Metaphysical Archives | Page 3 of 6

June 6, 2013February 23, 2022

Time, Prayer and God: Heschel

The following is one of those passages from Abraham Joshua Heschel—extraordinarily common in his writing—that is fascinating when considered as philosophy, penetrating when heard as theology, and quite moving and beautiful when simply read as poetry.

Common to all men who pray is the certainty that prayer is an act which makes the heart audible to God. Who would pour his most precious hopes into an abyss? […]
The passage of hours, almost unnoticeable, but leaving behind the feeling of loss or omission, is either an invitation to despair or a ladder to eternity. This little time in our hands melts away ere it can be formed. Before our eyes man and maid, spring and splendor, slide into oblivion. However, there are hours that perish and hours that join the everlasting. Prayer is a crucible in which time is cast in the likeness of the eternal. Man hands over his time to God in the secrecy of single words. When anointed by prayer, his thoughts and deeds do not sink into nothingness, but merge into the endless knowledge of an all-embracing God.

Those lines are from his book Man’s Quest For God.

Perhaps it’s something to do with aging, but I happen to be increasingly preoccupied with questions of time. Not so much the lack of it (which is very obvious and about which I can do nothing) but the nature of it, and in particular the difference between our time and God’s. It doesn’t matter that this is unknowable; if we ceased wondering about things which are unknowable I suppose that we would be very bored and very boring indeed. But you wonder—and I know that all humans, atheist, agnostic and devout, wonder this—why most seconds, minutes and moments just tick away like a great impersonal and unstoppable clock, and why there are other moments in our lives which may be incredibly brief on the clock but the duration and weight of which seem almost boundless to our experience. These moments can come in a wide variety of contexts, but I think they are often those moments in which we involuntarily shed tears, or at least are very deeply moved by something inexpressible. I think that we are certain, in such a moment, that what is happening matters a great deal, and that it will not simply pass on into the void but will somehow be remembered, and not only by ourselves. Are we wrong, or are we in such moments receiving a tiny glimpse of the eternal? Continue reading “Time, Prayer and God: Heschel”

June 1, 2013May 27, 2023

(Sitting Out) God Bless America

There is an opinion column by a Methodist minister named James P. Marsh in The Washington Post, titled “Why I Sit Out ‘God Bless America.'”

Explaining his discomfort with the song, he states:

I imagine that the God I believe in isn’t interested in dispensing special nationalistic blessings. (Or, perhaps more to the point, blessings for our bullpen, error-free fielding and sufficient run support.) When we ask for blessings to be bestowed only on “us,” we are in danger of seeing ourselves as set apart from the world. Faith is global, and one nation doesn’t get any more or less of God than any other.

Amazing.

It honestly never occurred to me that in praying for God’s blessing on America, I was praying that He not give his blessing to any other nation or people. What a strange way of perceiving prayer. There is nothing in the lyric of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” that condemns any other nation or people. By extension, if one prays to God to bless one’s own family, is it implicitly a prayer to God to curse everyone else’s family? Continue reading “(Sitting Out) God Bless America”

May 23, 2013December 23, 2018

Calon Lân / A Pure Heart

Still pursuing a recent obsession with Welsh music, this American-of-Irish-extraction thought he would reflect a little on the beautiful song “Calon Lân” (generally translated to English as “A Pure Heart”). It’s a song that seems to be deeply embedded in the Welsh culture, to such an extent that you could easily believe it were a much older song than it is. It was first published in 1899, which isn’t yesterday, but is certainly modern times, only fifteen years before WWI.

The lyric was written by the Welsh poet Daniel James, also known by his Welsh poetic nickname, “Gwyrosydd.” It’s reported that he wrote the words as a prayer and then later asked the Welsh tunesmith John Hughes (known also for the great melody “Cwm Rhondda”) to put it to music, which he did, promptly creating a hymn of some sublime beauty and power. Its first appearance was in a Sunday School periodical, and it became widely beloved during what is known as “The Welsh Revival” of 1904-1905, a revival of Christianity which is credited with spurring similar awakenings far beyond the borders of Wales.

The song is also one of a number of great Welsh melodies which can be heard in the classic film, “How Green Was My Valley,” directed by John Ford, from 1941.

