My mother passed away on September 30. Over the years (to make a long story short) I figured out how to have good time with my daughter and also time to help my elderly parents. My dad died in 1999, and now my mom is gone, too. I feel grateful I was able to be available for their needs as they dealt with the challenges of old age.
Work and family can be hard to balance in many kinds of vocations and professions. What if you’re working more than one job, not because you’re greedy for a certain lifestyle but because you can’t otherwise make ends meet? What if your one job is extremely time consuming? People who run their own businesses, for instance, scarcely have a minute to spare. How then do you manage and create family time?
The Christian ethicist Eric Mount also calls attention to workplaces that subtly punish employees if they, for instance, showed a tendency to want to balance work and family. Difficulties increase when the workplace demands an imbalanced sense of loyalty. Cell phones and laptops make possible even more work, now done at home. On the other hand, according to research cited by Mount, some people’s home environment is sufficiently difficult that spending more time at work seems a positive option (Covenant, Community, and the Common Good, Pilgrim Press, 1999, p. 90).
Mount writes, “What puts conscience in a bind in even more troubling ways are the conflicts between competing loyalties in which both covenants [marriage and work] have legitimate and convincing claims on us. Marriage, family, church, friendship, race, ethnicity, gender, class, nation, region, city, global community, school, team, club, professional organization or standards, employers, labor union, political party, social cause, and the environment or nature all may have claims on us and may have received explicit or implicit promises for us” (p. 88).
What he calls these “covenantal conflicts” are certainly challenging; we know what he means about conflicting loyalties and claims upon us. He notes, for instance, the prevalence of dual career families and the accompanying stress. According to one study from Duke University, working mothers had high stress-hormone levels throughout their waking hours, owing to multiple responsibilities of work, household duties, and child-rearing duties (p. 88).
My wife and I struggle with a related but different challenge: we love our work so much that we hate to turn it off sometimes! Beth and I have to be mindful of the need for "down time" and recreative moments. I freely admit that I derive a sense of emotional well-being from my work and struggle with self-esteem if work is in a temporary slump.
It's important to remember God's will for all of us: to balance work, family, and rest. God is not a fussy boss, keeping track of hours we spend at labor. As Mount points out in this context, God established the Sabbath as a day when no one (not even the animals and servants of biblical times) did any work at all. God also established a sabbatical year so that nature itself could replenish itself. God wills for us to have strong families and times of renewal (p. 92-93).
But to say “this is God’s will for us” doesn’t seem to matter if your workplace and/or your family situation adds stress and imbalance to yourself and others. What is the solution?
There are no easy answers, particularly in our contemporary time with its serious economic challenges. When many people can’t find good jobs, you might risk even greater problems if you try to make hasty and poorly-considered changes in your life.
1 Timothy 3:4-5 has to do with the qualifications of a church bishop, but applied broadly, the passage stresses a need for balance. If a person cannot (for whatever reason) manage one’s own household, how can one do well in one’s employment? Finding that balance may not be something we can do alone; as in my own life, we'll need family members working together, and we’ll need to call upon God to help us over a period of months and perhaps years. Better to begin to seek those changes, though, and start the process with God's guidance.
(This piece is an "outtake" of another project.)
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
"A Way of Being Christian"
My mom died on September 30 at the age of 93. Although I’m writing a lot about her in private I’m not ready to post very much. Our relationship had annoying aspects (does any parent-child relationship not have complications, mental “tapes” that the child relives throughout adulthood?) but it was close. We could talk about problems in a way neither of us could with stubborn Dad.
I’m making all kinds of associations these days, and probably a lot of my upcoming posts will involve family memories. For instance, when she and Dad and I took vacations, it was always on the road at Dad’s insistence. A major, aggravating memory for me! But while we were on the road, we visited churches on Sunday morning, and that was a lovely thing. I was keen on having perfect Sunday school attendance, or at least as close as I could come, given my so-so health as a child. So we’d look for churches to visit. Our denomination was Disciples of Christ, but on the road, that didn’t really matter. I remember that we stopped by a Church of the Nazarene somewhere in Missouri or Kansas, and a Baptist church during another trip, a Methodist church in yet another year. While Dad sat in the car, reading Westerns, Mom and I were ecumenical---at least a little bit----without knowing the word!
These family memories brought to mind a research project for which I was hired to do in the 1990s. It was a history of the Kentucky Council of Churches, which had its 50th anniversary in 1997. My work resulted in a commemorative booklet, provided to members at the time. To my chagrin, the larger manuscript was never published, and so I asked permission to give a copy of the manuscript to the Filson Club in Louisville, Kentucky, where many of the council’s papers and documents already resided.
Ecumenical and also interfaith work are things I’ve always enjoyed. A scriptural impetus for ecumenism has always been John 17:21 in Jesus’s “high priestly prayer,” Christ’s hope that his disciples could be one. Interfaith work takes that attitude a little further and creates camaraderie and discussions among persons of different religion. Regarding ecumenism, I summarized in the manuscript's introduction some of the research of Kinnamon and Cope:
“After centuries of separation and hostility, Christians have begun to recapture ‘the simple biblical truth that the church as the people of God and the body of Christ must exemplify in this world how God gathers [people] together from the ends of the earth in order to live as a new humanity’. Churches representing over a billion and a half members are now engaged with one another in councils of churches, theological dialogues, various forms of collaborative mission, common prayer, and other expressions of ecumenical life.” (Michael Kinnamon and Brian E. Cope, eds., The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997, page 1).
I also found a wonderful quotation for the introduction. I wrote: “Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches has stated that ‘In [the] early days [of the ecumenical movement], when relationships were beginning and walls were being broken down, there was a sense of excitement and a sense of accomplishment.’ But Campbell believes that ‘A lot of strength is now in local ecumenical bodies, particularly those in which committed Christians and congregations come together... As I see it, ecumenism lives in your heart, is acted out in your life and shapes how you organize. In short, being ecumenical is a way of being Christian. From that point of view, the ecumenical movement is alive and well and very widespread’.” (Quote from Christian Century magazine, Nov. 8, 1995, p. 1048, used in my original text with permission.)
I love that idea: ecumenism is a way of being Christian!
I know I’m on a hobby horse these days about the bitterness of our politics these days. (Here’s a good article:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/11/barack-obamas-re-election) We've turned important policy arguments into ideological caricatures of politicians (and other voters) with whom we disagree---that they’re out to destroy the country. “America, don’t lose heart,” proclaimed a political leader recently about Obama’s reelection, implying that the millions of people who voted for Obama are not Americans.
