Today is Friday, September 17th, the 260th day of the year. There are 105 days remaining in 2010, and, as the street sign in front of the Pawn Shop on Highway 46 outside New Braunfels warns “Only 98 Days Left To Get Your Christmas Loan!” The German abbess, hymnographer and later canonized saint, Hildegard of Bingen, died in her convent at Rupertsberg on this day in 1179. The “Sybil of the Rhine” wrote over a hundred Sequence Hymns for Mass, honoring the Blessed Virgin and saints, and composed antiphonal chants for the daily office. The presidio of San Francisco was founded on September 17, 1776. The comandante of the presidio made a speech, a Mass was sung, a salute of musketry fired, and canon fire from the Spanish ship the San Carlos anchored nearby echoed around the bay. The new colony of San Francisco was made up of 170 colonists (only 29 were women), 20 soldiers, 3 vaqueros, 3 slaves, some Indian interpreters, 695 horses and mules and 355 cattle. When the San Carlos sailed from the bay to return to Mexico, the comandante wrote in his diary: “This is a sorry lot of colonists. I doubt a sign of our presence here will remain in twenty years time.” After four months of wrangling, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia put their names to our present Constitution on September 17, 1789. Of the 55 delegates who attended, 39 signed the document. Four angrily left prior to the signing so they wouldn’t have to, three present refused to sign (one, George Mason, refused because there was no Bill of Rights, something later amended), and nine men who approved the Constitution had to return to their homes early (they lived in other States—it wasn’t because their wives told them to be home by a certain time). You may remember Benjamin Franklin’s remarks that day as the last men in the room waited to sign. Watching the scene, he spoke to those around him. He nodded towards the president’s chair (George Washington presided at the Convention) and noted the depiction of the sun carved into it. “During the past four months of this convention," he said, “I have often looked at that carving. I was never able to tell if showed a sunrise or sunset. Now, at last, I know. I am happy to say it is a rising sun, the beginning of a new day." Let us hope so. The jury may still be out…On the old Roman calendar, today is ante diem VI Ides Septembri; it’s the 9th of Tishrei, 5771 on the Hebrew calendar; and the date on the Coptic calendar today is Tout 7, 1727, the feast of St Dioscouros. September is also National Check for Headlice Month. I've never done that before so I'll have to ask for help...
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This weekend, at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California, the most elegantly written of Sophocles’ plays, Electra, is being performed. As much as I am becoming acclimatized to the sweltering summer heat of the Great State of Texas, I wish I was there to watch it, coastal breezes, marble colonnades and all. Tickets are $48; seniors and students get in for $38. I’d pay the combined price to be there…Melissa, surely you won’t miss this! Go for me!
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Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, was born in Ribemont-sur-Ancre, Picardy, about 100 miles north of Paris, on September 17, 1743. Though of an old aristocratic family, he was initially an enthusiastic supporter of the French revolution. Eventually he fell afoul of it, and ended up in prison, awaiting his rendezvous with Madame Guillotine. He was the Aristocrat Betrayed by an Omelet.
The marquis, before the heady (pardon me, I couldn’t help it) days of the French Revolution, was a famous mathematician and a member of the Parisian intellectual elite, a friend of Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. When the revolution he had so long predicted finally broke out, he was one who railed for the end of the Ancien Regime and demanded the head of Louis XVI. But when they cut off the king’s head, the marquis began to have second thoughts—among them, if they’ll kill the king, who won’t these peasants kill? He criticized the king’s execution to friends, but in the days of the Terror, few friends proved true and when his words reached the Tuileries Palace, Citizen Robespierre issued a warrant for the marquis’ arrest. He went into hiding, and lived in the garret of a friend’s house in a part of Paris far from political excitements. For eight months he never left the attic. Finally, deciding he was “old news,” he ventured forth one afternoon for a walk in a nearby park. Passing a restaurant, he went in to have lunch and ordered an omelet. When the proprietor asked how many eggs he wanted, the famished marquis replied “A dozen, at least!” That was about ten more eggs than most of his customers usually requested, and the restaurateur decided he must have a bona-fide aristocrat in his tavern. While the marquis fell on his omelet, agents of the revolution arrived, having been summoned by the suspicious proprietor. They hauled the marquis away; Robespierre signed his death warrant, and the marquis cheated Madame Guillotine only by draining a vial of poison the night before the tumbrels came. So the next time you order an omelet, remember Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, the Aristocrat Betrayed by an Omelet, and ask yourself how many eggs do you really want in it?