It’s the kind of a song where I think most anyone listening to it would find it affecting even with absolutely no idea of what the words mean. I can say at least that it certainly had me reaching for a hankie the first time I heard it, though I had no tangible notion of what it was about. Somehow just the sound of the singing of those syllables and that tune left no doubt that it represented something very profound. It seemed unlikely that it was a song about, say, scrambled eggs. It came across as a statement from deep within the human soul, full of emotion; it was clearly an extraordinarily deep declaration or plea.

Quite a lot of people heard “Calon Lân” for the first time in this way when it was performed on the TV show “Britain’s Got Talent” in 2012, by a choir of young Welsh lads known as “Only Boys Aloud.” It was one of those obviously choreographed but still likeable moments when people are unexpectedly wowed. The video is embedded via YouTube below (and then below that some more scribbling from me about the song). Continue reading “Calon Lân / A Pure Heart”

May 5, 2013March 10, 2022

Something’s Burning, Baby – Bob Dylan

Happy Easter, again! Today, May 5th, was Easter Sunday for those Christians following the Eastern Orthodox calendar (a not inconsiderable number).

Reaching around in the muck of my memory for a song to reference in celebration of this fact, I thought about the big concepts of Easter, and thought of various songs about “rising again” and the like, but it was only when I thought of the rolling away of the stone that I thought of a song that piqued my own interest, because it is a song that is relatively-little-known but looms large in my own recollection, for one reason or another. Actually for a really simple reason: the song, “Something’s Burning, Baby,” was released on the album Empire Burlesque, in 1985. It was the first album that Bob Dylan released after I had become a fan of Bob Dylan, which I did in the 1983/84 time period, at the age of sixteen. So when Empire Burlesque was released in 1985, I think it felt for me kind of like what Highway 61 Revisited must have felt like for people who were Dylan fans back then. I recall an intense feeling of anticipation in advance of the release date, and a sense of wondering: “How is Bob going to blow my mind anew with this one?” To many, this will seem comical, since mid-80s Dylan is commonly mocked—as it was then—but that didn’t (and doesn’t) matter. To me, it was 1965, and every new song from Bob could not but be a dramatic revelation, a brand-spanking-new tablet carried down from the mountain.

People tend to remember fondly the pop-music they listened to during their teen years, their coming-of-age years. It’s a distorted magnifier, associating the music with their biological intensity of feeling during that time. There are those people—very many, in my perception—who essentially stop listening to popular music in any engaged fashion after that period, and it then becomes only a matter of nostalgia. Oblivious to anything else, if they happen hear a track from their youth (by Depeche Mode, the Cure, Journey, take your pick) they suddenly become enormously animated, singing along and gesturing wildly, as if everyone present ought to appreciate how wonderful that song is. Continue reading “Something’s Burning, Baby – Bob Dylan”

April 21, 2013April 17, 2016

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

Today was what is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” in many Christian churches, the appointed psalm being Psalm 23, and the gospel from John, chapter 10. And the second reading one may have heard, from Revelation, chapter 7, has this:

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

It’s natural to focus on the promise of every tear being wiped away, which is that which we all long for, but the image of the Lamb being the shepherd is such a beautiful and mysterious and imponderable thing, and all the more worth pondering for that. Continue reading “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”

March 29, 2013April 18, 2025

Gwahoddiad – I Hear Thy Welcome Voice – Arglwydd Dyma Fi

Today is Good Friday—at least for those observing the liturgical calendar followed by most Christians in the western hemisphere. It is a Christian holy day, but not a U.S. federal holiday, nor a New York State holiday, and yet, curiously, Wall Street—the New York Stock Exchange—is closed today. It’s been closed on Good Friday as a rule since its inception. Hard-nosed capitalists or no, it seems that no one has had the gumption to break that particular precedent. Well, deference to much of anything being in such short supply, I think one can only applaud it when one sees it.

My purpose today, however, is just to reflect a little on a song. I think it might be described as a Good Friday kind of song, and it’s a song I’ve grown to love, although a few months ago I had not even heard of it.

Accounts tell us that in 1872, an American Methodist minister named Lewis Hartsough wrote the lyric and the tune, during the course of a revival meeting in Iowa. The song become known by its first line: “I hear thy welcome voice.”

Yet, I’ve never heard the song sung in English, and I would guess not all that many people have.