It occurs to me that some of the spirit of good will and mutual service that has so long characterized ecumenical effort----cooperation that acknowledges differences and expresses concerns but does not stigmatize----could be adopted by us Christians in our attitudes, work, and words about politics. This, too, is an aspect of the "simple biblical truth" of which Kinnamon and Cope writes.
I’m making all kinds of associations these days, and probably a lot of my upcoming posts will involve family memories. For instance, when she and Dad and I took vacations, it was always on the road at Dad’s insistence. A major, aggravating memory for me! But while we were on the road, we visited churches on Sunday morning, and that was a lovely thing. I was keen on having perfect Sunday school attendance, or at least as close as I could come, given my so-so health as a child. So we’d look for churches to visit. Our denomination was Disciples of Christ, but on the road, that didn’t really matter. I remember that we stopped by a Church of the Nazarene somewhere in Missouri or Kansas, and a Baptist church during another trip, a Methodist church in yet another year. While Dad sat in the car, reading Westerns, Mom and I were ecumenical---at least a little bit----without knowing the word!
These family memories brought to mind a research project for which I was hired to do in the 1990s. It was a history of the Kentucky Council of Churches, which had its 50th anniversary in 1997. My work resulted in a commemorative booklet, provided to members at the time. To my chagrin, the larger manuscript was never published, and so I asked permission to give a copy of the manuscript to the Filson Club in Louisville, Kentucky, where many of the council’s papers and documents already resided.
Ecumenical and also interfaith work are things I’ve always enjoyed. A scriptural impetus for ecumenism has always been John 17:21 in Jesus’s “high priestly prayer,” Christ’s hope that his disciples could be one. Interfaith work takes that attitude a little further and creates camaraderie and discussions among persons of different religion. Regarding ecumenism, I summarized in the manuscript's introduction some of the research of Kinnamon and Cope:
“After centuries of separation and hostility, Christians have begun to recapture ‘the simple biblical truth that the church as the people of God and the body of Christ must exemplify in this world how God gathers [people] together from the ends of the earth in order to live as a new humanity’. Churches representing over a billion and a half members are now engaged with one another in councils of churches, theological dialogues, various forms of collaborative mission, common prayer, and other expressions of ecumenical life.” (Michael Kinnamon and Brian E. Cope, eds., The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997, page 1).
I also found a wonderful quotation for the introduction. I wrote: “Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches has stated that ‘In [the] early days [of the ecumenical movement], when relationships were beginning and walls were being broken down, there was a sense of excitement and a sense of accomplishment.’ But Campbell believes that ‘A lot of strength is now in local ecumenical bodies, particularly those in which committed Christians and congregations come together... As I see it, ecumenism lives in your heart, is acted out in your life and shapes how you organize. In short, being ecumenical is a way of being Christian. From that point of view, the ecumenical movement is alive and well and very widespread’.” (Quote from Christian Century magazine, Nov. 8, 1995, p. 1048, used in my original text with permission.)
I love that idea: ecumenism is a way of being Christian!
I know I’m on a hobby horse these days about the bitterness of our politics these days. (Here’s a good article:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/11/barack-obamas-re-election) We've turned important policy arguments into ideological caricatures of politicians (and other voters) with whom we disagree---that they’re out to destroy the country. “America, don’t lose heart,” proclaimed a political leader recently about Obama’s reelection, implying that the millions of people who voted for Obama are not Americans.
It occurs to me that some of the spirit of good will and mutual service that has so long characterized ecumenical effort----cooperation that acknowledges differences and expresses concerns but does not stigmatize----could be adopted by us Christians in our attitudes, work, and words about politics. This, too, is an aspect of the "simple biblical truth" of which Kinnamon and Cope writes.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Discovering Route 66 in St. Louis
I’ve been a Route 66 buff ever since we lived in Flagstaff, AZ in 1987-1991. I purchased “Route 66: A History of the Road and Its People” by Quinta Scott and Susan Croce Kelly in 1989, then Michael Wallis’ “Route 66: The Mother Road” the following year, and other books. When we moved from Flagstaff back east in 1991, we were able to follow quite a bit of the road through some of the communities, and we could glimpse the old highway beside the interstate in, for instance, Oklahoma. I still like to drive sections, especially in my home state of Illinois. When I taught at University of Akron, I had wonderful students in a colloquium, "American Highways and American Wanderlust," in which we read Kelly's book plus a Lincoln Highway text and books like "On the Road," "The Grapes of Wrath," and "Blue Highways."
Earlier on this blog, I wrote about motels on Route 66 and other highways (http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/2011/08/motels-on-route-66.html) and some earlier trips on the old road (http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/search/label/Route%2066) When we moved to St. Louis in 2009, I understood why travel guides indicated that anyone wanting to follow Route 66 through St. Louis should choose one of the routes rather than them all. There is the original route through the middle of the city, a large portion of which is Manchester Road (State Route 100).There is the route around the city, from the Chain of Rocks bridge west (now Interstate 270) to Lindbergh Blvd south. There is also the city route (probably the most famous version), from the MacArthur Bridge then south and southwest, on portions of Tucker, Gravois, Chippewa, and Watson Roads. Much of that route is now State Route 366. Another part of the city route diverts from the Chain of Rocks Bridge and runs toward the downtown along Riverside Drive and other streets.
I’ve driven nearly all these alignments, though piecemeal. Recently I visited the location at 7th Street and Chouteau where the now blocked and abandoned pavement crosses the MacArthur Bridge. With that, I visited all the city route other than the Riverside Drive stretch. A book called “Route 66 in St. Louis (Images of America)” by Joe Sonderman (Arcadia Publishing, 2008) gives the routes through the city, and some websites are also helpful: http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Missouri/stlouis.htm
http://missouriroute66.blogspot.com/p/st-louis.html http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Illinois/city66.htm
http://www.historic66.com/missouri/det-mo1.html
I’ve yet to visit the old Chain of Rocks Bridge, now a pedestrian and bicycle way. A pair of 1991 murders happened at the bridge (the case is still occasionally in the local news), which made me feel sad and worried about the location, so I need to visit the bridge when a local event happens there and brings a crowd. This websiie provides information about the bridge: http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Illinois/chain.htm
A book called “Route 66 in St. Louis (Images of America)” by Joe Sonderman (Arcadia Publishing, 2008) indicated how many motels and restaurants operated along Lindbergh Blvd. Today, the road has a much different landscape of retail and financial businesses and upscale neighborhoods. But in Route 66 days, travelers could find many different places to stay and eat. One of those old motels remain, the Ivy Motel.
