjoyed my Bernstein LPs years ago, I didn’t realize I was listening to “music of the future” (the way I didn’t realize the significance of “Sgt. Pepper” and “Dark Side of the Moon” when I heard those records). Bernstein’s intermingling of musical styles seemed distracting and inappropriate to critics at the time but seems entirely appropriate today---and pursued by other composers like John Adams.
What struck me especially was the role of the Celebrant. Mass follows the Tridentine Latin rite, but “street singers” persist in interrupting the service with complaints, faith-struggles, personal regrets, questions about God’s concern for the world, blasphemies ("God said 'Let there be light'... and it was goddamn good!"), and ultimately threats of violence and destruction. I thought of Job and his friends, but in this case, the “friends” complain about God’s supposed goodness rather than defending it. Amid that cacophonous, 6/8 “Dona Nobis Pacem”, the Celebrant has his own crisis of faith and breakdown, smashing the consecrated host. Following a long solo (reminiscent of the mad scene in the last act of Britten’s "Peter Grimes"), the street people return to quiet songs of praises. With a whispered "pax tecum," they bring the Celebrant back into their group and with a song and a benediction, the mass ends.
The Celebrant had been discouraged and broken by the protests of the street people. Lord knows enough pastors, unintentionally isolated within their calling, become disillusioned and wearied by the endless needs of congregations. But I wonder (considering the way peace is restored to the people following his breakdown) whether his suffering is also intended to be vicarious. He takes the people's struggles and doubts into himself, and sings fragments of their melodies. When he drops the cup, shocking though his “accident” is, Christ’s blood is shed. At the end, we may not have the world peace demanded in the "Dona Nobis Pacem," but we have a "secret song," the peace of fellowship and reconciliation.
Without a commentary (like the CD’s notes), you might not realize how Beethoven’s vision of fellowship in the Ninth Symphony is reworked for the Mass---and is a key to the whole piece. As the CD notes quote Bernstein, “And what about the FInale of Beethoven’s Ninth---that sudden awestruck moment of recognizing the Divine Presence?.... Beethoven suspends all tonal harmony, leaving only harmonic implications; that’s what makes it so suddenly awesome, unrooted in earth, extra-terrestrial---so that when earthly harmony does return the incandescent A major triad does indeed cry ‘Brueder’!---Universal brothers all emerging together from that non-earthly Divinity” (p. 6). Beethoven’s theme is briefly quoted in the section "Meditation No. 2" but those harmonic implications are modeled in the Mass’ opening section, and also the theme is reworked in the Celebrant’s “mad scene,” finally making a bridge to the final song.
I was not raised Roman Catholic, and when I purchased the album, it became the way I learned the classic, beautiful language of the Latin rite. What a way to learn sacred words, you might think! But in the intervening years, I’ve heard those words so many times: baroque pieces, the Vivaldi's Gloria, the requiems of Brahms and and Durufle and Faure, John Rutter's music, and numerous others. Hearing the words as I'd first learned them was startling.
They are wonderful words. The church, being both divine and human, may sometimes contain politics, empty gestures, and false-seeming pieties. But the liturgical words are not empty. They speak truth. Set to music, they bring you all the more close to God.
But … faith is a struggle, and although the words are true, we may have no idea how to understand and “live” those truths. A few years ago the media reported that Mother Theresa had had severe doubts and concerns in her faith and ministry. I thought … duh. The deeper you go into real faith (as opposed to a kind of shallow respectability) you may encounter dark places and questions you can’t answer. In the words of my greeting card, you do all the correct religious things … but sometimes you still feel badly. Sometimes you still want to slap someone. Sometimes God seems far away. Sometimes you accuse God. Read Psalm 42, 143, and others, and you know that such feelings aren’t alien to Holy Scripture. Bernstein and Schwartz and their extravagant, Talmudic commentary on the Latin mass invite us to think, doubt, and feel--with one another, within the context of worship.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Late Schubert
The article discusses several of Schubert’s late works, like the Mass in E flat. Wigmore writes, “The apocalyptic, harmonically visionary Sanctus is a musical counterpart of the molten canvases of Turner and late Goya, while the ‘Domine Deus’ and the Agnus Dei are unprecedented in their violent intensity” (p 28). There is the song cycle posthumously titled Schwanengesang. There are also the piano sonatas in C minor, A major, and B flat major (D 958, 959, and 960), and the C major string quintet. Schubert also began to sketch a D major symphony which, according to one pianist interviewed by Wigmore, looks ahead to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.