The song was noticed not long after its first publishing by a Welsh Methodist minister named John Roberts (also known by his poetic name of Ieuan Gwyllt). He translated the song into Welsh, and I guess you could say that from there it went viral. (This being the age before antibiotics, perhaps back then they would’ve said that it went bacterial.) It quickly became a deeply beloved hymn of the Welsh, such that many presume that it has been Welsh all along. Continue reading “Gwahoddiad – I Hear Thy Welcome Voice – Arglwydd Dyma Fi”

March 24, 2013March 24, 2013

Wade in the Water

Tomorrow evening marks the beginning of Passover, and today was Palm Sunday and the kick-off of Holy Week for many Christians like myself (although for those observing the Eastern Orthodox calendar, Palm Sunday will arrive very much later on April 28th). So I take this opportunity to wish happy holidays and observances to all, and may God have mercy on every one of us.

In the spirit of thinking of songs that in a certain sense span the Judeo/Christian story, I happened to think of “Wade in the Water” today. It is of-course a famous Negro spiritual, and has been performed too many times by too many people in too many variations to even begin a litany. I love the song for its mysteriousness. I guess the one fundamental observation that can be made about it is that it blends the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea with the Christian belief in baptism by water. The chorus (which is the one thing that is consistent amongst the many versions) goes: Continue reading “Wade in the Water”

March 3, 2013May 9, 2025

Cwm Rhondda – Bread of Heaven – Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer

“Bread of Heaven” is a song from Wales. The lyric is by a great 18th century Welsh writer named William Williams, also known as Williams Pantycelyn (there being so many “Williamses” in Wales that it is necessary to give them nicknames in order to be sure that everyone receives the appropriate royalties). The song became what it is today, however, sometime around 1904/05, when the English version of the lyric was wedded to a recently-composed melody by yet another great Welshman named John Hughes; i.e. the tune titled “Cwm Rhondda,” after the Welsh valley of the same name. This was during what is known as a Great Awakening or religious revival in Wales, and one that spread (not unlike the tune) to many other quarters.

It’s funny: I was talking about this song a few days ago to a few friends, merely sharing my enthusiasm for something I’d only really discovered relatively recently, and I turned on the CD player and played for them the version that I’m embedding at the bottom of this post; then, this morning, it turned out to be the closing hymn sung at my church here in New York City. This caught me quite by surprise, and made me chuckle, and also made me think that I must be supposed to write something about it today. I had planned to write something about it anyway, but at some undetermined later juncture. Well, why put off till tomorrow, etc.? Why, indeed.

The thing is, I have very little to say about it. If ever there was a song that spoke for itself, it is this one. But there are details, and context—those things that can sharpen the appreciation for even a song that stands so squarely and strongly on its own.

The marriage of William Pantycelyn’s words and John Hughes’ music was apparently one made in heaven as after its emergence around 1905 the song became very quickly and deeply beloved of the Welsh. It has ultimately come to be known as the unofficial national anthem of Wales, and can be heard sung ceremonially at important sporting events (i.e. rugby matches).

In Wales itself, it is generally known either as “Bread of Heaven” (a line from the first verse) or as “Cwm Rhondda,” the name of the melody. Globally, it is usually referred to by the first line of the lyric, which is alternately presented as “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah,” or “Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer,” or “Guide Me Ever, Great Redeemer.”

It is a hymn which derives its imagery and narrative directly from the story of the Israelites, led from slavery in Egypt and guided to the Promised Land, as in the Bible from Exodus through Joshua. Key touchstones from that story are invoked to convey the prayer of just one poor sinner, wishing for God’s guidance, trusting in His grace, and offering humble praise.

Through the gift of YouTube, one can find an almost-incalculable number of renditions of this song, with its various titles, in various guises. You want it at a rugby match, complete with Tom Jones and beer-sodden fans? You got it. You want it from a chapel in Wales? You got it. You want it at the wedding of William and Kate? You got it. You want a radically different version at an African-American church in the U.S.A., led by Pastor Calvin Johnson, with nary a Welshman in sight? Here it is. How about a Welsh Male Voice Choir from Dublin, Ireland—singing in Boston, Massachusetts? It’s yours. In the language of the great Navajo people: click this link. Cherokee: no problem. Famous soprano Charlotte Church singing the song in Jerusalem: right here. This is scratching the surface of what’s available.