There were many places along the city route, too. Sonderman’s book provides photos and postcards of many now-gone places. I wish I could’ve seen the famous Coral Court motel on Watson Road. It was torn down in the 90s and replaced with a subdivision. I pass the location on my way to the hair salon and later look at Quinta Scott’s photo to imagine the layout. http://www.coralcourt.com/main.html Other vintage motels are still nearby: the Chippewa Motel, the Wayside Motel, the Duplex Motel, and a little further west, a place that had been called the La Casa Grande Motel, interesting because of its Pueblo Revival style. Other notable 66 establishments, like the Donut Drive-in and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, both on Chippewa, are worth visits.
Last summer, I decided to take the road out of town a bit. Watson Road merges onto I-44 in southwestern St. Louis County. I drove a while before I saw a sign for a place called the Route 66 State Park visitor’s center. Taking a lovely stretch of the old road I came upon the place and found wonderful displays inside, as well as a good book and gift shop. The center has portions of the Coral Court sign and other relics of the old highway. I picked up another book by Joe Sonderman, “Route 66 Missouri” (Schiffer Publishing, 2010).
Outside the center, Route 66 crosses the Meramec River, but the bridge is now permanently closed. As I looked at this new book of Sonderman’s, I learned that I was at the famous Times Beach, the community that was declared contaminated with dioxin and razed in the 1980s. The center had been the Bridgehead Inn at Times Beach and later the EPA headquarters during the cleanup effort.
Continuing through the Meramec Valley, I pulled off and drove the road through Pacific and its countryside. I discovered another vintage motel, the Gardenway. Beside the place is the Shaw Nature Preserve. Henry Shaw was the founder of Missouri Botanical Garden back in St. Louis.
A future trip will be Meramec Caverns, which I last visited over forty years ago. I wish I had some memories of Route 66 from that trip----probably three hours from my hometown in Illinois----but I remember Dad and I and my grandmother taking a tour of the famous cave in the late 1960s. My mom was claustrophobic and stayed behind, but I had enduring memories of the place famed as Jesse James’ hideout.
Earlier on this blog, I wrote about motels on Route 66 and other highways (http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/2011/08/motels-on-route-66.html) and some earlier trips on the old road (http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/search/label/Route%2066) When we moved to St. Louis in 2009, I understood why travel guides indicated that anyone wanting to follow Route 66 through St. Louis should choose one of the routes rather than them all. There is the original route through the middle of the city, a large portion of which is Manchester Road (State Route 100).There is the route around the city, from the Chain of Rocks bridge west (now Interstate 270) to Lindbergh Blvd south. There is also the city route (probably the most famous version), from the MacArthur Bridge then south and southwest, on portions of Tucker, Gravois, Chippewa, and Watson Roads. Much of that route is now State Route 366. Another part of the city route diverts from the Chain of Rocks Bridge and runs toward the downtown along Riverside Drive and other streets.
I’ve driven nearly all these alignments, though piecemeal. Recently I visited the location at 7th Street and Chouteau where the now blocked and abandoned pavement crosses the MacArthur Bridge. With that, I visited all the city route other than the Riverside Drive stretch. A book called “Route 66 in St. Louis (Images of America)” by Joe Sonderman (Arcadia Publishing, 2008) gives the routes through the city, and some websites are also helpful: http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Missouri/stlouis.htm
http://missouriroute66.blogspot.com/p/st-louis.html http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Illinois/city66.htm
http://www.historic66.com/missouri/det-mo1.html
 |
| from builtstlouis.net |
A book called “Route 66 in St. Louis (Images of America)” by Joe Sonderman (Arcadia Publishing, 2008) indicated how many motels and restaurants operated along Lindbergh Blvd. Today, the road has a much different landscape of retail and financial businesses and upscale neighborhoods. But in Route 66 days, travelers could find many different places to stay and eat. One of those old motels remain, the Ivy Motel.
There were many places along the city route, too. Sonderman’s book provides photos and postcards of many now-gone places. I wish I could’ve seen the famous Coral Court motel on Watson Road. It was torn down in the 90s and replaced with a subdivision. I pass the location on my way to the hair salon and later look at Quinta Scott’s photo to imagine the layout. http://www.coralcourt.com/main.html Other vintage motels are still nearby: the Chippewa Motel, the Wayside Motel, the Duplex Motel, and a little further west, a place that had been called the La Casa Grande Motel, interesting because of its Pueblo Revival style. Other notable 66 establishments, like the Donut Drive-in and Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, both on Chippewa, are worth visits.
Last summer, I decided to take the road out of town a bit. Watson Road merges onto I-44 in southwestern St. Louis County. I drove a while before I saw a sign for a place called the Route 66 State Park visitor’s center. Taking a lovely stretch of the old road I came upon the place and found wonderful displays inside, as well as a good book and gift shop. The center has portions of the Coral Court sign and other relics of the old highway. I picked up another book by Joe Sonderman, “Route 66 Missouri” (Schiffer Publishing, 2010).
Continuing through the Meramec Valley, I pulled off and drove the road through Pacific and its countryside. I discovered another vintage motel, the Gardenway. Beside the place is the Shaw Nature Preserve. Henry Shaw was the founder of Missouri Botanical Garden back in St. Louis.
My Cousin Lewis
Here's a piece I've been reposting each Veterans Day.... an excerpt from Frederick M. Hanes, Fayette County [Illinois] in the World War, 1922, pp. 58 and 60.
"Lewis Calvin Crawford, son of Calvin and Rosetta Crawford, was born October 24, 1905 [i.e., 1895] near Brownstown where he lived until he entered the service of his country May 8, 1917. He enlisted at Mattoon and was sent to Jefferson Barracks. Later he was transferred to a camp in Texas and thence to Jersey City, N. J., from where he crossed as a first class private of CO. K., 16th Infantry.
"His father having died several years previous, many a young man in his position would have pleaded that he must remain with his lonely mother. But whenever he spoke of going he would remark, 'Mother, if I did not go and help win our freedom I would feel that I had no right to live here. I could not face the boys as they came home who had fought for me.'
"Lewis was a Bible reader and before going expressed the desire to go across and if possible see the country where the Saviour lived on earth. On the way across however, he contracted measles. Pneumonia followed. He was taken to Base Hospital No. 1, St. Naziarre, France where he died July 15, 1917, the first of the sons of Fayette county to give his life on French soil. His comrades buried him in a French cemetery but later removed the body to an American cemetery. At the request of his relatives the body was again disinterred and set back to his homeland where it was laid to rest in Pilcher cemetery in the family lot.
