The Joy of Singing

Today is July 9, the 190th day of the year; 175 days remain in 2010. It’s the feast of St Cyril of Crete, a fourth-century bishop, St Everild of Everingham, a Saxon noblewoman who forsook the world and became a nun (much to her parent’s dismay), and St Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is to him that we owe the division of the Bible into the chapters with which we are familiar (which isn’t why he was declared a saint). He quarreled with King John (“evil Prince John” of “Robin Hood” fame) and was of the group that eventually forced the unhappy King to sign the Magna Carta on the field at Runnymede (that wasn’t why, either). Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate the feasts of St David of Thessalonica and the Venerable Serapion of Kozha Lake. On the Coptic calendar today is the 2nd of Abib and the year is 1726, while the ancient Romans called this ante diem VII Idus Julius (the seventh day before the ides of July). If any of them were still around to count, this would be the Roman year 2763. On their calendar, today was a minor Roman feast, the Caprotinia, a holiday for the slave girls of Rome. It's the 27th of Tammuz according to Hebrew reckoning. July is Tour de France Month in that Gallic country, while in the United States it’s both National Hot Dog and National Horseradish Month. Today begins National Nudist Recreation Weekend (there is a website listing activities with a minimal dress code) and July 9th, in several States of the Union (Texas demurring), is Sugar Cookie Day.

July 9th isn’t one of the more monumentous days of the calendar. No popes were crowned or emperors deposed, no battles of consequence were fought or treaties signed, no immortal symphonies were composed nor were any of the world's great books published on this day. But for a couple of people in ages past, it was a day to recall or reckon with.

Anne of Cleves was the daughter of a little-known German prince, born in 1515 near Dusseldorf. She was an unexceptional child. At twelve, she was betrothed to the future Duke of Lorraine and her future seemed set. Before the marriage took place, however, Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, died (of natural causes, her head still attached) and the uxorious Henry set his men a-looking across the Christian world for Wife Number Four. Soon the king’s attention was directed to Dusseldorf, where Anne was waiting for the Duke of Lorraine to come and sweep her off her feet. Instead, spurred on by accounts of her beauty, Henry sent the world-famous portrait painter Hans Holbein to Dusseldorf castle. He painted the picture you see up right. When Henry saw it, marriage negotiations began and, by November of 1539, a marriage treaty had been signed. Anne and her entourage arrived in England on New Year’s Eve and the next day Henry anxiously went to see her. Afterward, with some irritation, he told his courtiers he’d been misled about her looks. Could he get out of the marriage? His principal advisor, Thomas Cromwell, reminded him treaties were signed and warned the king’s reputation among the crowns of Europe would suffer if he simply sent her home (Cromwell was the foremost advocate of the marriage and was not unconcerned about his own fate if the king was unhappy). So, laying aside his disappointment, the wedding took place on January 6, 1540. That evening, in the royal bedchamber, Henry’s conjugal duties went unfulfilled. A nervous Cromwell was waiting outside the room the next morning and asked the king, “How liked you the Queen?” Henry looked at him darkly and said, “I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse.” He ordered Cromwell and his Archbishop of Canterbury (who’d just performed the marriage) to work out a divorce. It took six months, but it was done. On July 9, 1540, Parliament issued a decree of nullity. Anne (who knew how Henry’s previous marriages ended) acquiesced and even wrote a letter supporting the King, asking that the marriage be annulled. Henry was so pleased he gave her several manor houses and a settlement of 3,000 pounds a year, making her the richest woman in England. Three weeks after the parliamentary decree, Thomas Cromwell’s head was “stricken from his shoulders” on the green outside the Tower of London for disappointing his king. Anne lived out her days in wealth and quietness and died peacefully in her bed in 1557, twenty years after Henry met his eternal fate. The young woman who could barely speak English may have been the smartest of the Six Wives.