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This week saw continuing violence in Islamic countries focusing on a Pentecostal minister’s plans to burn 200 copies of the Koran. In Kashmir, a Church of England sponsored school was one of three Christian centers attacked by over 6,500 Muslims this past Tuesday. The Tyndale-Briscoe School has educated both Christian and Muslim students since its founding in 1880, but at present the school has only Muslim students, though the faculty and staff are made up of both Christians and Muslims. This being the case, Mr Ma Kaul, the school principal, told a reporter from Asia News that all religion classes at the Tyndale School currently center on Islam. He also told him that boxes of newly-printed Korans, intended for the more than 500 students presently enrolled at the school, had been stored in the school warehouse. All were destroyed during the attack. Since the library also was vandalized, all the copies of the Koran in the library were burned as well. Oops!
On the same day, St Francis School in Mendhar was attacked and vandalized and some of its ancillary buildings were burned by a crowd of more than 3,000 angrier-than-usual Muslims. Ironically, the St Francis School is owned and operated by Muslims, for Muslims. When the school was founded it chose the name St Francis because Christian schools in the region usually attract more and better students. As with the case of the Tyndale School, one of the buildings burned in the attack on St Francis was the library. In an interview with the Asia News, the librarian said the stacks contained “several dozen” copies of the Koran which were burned along with all the other books in the building. Uh-oh.
Several Christian churches in the region were also attacked this week; an Anglican church, two Catholic churches and a Lutheran church, which had a grenade tossed into the sanctuary as police pushed away the crowd. Father Amir Yaqub, the pastor of Holy Name Catholic Church in Nowshera, Pakistan, said: “Christians in the vicinity have fled the area.”
In response to the violence, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “these incidents had nothing to do with the Church or Christianity. We Muslims never act this same way towards other religions." Curiouser and curiouser. Only Lewis Carroll could do justice to all this…“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe…” Hmmm, suddenly those lines make sense!
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Of course, the big ecclesiastical news this week is the visit of the Pontifex Maximus to England, where he and the Archbishop of Canterbury (looking more than a bit like one of the always-slightly-distracted professors at Hogwarts Academy) “exchanged fraternal greetings,” according to the spokesman of Lambeth Palace. Less visible but more interesting was an article in the Church Times by the Rev. Ms. Rachel Mann, “priest-in-charge” of St Nicholas Church in Burnage, a neighborhood of Manchester. The Rev Ms Mann is concerned that Christians often misjudge, and hence, miss the opportunity to benefit from “a much-maligned form of music,” heavy metal. This music “demonstrates the liberative ‘theology of darkness,’ allowing its fans to be more relaxed and fun by acknowledging the worst in human nature.” Christians “are too serious” about these subjects, she insists: “many churchgoers may be concerned about metal lyrics praising Satan and mocking Christianity,” but they’re missing the point. If Christians dismiss Heavy Metal, as “crass and satanic, hardly fit for intelligent debate,” they miss the opportunity for “theological reflection” on its content. The Rev Ms Mann says heavy metal songs, “characterized by distorted guitar sounds, intense beats and muscular vocals, are unafraid to deal with death, violence and destruction. Metal’s refusal to repress the bleak and violent truths of human nature liberates its fans to be more relaxed and fun people. They put many Christians to shame.” The Church Times didn’t say whether the Rev Ms Mann was scheduled to share her insights with the Pope.