"When the American Legion was organized in Fayette County the Vandalia Post was named The Crawford-Hale Post in honor of Private Crawford and Sergt. Edward B. Hale, Fayette County's first two sons to give their lives overseas for American ideals.
"Private Crawford was a member of the M. W. A. His mother recalls his favorite hymn which has taken on a new and grander meaning:
"I will follow Thee my Saviour,
Whereso'er my lot shall be:
Where Thou goest I will follow,
Yes, my Lord, I'll follow Thee."
Lewis was my great-grandfather John Crawford's first cousin. In fact, Lewis and his parents are buried very close to my grandparents and great-grandparents. One of my friend posted a photo of his tombstone at Find-a-Grave.
My mom, who passed away on September 30, 2012, was coincidentally born the day the Crawford-Hale post began: August 2, 1919.
"Lewis Calvin Crawford, son of Calvin and Rosetta Crawford, was born October 24, 1905 [i.e., 1895] near Brownstown where he lived until he entered the service of his country May 8, 1917. He enlisted at Mattoon and was sent to Jefferson Barracks. Later he was transferred to a camp in Texas and thence to Jersey City, N. J., from where he crossed as a first class private of CO. K., 16th Infantry.
"His father having died several years previous, many a young man in his position would have pleaded that he must remain with his lonely mother. But whenever he spoke of going he would remark, 'Mother, if I did not go and help win our freedom I would feel that I had no right to live here. I could not face the boys as they came home who had fought for me.'
"Lewis was a Bible reader and before going expressed the desire to go across and if possible see the country where the Saviour lived on earth. On the way across however, he contracted measles. Pneumonia followed. He was taken to Base Hospital No. 1, St. Naziarre, France where he died July 15, 1917, the first of the sons of Fayette county to give his life on French soil. His comrades buried him in a French cemetery but later removed the body to an American cemetery. At the request of his relatives the body was again disinterred and set back to his homeland where it was laid to rest in Pilcher cemetery in the family lot.
"When the American Legion was organized in Fayette County the Vandalia Post was named The Crawford-Hale Post in honor of Private Crawford and Sergt. Edward B. Hale, Fayette County's first two sons to give their lives overseas for American ideals.
"Private Crawford was a member of the M. W. A. His mother recalls his favorite hymn which has taken on a new and grander meaning:
"I will follow Thee my Saviour,
Whereso'er my lot shall be:
Where Thou goest I will follow,
Yes, my Lord, I'll follow Thee."
Lewis was my great-grandfather John Crawford's first cousin. In fact, Lewis and his parents are buried very close to my grandparents and great-grandparents. One of my friend posted a photo of his tombstone at Find-a-Grave.
My mom, who passed away on September 30, 2012, was coincidentally born the day the Crawford-Hale post began: August 2, 1919.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Thinking about the Election
I’m writing this Tuesday evening, although I’ll probably post it Wednesday. Voting in the elections, I felt wonderful about exercising my right as a citizen.
There are obviously many issues that President Obama will have to address, now that he's been re-elected. A writer on Yahoo news says: "Now, Obama heads back to office facing what will most likely be bitterly partisan negotiations over whether the Bush tax cuts should expire. The House will still be majority Republican, with Democrats maintaining their majority in the Senate. The loss may provoke some soul searching in the Republican Party. This election was seen as a prime opportunity to unseat Obama, as polls showed Americans were unhappy with a sluggish economy, sky-high unemployment, and a health care reform bill that remained widely unpopular." (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/barack-obama-wins-election-second-term-president-041852102--election.html)
Among the many topics one could think about at this time, I've been returning to some challenges and national attitudes. To start with, this article---http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-big-choice-governments-role-224209622--politics.html---makes a good point: “For all their philosophical differences, neither man [Romney and Obama] has hit Americans between the eyes with the painful truth of what it will take to tame deficit spending, driven by the public's demand for low taxes and high services.” This is a challenge that we Americans must keep considering and examining. We want a strong military, strong disaster relief, various safety-net programs, good schools, and other things, but how to pay for these things, especially when we loathe both higher taxes and high state and federal deficits?
Another challenge is the way we select our leaders. So much money is spent on relentless political advertising, so much of which does not advance intelligent discussion about political issues. As they say, those billions of dollars could be going to good causes----and we're tolerating a fundamentally untruthful, impressionistic system. (But what can "we" do about it?) We hate the system but our leaders use it and, to some extent, it works. Mudslinging and image-creating, though, have been part of our national politics for a long time: look at the 1840 election, for instance.
Another challenge is (as this article argued) the fact that we’re looking to our presidents are a kind of savior or messiah (http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/10/30/we-must-stop-treating-the-president-as-our-savior/) A related challenge is the hostility and, for some people, hatred toward our presidents when they fail our expectations or push policies with which we don’t agree. I’m not talking about robust disagreement, but actual hatred. (One author, for instance, has termed recent conservative rhetoric the "Obama hate machine.")
And.... a related challenge is that we religious people don’t always subject our expression of political opinions to much religious scrutiny. Do we praise Jesus but sound like some hate-filled media pundit? Do we stop and think of our speech is helpful and kind? Do we listen to our friends who have different opinions, and if we disagree with them, do we love each other anyway?
This is particularly difficult in light of the division in the country over issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, health care, and others. Any effort from us Christians to help our democracy can start by affirming both Proverbs 3:5-6 and Romans 15:7.
Great that the election has resulted in a record number of women in the U.S. Senate, and Tulsi Gabbard, elected in Hawaii, is the first Hindu member of Congress! Also Mazie Hirono, an LGBT support, will be the first Buddhist Senator, while Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin becomes the first openly gay Senator.
*****
I’ve been struggling with and thinking about some of these topics in previous posts. Last July I wrote about Obama’s saying, “You didn’t build that,” where I wrote about some of these topics:
http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/2012/07/you-didnt-built-that.html In one of my November 2010 posts, I wrote this:
This past year I was hired to write a series of lessons called Faithful Citizen: Living Responsibly in a Global Society, which is part of a forthcoming DVD-based curriculum from the Center for the Congregation in Public Life, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. The Center created the lesson formats, outline, and basic approach, and I built upon that foundation, with terrific input from the Center. The following website explains the overall curriculum: http://www.congregationinpubliclife.org/DVDCurriculum.htm.