Zachary Taylor, the 12th President of the United States, served one of the shortest terms in history. “Old Rough and Ready,” the hero of the Mexican War, attended ceremonies for the dedication of the Washington Monument on the Fourth of July in 1850. Dressed in a black, high-collar suit, the president suffered a sun stroke and was removed to the White House. When he regained consciousness, Taylor demanded several pitchers of iced milk. After drinking those, he called for more, asking also for “a large bowl of cherries.” By that evening he was very sick. His doctors prescribed several large doses of opium and quinine and bled him repeatedly, but in spite of these “attentions,” his condition worsened. The physicians told his wife early on July 9th there was no hope of survival. He died that morning shortly after 10 AM having been president for 491 days. Historians say his term was so short he had no discernible impact on the country. Maybe that's a lesson worth remembering!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Walking the Labyrinth—I love early American music. As I write this, I’m listening to a beautifully-done recording of the Tudor Choir singing selections from their CD The Shapenote Album, a collection of tunes, songs and hymns from the 18th and early 19th centuries. The music is rich and boisterous, full of energy and powerful in delivering its message in the straightforward language of our forbearers. Music speaks to us on several levels at once, affecting us sometimes in unconscious ways. The final nights of Holy Week there is an ancient service called Tenebrae (Latin for “Shadows”). It’s a collection of eighteen Psalms interspersed with readings from Scripture. The Psalms are chanted with melodies many centuries old and the chanting weaves a strange magic on the participants. Chant a few Psalms and you can appreciate the music and get something of the words the music conveys. Chant eighteen Psalms in an hour or two and you will be transported by the music. The steady cadence of the music enables the words of the Psalms to caress the soul; God can speak words of consolation even when we don’t realize we’re listening. I imagine something very much like that happened to our ancestors when they enjoyed a “hymn-sing.”

St Ephrem was a deacon in Syria sixteen hundred years ago. You may have heard of him from the famous prayer attributed to him which is recited by Orthodox Christians daily throughout Lent, “O Lord and Master of My Life.” St Ephrem was a theologian of renown during his lifetime but as he wrote in Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke) his works have been closed to those who don’t know the language. Most interesting to me, though, is that Ephrem wrote his most profound theology as poetry. He wrote his theology not to be read in quiet candle-lit chambers but to be sung out loud!

Theology isn’t usually associated with poetry, but Ephrem thought it was the best medium for conveying profound truths. He understood something which theologians and believers of any faith sometimes forget when they talk about what they believe: God is not a doctrine and theology is not a theory. Ephrem believed we can only talk about God after we acknowledge we don’t know what we’re talking about. We use words to talk about God because we don’t have anything else. “God clothed Himself with language,” Ephrem sang, “so He could clothe us with Himself.” For centuries and more, religious language has been a weapon that has obscured truth as much as it has been a vehicle that expressed it.

Ephrem insists that we approach God with real humility. My old mentor, Fr Rogers, used to tell me humility was not trying to convince yourself you were worthless and bad (which, he said, no sane person ever really believes anyway). Humility, he said, is from the word humus, “earth.” The humble person is one whose feet are firmly set on the ground. Real humility is to know ourselves as best we can, and understand we can know God only in tiny bits and pieces, as best we can catch an occasional glimpse of He Who Is. If we know our vision is imperfect, Ephrem says, if we’re “clothed with humility,” we begin to be ready to talk—or, better yet—to sing about God. St Ephrem didn’t treat words about God as an intellectual exercise. Ephrem’s songs about God are as much addressed to God as about Him. He has no interest in God as a theory—for the Syrian saint, God Is Present Now, here, everywhere and always. An academic discussion about God, to Ephrem’s mind, is as ludicrous as one person carrying on a conversation about himself with himself.

St Ephrem was not indifferent to the necessity of dogma, but wanted it to reflect the reality of human limitations. We are fallen, easily-distracted, argumentative creatures contemplating the Infinite Sea of Charity. One of his hymns is entitled “Against Heresies.” After singing the dangers of the heresies of his day, St Ephrem concludes his work with a stanza of warning to himself and his hearers:

“As I have acknowledged Thee, O Lord
Do Thou acknowledge me.

Show Thy compassions on this sinner
Who believes in Thee.

Even as he sins, O Master
He knocks at Thy door.

Even though his steps are sluggish
Still, he travels Thy highway.”

I read this poem for the first time only a few weeks ago, but it seems to me a perfect song for a walker on any Labyrinth. We cling to our imperfect vision of God, confident not in what we know but Who we know. He’s the One Who guides our faltering steps—and we know where He’s taking us. Our steps may be sluggish and the scenery for each of us a bit different, but our Labyrinths take us along the King’s Highway. You might want to sing as you walk.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++