One of the delights of life is the unexpected juxtaposition of events or ideas somehow related and yet unsimilar. When I came across the article by the Rev Ms Mann, I was just finishing a small book by Dom Jacques Hourlier, a monk of Solesmes Abbey, titled Reflections on the Spirituality of Gregorian Chant. It’s worthwhile if not great reading, offering thoughts on the spirituality of music in general and the chant in particular. When I read the article in the Church Times, though, it was the related yet contrasting truths of these two pieces that struck me.
Ms Mann is quite correct to point out that there is a “theology” to her avowed music. It’s true not just of Heavy Metal. Gregorian chant is infused with theology, as is Country Western music, the cantatas of Bach, the sitar music of India and the rhythmic pounding of Polynesian drums. All breathe their own “theologies,” world-views, and spiritualities. Music impacts the soul, sometimes in obvious, sometimes in subtle ways. Dom Hourlier observes, “A military march will not affect the soul the same as a lullaby.” He goes on, “Music involves a message. Its spiritual value, therefore, depends on the kind of message it carries.”
I admit I haven’t ever willingly listened to a piece of heavy metal music—or country western music for that matter. Neither have I nailed my hand to a counter to see whether I’d like it or not. I know the answer without having the experience.
Both Dom Hourlier and the Rev Ms Mann agree that music influences our souls. Ms Mann is right to believe there is a spirituality, a theology, of Heavy Metal. She is wrong to believe that dark theology is “liberative,” at least in the sense people of faith believe in “liberation.” For the heavy metalist, and for most other people regardless of their musical proclivities, freedom means “I can do whatever I want.” The liberation Ms Mann speaks of is the freedom to experience and “celebrate” all aspects of life, including the dark, cobwebby recesses of the psyche. This is the place we stuff our demons, fears, angers and hatreds. The worldling, the sensualist, the carnal man in each of us wants to join in the celebration: “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we”…well, you know. Ms Mann is telling us “come on in, the water’s fine!”
It isn’t. It’s the same old, dirty stinking water we jump into every time. Adam and Eve jumped in first; every one of us (except One and probably His mother) has jumped in, too. We’ve laughed and played and convinced ourselves it is fine, we are free, there’s nothing to worry about. But when we “liberate” ourselves, and set the demons free, we discover too late they don’t go away. They want to hang around, and pretty soon, they’re playing the music we find ourselves dancing to. We find out the “liberation” we lust after isn’t free; it comes at a cost.
The old Book of Common Prayer has a most instructive phrase in one of its prayers; it’s almost an aside to God. In the “Collect for Peace” from the Office of Morning Prayer, it reads “O God, Who art the author of peace and lover of concord…whose service is perfect freedom…”
Perfect freedom. That means complete, unrestricted, absolute freedom. Not merely freedom from my boss or my tedious in-laws, but freedom from all fear, from every pain, from lingering sorrow, and from death—not just the fear of death, but death itself. This is the Gospel-promised freedom, the knowing of which “will set us free.” But it too, comes at a cost. The cost is giving up slavery to myself—my whims, my desires, my lusts, my self-centeredness. When nothing holds us, then we are truly free.
So we settle for Imperfect freedom. The illusion of freedom. Telling ourselves we’re free because being free would change things too much—because we don’t even know how to be free. The Lord says “If you would be perfect, pick up your cross every day and follow Me.” Those of us stumbling along the Labyrinth can’t always see very far ahead; we’re sometimes afraid—because we’re not yet fully free—but the longer we follow, even in darkness, the more sure our footing becomes. We understand in bits and pieces how imperfectly we follow and how much (and how desperately) we cling to our “imperfect freedom.” Don’t be concerned. Keep walking. Looking forward, you don’t see how increasingly firm is the footprint you leave behind.
And remember, some good music helps.
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