As stated at the website above, the Faithful Citizen designers and writers hope to offer a corrective to the individualism that often characterizes both our religious faith and political opinions. Robert Bellah and his fellow authors of the book Habits of the Heart note that Americans tend to think of religion, not only in terms of institutional religion but also as a private, individual concern. A personal approach to God and faith reveals the "freedom, openness, and pluralism of American religious life" but neglects the fact that our relationship with God "is mediated by a whole pattern of community life."(1)
Individualism also flavors American's politics. Bellah et al. argue that both welfare liberalism and neocapitalism tend to focus upon individual good as the way toward the common good. “The purpose of government is to give individuals the means to pursue their private ends,” the first by allowing periodic government intervention into the economy "to balance the operations of the market in the interests of economic growth and social harmony," and the other by a free-market approach with less government involvement.(2)
Bellah and his fellow authors hope that "the biblical impetus to see religion as involved in the whole of life" can give a broader political vision, as well as a less personalistic religious faith, which in turn renews our sense of civic virtue. (3)
Eric Mount of Centre College, in his book Covenant, Community, and the Common Good: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, echoes Bellah in stressing that Americans have always had a twofold drive: personal success and a desire for the common good (4). Although we Americans are indebted to the tradition of John Locke that affirms the rights of people to life, liberty, and economic and personal well-being, we are also indebted to a more covenantal and community-oriented concern for the common good.(5)
The Faithful Citizen lessons will highlight some of the ways by which we can broaden our religious and political visions to have a greater concern for the common good and for responsible civic participation. For instance, among other ideas based upon Mount's research, we can think of religious faith as "audacious openness." Mount writes, "openness is not simply tolerant of the other, or receptive to encounter by difference; it is audacious. Its hospitality is daring. it is not docile obedience; it is courageous engagement" with other people and their needs.(6)
Another approach to civic virtue and the common good is through "better stories." Mount cites Robert Reich who in turn identifies four "stories" woven into American political discourse: the "mob at the gates" which is often about foreigners or any "dark force" portrayed as a real or perceived threat to American well being, "the triumphant individual" about workers and entrepreneurs which often pits economic discourage in terms of winners and losers, the "benevolent community" which lauds efforts to help the poor but which still portrays the poor as "them" who are helped by "us," and "the rot at the top" about big government and big business. (7)
Approaching public issues from a faith perspective can be very challenging. On one hand, many religious people tend to keep their religious faith and their politics in two mental "zones," so they feel warm in the love of God while other times spouting angry, uncaring political convictions that they picked up from the media. There is also the challenge of ongoing public discussion about what is the common good, and what is the proper role of government in enhancing the common good.
Mounts offers this challenge: "Social conflict is not going away, and sometimes we may fear 'the other' for good reasons. Our fears, however, become self-fulfilling prophecies if we are always acting on our worst suspicions of 'the other' instead of seeking areas of overlap between our problems, our interests, and even our hopes. Trying to tell stories that move us beyond the counter-productive antagonisms of 'us' against 'them' will not make all of our differences go away, but better stories could restore a sense of community membership in our land and even beyond our borders that has characterized us in our best moments as a people. In a world of increasingly inescapable interdependence and mutual vulnerability, the need has never been greater."(8)
1. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985), 227.
2. Ibid., 262-266.
3. Ibid., 248.
4. Eric Mount, Covenant, Community, and the Common Good: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1999), 11.
5. Eric Mount, “Covenant, Community, and The Common Good: A Tale of Two Americas,” Church & Society, May/June 2005, 43-45.
6. Mount, Covenant, Community, and the Common Good, 136-137. For this insight Mount cites Peter Hodgson’s Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 204-8, and also the thought of Darrell J. Fasching, Narrative Theology after Auschwitz: From Alienation to Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 6, 15-16, 73, 123, 126, 187-88.
7. Mount, "A Tale of Two Americas," 47-48.
8. Eric Mount, “Storytelling and Political Leadership,” The Progressive Christian, 182:5 (Sept.-Oct. 2008), 19.
There are obviously many issues that President Obama will have to address, now that he's been re-elected. A writer on Yahoo news says: "Now, Obama heads back to office facing what will most likely be bitterly partisan negotiations over whether the Bush tax cuts should expire. The House will still be majority Republican, with Democrats maintaining their majority in the Senate. The loss may provoke some soul searching in the Republican Party. This election was seen as a prime opportunity to unseat Obama, as polls showed Americans were unhappy with a sluggish economy, sky-high unemployment, and a health care reform bill that remained widely unpopular." (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/barack-obama-wins-election-second-term-president-041852102--election.html)
Among the many topics one could think about at this time, I've been returning to some challenges and national attitudes. To start with, this article---http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-big-choice-governments-role-224209622--politics.html---makes a good point: “For all their philosophical differences, neither man [Romney and Obama] has hit Americans between the eyes with the painful truth of what it will take to tame deficit spending, driven by the public's demand for low taxes and high services.” This is a challenge that we Americans must keep considering and examining. We want a strong military, strong disaster relief, various safety-net programs, good schools, and other things, but how to pay for these things, especially when we loathe both higher taxes and high state and federal deficits?
For instance, I personally---being an admirer of Jonathan Kozol, who recently visited my university----think we need to think deeply about education inequalities, and the fact that school districts in wealthy areas spend more per child than school districts in poor communities. To say “we can’t throw money at the problem” of public schools, as some of my friends have said over the years, is to ignore fundamental realities of school quality and funding.
That same article's author comments that, “With record numbers of people on food stamps and other assistance, President Barack Obama emphasizes ‘we're all in this together"’— code for sweeping government involvement.” Unfortunately, our country needs a much stronger narrative of “we’re all in this together”---a narrative that is not a code but a genuine national spirit. We tend to frame our political and social narratives in “us vs. them” ways, but I don't think those kinds of narratives are the best (see below). Can some clever leaders, for instance, discover ways to unite government and private sector involvement in social and economic issues, and possibly encourage a greater spirit of national unity in addressing social and economic issues?
I worry about this, especially with the prospect of the ongoing conflicts between the president and congressional GOPs. I like what Thomas Friedman says about the condemnable cynicism of some leaders like Senator McConnell, and I hope that the next four years will see some breakthroughs. Some of it will have to happen from the president's side, too. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/07/opinion/friedman-hope-and-change-part-two.html?smid=tw-NYTimesFriedman&seid=auto
Another challenge is the way we select our leaders. So much money is spent on relentless political advertising, so much of which does not advance intelligent discussion about political issues. As they say, those billions of dollars could be going to good causes----and we're tolerating a fundamentally untruthful, impressionistic system. (But what can "we" do about it?) We hate the system but our leaders use it and, to some extent, it works. Mudslinging and image-creating, though, have been part of our national politics for a long time: look at the 1840 election, for instance.