Another pianist, Alfred Brendel, is quoted, “Mozart lived his life and arrived at a kind of late style. Schubert, on the contrary, was in the middle of a tremendous development when he died.” Wigmore continues, “with theose visionary late works in mind it is hard---far harder than with Mozart, as Brendel implies---to escape an aching sense of what might have been” (p. 33).
Monday, April 9, 2012
Psalm 121
My notes and thoughts about my favorite psalm, 121: http://paulstroble.wordpress.com/2012/03/
Sunday, April 8, 2012
"....Thee to know, thy power to prove..."
Christ the Lord is ris'n today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heav'ns, and earth reply, Alleluia!
Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened Paradise, Alleluia!
Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Dying once He all doth save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!
Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Foll'wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!
Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!
King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!
---Charles Wesley
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heav'ns, and earth reply, Alleluia!
Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened Paradise, Alleluia!
Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Dying once He all doth save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!
Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Foll'wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!
Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!
King of glory, soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!
---Charles Wesley
"Nature with open volume stands..."
Nature with open volume stands,
To spread her maker’s praise abroad;
And every labour of His hands
Shows something worthy of a God.
But in the grace that rescued man
His brightest form of glory shines;
Here, on the cross, ’tis fairest drawn,
In precious blood and crimson lines.
Here His whole name appears complete;
Nor wit can guess, nor reason prove,
Which of the letters best is writ,
The power, the wisdom, or the love.
Here I behold His inmost heart,
Where grace and vengeance strangely join,
Piercing His Son with sharpest smart,
To make the purchased pleasure mine.
O! the sweet wonders of that cross,
Where God the Savior loved and died
Her noblest life my spirit draws
From His dear wounds and bleeding side.
I would for ever speak His name,
In sounds to mortal ears unknown;
With angels join to praise the Lamb,
And worship at his Father’s throne.
---Isaac Watts. From Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1983)
To spread her maker’s praise abroad;
And every labour of His hands
Shows something worthy of a God.
But in the grace that rescued man
His brightest form of glory shines;
Here, on the cross, ’tis fairest drawn,
In precious blood and crimson lines.
Here His whole name appears complete;
Nor wit can guess, nor reason prove,
Which of the letters best is writ,
The power, the wisdom, or the love.
Here I behold His inmost heart,
Where grace and vengeance strangely join,
Piercing His Son with sharpest smart,
To make the purchased pleasure mine.
O! the sweet wonders of that cross,
Where God the Savior loved and died
Her noblest life my spirit draws
From His dear wounds and bleeding side.
I would for ever speak His name,
In sounds to mortal ears unknown;
With angels join to praise the Lamb,
And worship at his Father’s throne.
---Isaac Watts. From Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1983)
Saturday, April 7, 2012
"O Sacred Head"
Yesterday (Good Friday), a friend posted as a Facebook status, "My friend was murdered today, 2000 years ago. And it happened because of me." Some of us teased her for scaring us with the first part of that. The update later reminded me of this well-known hymn dating back to Bernard of Clairvaux, used by Bach in the St. Matthew's Passion, and found in contemporary hymnals. This version is from the a book I purchased at John Wesley's house last summer, the British Methodist collection Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1983).
O sacred head, sore wounded,
With grief and pain weighed down,
How scornfully surrounded
With thorns, thine only crown.
How pale art thou with anguish,
With sore abuse and Scorn.
How does that visage languish
Which once was bright as morn.
O Lord of life and glory,
What bliss till now was thine.
I read the wondrous story,
I joy to call thee mine.
Thy grief and thy compassion
Were all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But thine the deadly pain.
What language shall I borrow
To praise thee, dearest friend,
For this thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
Lord, make me thine for ever,
Nor let me faithless prove;
O let me never, never
Abuse such dying love!
Be near me, Lord, when dying;
O show thy cross to me,
That I, for succour flying,
My eyes may fix on thee;
And then, thy grace receiving,
Let faith my fears dispel,
For whoso dies believing
In thee, dear Lord, dies well.
O sacred head, sore wounded,
With grief and pain weighed down,
How scornfully surrounded
With thorns, thine only crown.
How pale art thou with anguish,
With sore abuse and Scorn.
How does that visage languish
Which once was bright as morn.
O Lord of life and glory,
What bliss till now was thine.
I read the wondrous story,
I joy to call thee mine.
Thy grief and thy compassion
Were all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But thine the deadly pain.
What language shall I borrow
To praise thee, dearest friend,
For this thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
Lord, make me thine for ever,
Nor let me faithless prove;
O let me never, never
Abuse such dying love!
Be near me, Lord, when dying;
O show thy cross to me,
That I, for succour flying,
My eyes may fix on thee;
And then, thy grace receiving,
Let faith my fears dispel,
For whoso dies believing
In thee, dear Lord, dies well.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Good Friday and Easter
A post from a couple years ago.... When I was little, I liked this hymn (words and music by Robert Lowry, 1874).
Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior,
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!
Refrain
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!
Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!
Refrain
Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!
Refrain
Musically, the hymn was appealing to me. The verses are stately, almost march-like, while the refrain is faster, upbeat, and triumphant. With the words “up from the grave He arose,” the melody rises, too. I also liked the hymn because Jesus was pretty heroic. “He tore the bars away”… Superman did things like that.
Now I look at the hymn and see that it balances both the victory of Easter and the tragedy of Good Friday. Jesus is victorious at Easter … but first, he’s dead, executed. At least he received a more respectable burial than other condemned criminals. Nevertheless he is the “prey” caught by the predator Death.
Jesus’ heroism is one of obedience. He is dead because he followed God’s will. Remember the third “servant song” of Isaiah, 50:4-9a, where the servant declares he “gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (verse 6). What an odd kind of heroism! Certainly not the kind we necessarily esteem in people, whom we prefer to be forceful, perhaps good with weapons.
There is room for that kind of heroism. But there is also a force that resists retaliation. Dr. King once wrote, “We must use the weapon of love. We will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscious that we will win you in the process.” Suffering is a potential force for change, and a way for God to achieve amazing things.
But that’s the problem: who wants to suffer? Who wants to potentially be perceived as servile and passive?
The incarnate God is willing! He gives us a model for our own obedience but, much more importantly, he accomplished our unearned salvation through his own obedience, death, and resurrection.
… though he was in the form of God,
[he] did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6:-11).
Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior,
Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!
Refrain
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!
Vainly they watch His bed, Jesus my Savior;
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!
Refrain
Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!
Refrain
Musically, the hymn was appealing to me. The verses are stately, almost march-like, while the refrain is faster, upbeat, and triumphant. With the words “up from the grave He arose,” the melody rises, too. I also liked the hymn because Jesus was pretty heroic. “He tore the bars away”… Superman did things like that.
Now I look at the hymn and see that it balances both the victory of Easter and the tragedy of Good Friday. Jesus is victorious at Easter … but first, he’s dead, executed. At least he received a more respectable burial than other condemned criminals. Nevertheless he is the “prey” caught by the predator Death.
Jesus’ heroism is one of obedience. He is dead because he followed God’s will. Remember the third “servant song” of Isaiah, 50:4-9a, where the servant declares he “gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (verse 6). What an odd kind of heroism! Certainly not the kind we necessarily esteem in people, whom we prefer to be forceful, perhaps good with weapons.
There is room for that kind of heroism. But there is also a force that resists retaliation. Dr. King once wrote, “We must use the weapon of love. We will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscious that we will win you in the process.” Suffering is a potential force for change, and a way for God to achieve amazing things.
But that’s the problem: who wants to suffer? Who wants to potentially be perceived as servile and passive?
The incarnate God is willing! He gives us a model for our own obedience but, much more importantly, he accomplished our unearned salvation through his own obedience, death, and resurrection.
… though he was in the form of God,
[he] did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6:-11).
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Discerning the Body
That reminded me of a verse that has always haunted me: "He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the Lord" (Jer. 22:16). (I'll always be grateful to my prof B. Davie Napier for alerting us to this verse.) If we love God but begrudge care and justice for the needy, we not only fail in loving them, we fail in loving God and do not even know God! According to Jeremiah, though, the righteous King Josiah knew God.
Jeremiah 22:16 dovetails with Micah 6:6-8, and 1 John 4:20b, as well as Matthew 25:31-46 and James 2:14-17. Even the famous John 3:16 implies helpfulness to the needy, for if you believe in Christ as John 3:16 instructs, you respond to “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40).
Many churches will have communion services this evening. Years ago, I had an elderly friend who didn't take communion because he didn't feel worthy. I was a teenager and didn't know the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:27--another passage that I wish Paul had expressed differently--and I don't know if anyone tried to explain the meaning of "unworthiness" to my friend.
Of course, the Eucharist is a sacramental means of grace for sinners. If you feel unworthy, then you're exactly the person Jesus wants to share the meal! The meaning of that whole passage (1 Cor. 11:17-34) is that the Corinthians tolerated divisions in their congregation and, at the meal, some ate and drank their fill and left nothing for the others, thus humiliating them. Not surprisingly, the persons left out at the meal were the less-well-off. Thus Paul scolded the church for missing the meaning of the experience.
When Paul talks about "discerning the body," his phrase has a double meaning: discerning the body of Christ in the Eucharist, but also discerning the body of Christ in the fellowship of Christians where, instead of insisting on our own way, we're sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.
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