Another challenge is (as this article argued) the fact that we’re looking to our presidents are a kind of savior or messiah (http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/10/30/we-must-stop-treating-the-president-as-our-savior/) A related challenge is the hostility and, for some people, hatred toward our presidents when they fail our expectations or push policies with which we don’t agree. I’m not talking about robust disagreement, but actual hatred. (One author, for instance, has termed recent conservative rhetoric the "Obama hate machine.")
And.... a related challenge is that we religious people don’t always subject our expression of political opinions to much religious scrutiny. Do we praise Jesus but sound like some hate-filled media pundit? Do we stop and think of our speech is helpful and kind? Do we listen to our friends who have different opinions, and if we disagree with them, do we love each other anyway?
This is particularly difficult in light of the division in the country over issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, health care, and others. Any effort from us Christians to help our democracy can start by affirming both Proverbs 3:5-6 and Romans 15:7.
Great that the election has resulted in a record number of women in the U.S. Senate, and Tulsi Gabbard, elected in Hawaii, is the first Hindu member of Congress! Also Mazie Hirono, an LGBT support, will be the first Buddhist Senator, while Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin becomes the first openly gay Senator.
*****
I’ve been struggling with and thinking about some of these topics in previous posts. Last July I wrote about Obama’s saying, “You didn’t build that,” where I wrote about some of these topics:
http://paulstroble.blogspot.com/2012/07/you-didnt-built-that.html In one of my November 2010 posts, I wrote this:
This past year I was hired to write a series of lessons called Faithful Citizen: Living Responsibly in a Global Society, which is part of a forthcoming DVD-based curriculum from the Center for the Congregation in Public Life, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. The Center created the lesson formats, outline, and basic approach, and I built upon that foundation, with terrific input from the Center. The following website explains the overall curriculum: http://www.congregationinpubliclife.org/DVDCurriculum.htm.
As stated at the website above, the Faithful Citizen designers and writers hope to offer a corrective to the individualism that often characterizes both our religious faith and political opinions. Robert Bellah and his fellow authors of the book Habits of the Heart note that Americans tend to think of religion, not only in terms of institutional religion but also as a private, individual concern. A personal approach to God and faith reveals the "freedom, openness, and pluralism of American religious life" but neglects the fact that our relationship with God "is mediated by a whole pattern of community life."(1)
Individualism also flavors American's politics. Bellah et al. argue that both welfare liberalism and neocapitalism tend to focus upon individual good as the way toward the common good. “The purpose of government is to give individuals the means to pursue their private ends,” the first by allowing periodic government intervention into the economy "to balance the operations of the market in the interests of economic growth and social harmony," and the other by a free-market approach with less government involvement.(2)
Bellah and his fellow authors hope that "the biblical impetus to see religion as involved in the whole of life" can give a broader political vision, as well as a less personalistic religious faith, which in turn renews our sense of civic virtue. (3)
Eric Mount of Centre College, in his book Covenant, Community, and the Common Good: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, echoes Bellah in stressing that Americans have always had a twofold drive: personal success and a desire for the common good (4). Although we Americans are indebted to the tradition of John Locke that affirms the rights of people to life, liberty, and economic and personal well-being, we are also indebted to a more covenantal and community-oriented concern for the common good.(5)
The Faithful Citizen lessons will highlight some of the ways by which we can broaden our religious and political visions to have a greater concern for the common good and for responsible civic participation. For instance, among other ideas based upon Mount's research, we can think of religious faith as "audacious openness." Mount writes, "openness is not simply tolerant of the other, or receptive to encounter by difference; it is audacious. Its hospitality is daring. it is not docile obedience; it is courageous engagement" with other people and their needs.(6)
Another approach to civic virtue and the common good is through "better stories." Mount cites Robert Reich who in turn identifies four "stories" woven into American political discourse: the "mob at the gates" which is often about foreigners or any "dark force" portrayed as a real or perceived threat to American well being, "the triumphant individual" about workers and entrepreneurs which often pits economic discourage in terms of winners and losers, the "benevolent community" which lauds efforts to help the poor but which still portrays the poor as "them" who are helped by "us," and "the rot at the top" about big government and big business. (7)
Approaching public issues from a faith perspective can be very challenging. On one hand, many religious people tend to keep their religious faith and their politics in two mental "zones," so they feel warm in the love of God while other times spouting angry, uncaring political convictions that they picked up from the media. There is also the challenge of ongoing public discussion about what is the common good, and what is the proper role of government in enhancing the common good.
Mounts offers this challenge: "Social conflict is not going away, and sometimes we may fear 'the other' for good reasons. Our fears, however, become self-fulfilling prophecies if we are always acting on our worst suspicions of 'the other' instead of seeking areas of overlap between our problems, our interests, and even our hopes. Trying to tell stories that move us beyond the counter-productive antagonisms of 'us' against 'them' will not make all of our differences go away, but better stories could restore a sense of community membership in our land and even beyond our borders that has characterized us in our best moments as a people. In a world of increasingly inescapable interdependence and mutual vulnerability, the need has never been greater."(8)
1. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkley: University of California Press, 1985), 227.
2. Ibid., 262-266.
3. Ibid., 248.
4. Eric Mount, Covenant, Community, and the Common Good: An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1999), 11.
5. Eric Mount, “Covenant, Community, and The Common Good: A Tale of Two Americas,” Church & Society, May/June 2005, 43-45.
6. Mount, Covenant, Community, and the Common Good, 136-137. For this insight Mount cites Peter Hodgson’s Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 204-8, and also the thought of Darrell J. Fasching, Narrative Theology after Auschwitz: From Alienation to Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 6, 15-16, 73, 123, 126, 187-88.
7. Mount, "A Tale of Two Americas," 47-48.
8. Eric Mount, “Storytelling and Political Leadership,” The Progressive Christian, 182:5 (Sept.-Oct. 2008), 19.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Cassettes!
Funny how one’s mind wanders and makes connections. I was reading a “Gramophone” magazine review of a Martha Argerich CD, and the subject of cassette tapes came to mind, because I once owned a two-cassette box of Chopin music that Argerich had recorded. I hadn't known that the famous "funeral march," sometimes featured in my childhood's cartoons, was actually Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2. As the tape played along in the car, clicking a little in the player, it came to that movement, and I thought, "Oh! That's where that comes from!" Of course, Argerich's version is compelling.
I wondered: Whatever happened to cassettes? I know I’ve not seen them in stores for many years, although they once covered several shelves in places like Sam Goody and Tower Records.
I checked Wikipedia, which had a footnoted article that indicates they are actually still being sold, but in very few numbers. The author writes: “Cassettes outsold vinyl and compact disc, respectively, from the early 80s until the early 90s.” Even in 2004, 8.6 million cassettes were sold. But by 2009, sales had plummeted to 34,000. “Of the 2,000 tapes sold year-to-date, most have been albums at least 36 months old, bought at indie retailers in the south Atlantic region, in the suburbs, according to SoundScan.”
So there’s my answer! The author notes that cassettes’ niche is specific: “Not only were tapes the way many young people first owned music in the Reagan era; from post-punk to C86 to riot grrrl to industrial and noise, cassettes also embodied the 80s underground's do-it-yourself ethic. So much so, in fact, that many indie labels never stopped creating them....Last August, Rhizome writer Ceci Moss identified 101 cassette labels.” (http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7764-this-is-not-a-mixtape/)
That made me think of other formats. During the college years of 1976-1979, I had an eight-track player in my car, and I still enjoyed those tapes as late as 1979, a summer I had a job that involved a lot of car travel. But I doubt I purchased any thereafter. According to a Wikipedia article, eight-tracks were no longer sold in retail stores by 1982, though record clubs still sold them until 1988. The last commercial eight-track release seems to be Fleetwood Mac’s 1988 “Greatest Hits.”
Good riddance! Those tapes were terrible things: their clunkiness, and the way you had to put up with repeated songs. I see them sometimes in antique stores and groan.
My parents wonderfully purchased me a reel-to-reel recorder and player when I was in high school, around 1972. I used it to record music off the radio, especially KSHE-FM in St. Louis, and later Met Opera Saturday matinees. But I don’t think I ever purchased a pre-recorded tape. No wonder: when I looked up that format on Wikipedia, I discovered that pre-recorded reels were largely gone from stores by 1973, and a few were offered by record stores until the late 1970s.
I don’t miss cassettes much. Of course, you had to rewind or fast-forward to your favorite song, and you hoped you wouldn’t go too far or too short. But I was used to them. I don’t remember the first cassette I purchased, but I remember the first one I played: David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold the World” LP, which I taped at home by putting the small player/recorder next to the turntable speakers, and then I carried that same player with me in my old car, a seen-better-days 1963 Chevy. The car wasn’t worth getting a player installed (and my subsequent Dodge Dart had the 8-track player). So it was a homemade way to have favorite music in the case as I, a teenager in a small town, enjoyed my new driver’s license and freedom.
My 1979 Pontiac station wagon had a cassette player built in, so I had a lot of popular tapes. After I was married in the 80s, Beth and I like to purchase cassettes for our cars, especially for cross-country trips to visit the parental-units on holidays. We had a tape of Rossini overtures, baroque “greatest hits,” and Garrison Keillor radio shows. To this day, “William Tell Overture” reminds me of a lonely interstate rather than the Lone Ranger. We had a favorite tape that included two Vaughan Williams’ “A Lark Ascending” and “Tallis Fantasia” along with Elgar’s “Serenade in E Minor for String Orchestra” and Tippett’s “Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli,” and also a cassette with Haydn’s trumpet, harp and organ concertos. All these pieces still bring to mind road trips.
We had a little case in which to store the tapes, but often they ended up being tossed into a small cardboard box. I’d dump them out onto the car seat, and they made that plastic clatter as they fell onto the seat and I sorted through them to locate good music for whatever the day’s trip was.
I think the last cassette I purchased was Talking Head’s “Sand in the Vaseline,” back in the mid 1990s. By then I was purchasing CDs for home listening. But why did I wait to begin purchasing CDs until around 1989 (seven years after their introduction) and only then when my favorite record store stopped carrying LPs? I liked LPs (still do) and my car only had a cassette player. Used to this audio technology, I was devoted to it for a long time. My 2004 Nissan Sentra had players for both cassettes and CDs, but not my 2010 Toyota Matrix.
Will I someday write a nostalgic piece about CDs? Will it (like this essay) unintentionally turn out to be a reminiscence about cars? The time is coming and is nearly here; in my Matrix, I listen to my iPod full of downloads more often than CDs.
I wondered: Whatever happened to cassettes? I know I’ve not seen them in stores for many years, although they once covered several shelves in places like Sam Goody and Tower Records.
I checked Wikipedia, which had a footnoted article that indicates they are actually still being sold, but in very few numbers. The author writes: “Cassettes outsold vinyl and compact disc, respectively, from the early 80s until the early 90s.” Even in 2004, 8.6 million cassettes were sold. But by 2009, sales had plummeted to 34,000. “Of the 2,000 tapes sold year-to-date, most have been albums at least 36 months old, bought at indie retailers in the south Atlantic region, in the suburbs, according to SoundScan.”
So there’s my answer! The author notes that cassettes’ niche is specific: “Not only were tapes the way many young people first owned music in the Reagan era; from post-punk to C86 to riot grrrl to industrial and noise, cassettes also embodied the 80s underground's do-it-yourself ethic. So much so, in fact, that many indie labels never stopped creating them....Last August, Rhizome writer Ceci Moss identified 101 cassette labels.” (http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7764-this-is-not-a-mixtape/)
That made me think of other formats. During the college years of 1976-1979, I had an eight-track player in my car, and I still enjoyed those tapes as late as 1979, a summer I had a job that involved a lot of car travel. But I doubt I purchased any thereafter. According to a Wikipedia article, eight-tracks were no longer sold in retail stores by 1982, though record clubs still sold them until 1988. The last commercial eight-track release seems to be Fleetwood Mac’s 1988 “Greatest Hits.”
Good riddance! Those tapes were terrible things: their clunkiness, and the way you had to put up with repeated songs. I see them sometimes in antique stores and groan.
My parents wonderfully purchased me a reel-to-reel recorder and player when I was in high school, around 1972. I used it to record music off the radio, especially KSHE-FM in St. Louis, and later Met Opera Saturday matinees. But I don’t think I ever purchased a pre-recorded tape. No wonder: when I looked up that format on Wikipedia, I discovered that pre-recorded reels were largely gone from stores by 1973, and a few were offered by record stores until the late 1970s.
I don’t miss cassettes much. Of course, you had to rewind or fast-forward to your favorite song, and you hoped you wouldn’t go too far or too short. But I was used to them. I don’t remember the first cassette I purchased, but I remember the first one I played: David Bowie’s “Man Who Sold the World” LP, which I taped at home by putting the small player/recorder next to the turntable speakers, and then I carried that same player with me in my old car, a seen-better-days 1963 Chevy. The car wasn’t worth getting a player installed (and my subsequent Dodge Dart had the 8-track player). So it was a homemade way to have favorite music in the case as I, a teenager in a small town, enjoyed my new driver’s license and freedom.
My 1979 Pontiac station wagon had a cassette player built in, so I had a lot of popular tapes. After I was married in the 80s, Beth and I like to purchase cassettes for our cars, especially for cross-country trips to visit the parental-units on holidays. We had a tape of Rossini overtures, baroque “greatest hits,” and Garrison Keillor radio shows. To this day, “William Tell Overture” reminds me of a lonely interstate rather than the Lone Ranger. We had a favorite tape that included two Vaughan Williams’ “A Lark Ascending” and “Tallis Fantasia” along with Elgar’s “Serenade in E Minor for String Orchestra” and Tippett’s “Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli,” and also a cassette with Haydn’s trumpet, harp and organ concertos. All these pieces still bring to mind road trips.
We had a little case in which to store the tapes, but often they ended up being tossed into a small cardboard box. I’d dump them out onto the car seat, and they made that plastic clatter as they fell onto the seat and I sorted through them to locate good music for whatever the day’s trip was.
I think the last cassette I purchased was Talking Head’s “Sand in the Vaseline,” back in the mid 1990s. By then I was purchasing CDs for home listening. But why did I wait to begin purchasing CDs until around 1989 (seven years after their introduction) and only then when my favorite record store stopped carrying LPs? I liked LPs (still do) and my car only had a cassette player. Used to this audio technology, I was devoted to it for a long time. My 2004 Nissan Sentra had players for both cassettes and CDs, but not my 2010 Toyota Matrix.
Will I someday write a nostalgic piece about CDs? Will it (like this essay) unintentionally turn out to be a reminiscence about cars? The time is coming and is nearly here; in my Matrix, I listen to my iPod full of downloads more often than CDs.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
"Music in the Landscape"
I read a review in Gramophone magazine of a new book, Music in the Landscape: How British Countryside Inspired Our Greatest Composers by Em Marshall (Robert Hale, Ltd, 2011). Marshall is founder-director of the English Music Festival and chair of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society (to which I belong). She has appeared on British radio and has authored several articles.
Beginning with Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Elgar I’ve grown to love English music over the years and own numerous LPs and CDs of their and other composers’ pieces. For instance, I’ve most of Britten’s operas and many Vaughan Williams compositions on LPs, numerous Vaughan Williams and Finzi CDs, a lovely series called “English String Miniatures” on the Naxos label, a box set on the ASV Living Era label called “My England: A Collection of Timeless English Concertos,” all 20th century English composers’ concertos, and other CDs and downloads. Many mornings I start the day with a downloaded piece called “Lonely Waters” by Ernest John Moeran. So when I saw Marshall’s book reviewed, I promptly ordered it.
Although Marshall briefly discusses earlier British composers, she focuses upon 19th and 20th century figures. She tells of Edward Elgar’s pleasure of bicycling around the countryside, and also Sir Arnold Bax’s cycling trips. Gustav Holst took many long walking journeys throughout England, while Peter Warlock took his friend Bela Bartok on a motorcycle tour of north Wales with Bartok in the sidebar. Both Bax and Moeran also lived the Irish countryside. Moeran, in fact, found the countryside “fundamental” (p. 213). He died of a stroke in a rural location that he loved. Anyone who knows of Benjamin Britten knows that his home was in Aldeburgh beside the sea, an essential location for his composition. Gerald Finzi’s work was inspired by Yorkshire landscapes where he spent his childhood, and one of his passions was his orchard of apple trees, including rare varieties. Rutland Boughton moved himself and his family in a small woodland cottage on the Surrey and Hampshire borders; there his musical imagination blossomed. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, always devotedly Irish, drew inspiration from Ireland's west coast.
Marshal discusses forty composers, of which fourteen are subject of longer chapters and the rest more brief analysis. She does not include technical musical analysis, which is good for a person like me who loves music but knows little theory. It sounds funny to say that I love the pictures in the book, but the color photographs of English countryside are gorgeous. She provides historical photos as well as contemporary pictures of typical landscapes in places associated with different composers. I hang my head in shame that I’ve only visited the U.K. once, last year, and the book makes me want to return to England soon. Marshall writes at the end, "The countryside---in all its moods----is the key that unlocks the secrets of English music, and is what makes these glorious works as timeless, familiar and beautiful to us today, as yesterday" (p. 281).
Beginning with Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Elgar I’ve grown to love English music over the years and own numerous LPs and CDs of their and other composers’ pieces. For instance, I’ve most of Britten’s operas and many Vaughan Williams compositions on LPs, numerous Vaughan Williams and Finzi CDs, a lovely series called “English String Miniatures” on the Naxos label, a box set on the ASV Living Era label called “My England: A Collection of Timeless English Concertos,” all 20th century English composers’ concertos, and other CDs and downloads. Many mornings I start the day with a downloaded piece called “Lonely Waters” by Ernest John Moeran. So when I saw Marshall’s book reviewed, I promptly ordered it.
Although Marshall briefly discusses earlier British composers, she focuses upon 19th and 20th century figures. She tells of Edward Elgar’s pleasure of bicycling around the countryside, and also Sir Arnold Bax’s cycling trips. Gustav Holst took many long walking journeys throughout England, while Peter Warlock took his friend Bela Bartok on a motorcycle tour of north Wales with Bartok in the sidebar. Both Bax and Moeran also lived the Irish countryside. Moeran, in fact, found the countryside “fundamental” (p. 213). He died of a stroke in a rural location that he loved. Anyone who knows of Benjamin Britten knows that his home was in Aldeburgh beside the sea, an essential location for his composition. Gerald Finzi’s work was inspired by Yorkshire landscapes where he spent his childhood, and one of his passions was his orchard of apple trees, including rare varieties. Rutland Boughton moved himself and his family in a small woodland cottage on the Surrey and Hampshire borders; there his musical imagination blossomed. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, always devotedly Irish, drew inspiration from Ireland's west coast.
Marshal discusses forty composers, of which fourteen are subject of longer chapters and the rest more brief analysis. She does not include technical musical analysis, which is good for a person like me who loves music but knows little theory. It sounds funny to say that I love the pictures in the book, but the color photographs of English countryside are gorgeous. She provides historical photos as well as contemporary pictures of typical landscapes in places associated with different composers. I hang my head in shame that I’ve only visited the U.K. once, last year, and the book makes me want to return to England soon. Marshall writes at the end, "The countryside---in all its moods----is the key that unlocks the secrets of English music, and is what makes these glorious works as timeless, familiar and beautiful to us today, as yesterday" (p. 281).
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