It connects with people. People everywhere. One may wonder what this tells us about the song, or one may wonder what it tells us about humanity, and our position vis-à-viz eternity, the divine, and, well, stuff like that. Entirely the listener’s choice.

I will embed just two versions here, by the power vested in me. One is as solid and laudable a “conventional” rendition as one could wish for, provided by the glorious Froncysyllte Male Voice Choir.

…

What touches this listener most deeply, however, is in the end an antidote to all of the grand renditions, as genuinely grand as they are. It is an unaffected performance, by a musician named Cerys Matthews, from her rather incandescent album of Welsh standards, titled Tir. (Highly recommended.) Among the things about it that I love is that it reminds the listener that this is the prayer in the end of just one poor pilgrim, albeit joined on a journey with so many others. No need to “update” the lyric; she sings it as it was, and it is as immediate and contemporary as ever.

(Slideshow is of various Welsh scenes as uploaded by the anonymous fan.)

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
Hold me with thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through:
Strong deliverer, strong deliverer;
Be thou still my strength and shield;
Be thou still my strength and shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell’s destruction
Land me safe on Canaan’s side:
Songs and praises, songs and praises,
I will ever give to thee;
I will ever give to thee.

Amen.

January 14, 2013July 13, 2023

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

The final blessing of Moses on the people of Israel is described in chapter 33 of Deuteronomy. The first part of verse 27 goes like this (ESV):

The eternal God is your dwelling place,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.

The famous American hymn, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” was published in 1887, and was composed by two Presbyterian men, namely Anthony J. Showalter and Elisha Hoffman. It was Showalter who received the initial inspiration, writing the refrain and the melody, reportedly after reaching for the above scriptural verse to console two former students of his who had both recently lost their wives. He then asked Hoffman—a prodigious hymn-writer credited with over 2000 religious songs—if he could come up with lyrics for the verses. Naturally he could.

In looking into the history of this song, I found the text of an old book online, written by one J.H. Hall, filled with short biographies of various composers of gospel songs. It includes this passage on Elisha Hoffman:

Mr. Hoffman’s first impressions of music came from hearing the voice of sacred song in the home. His parents both had sweet voices and sang well. It was their custom, in the hour of family worship, both morning and evening, to sing one or two hymns. The children early became familiar with these hymns and learned to love them and to feel their hallowing and refining power. Their lives were marvellously influenced by this little service of song in the home. A taste for sacred music was created and developed, and song became as natural a function of the soul as breathing was a function of the body.

As natural a function of the soul as breathing is of the body: What an inspired way of thinking about the singing of these kinds of songs. It immediately reminded me of the quote highlighted in this space last week from Abraham Joshua Heschel, where he says of losing oneself to prayerful music that: “it is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.” Continue reading “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”

January 8, 2013February 23, 2022

Music as prayer (featuring Abraham Joshua Heschel and Harry Secombe)

Gosh, is it time for another Heschel-related post already? It seems no one can stop me, so the answer is yes. I’ve been reading yet another of his great books, this one titled Man’s Quest For God. It is in major part a reflection on the way in which human beings reach out for God through prayer. I suppose that it easily qualifies as the most moving book on prayer I’ve read. It includes reflections on, among other things, the power and nature of words themselves, and the special nature of scriptural and liturgical words.

The paragraph I’m pulling out here, however, is in reference to that special quality of music to express that which cannot be said with words alone.

In no other act does man experience so often the disparity between the desire for expression and the means of expression as in prayer. The inadequacy of the means at our disposal appears so tangible, so tragic, that one feels it a grace to be able to give oneself up to music, to a tone, to a song, to a chant. The wave of a song carries the soul to heights which utterable meanings can never reach. Such abandonment is no escape nor an act of being unfaithful to the mind. For the world of unutterable meanings is the nursery of the soul, the cradle of all our ideas. It is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.

Naturally, I love everything about what he says and how he says it there, but consider that last sentence in particular. To give oneself up to prayer in the form of music, Heschel says, “is not an escape but a return to one’s origins.” What a wonderful way to meditate upon our origin: this idea that we have come from that same place from which music comes, and the thought that music is ultimately our true language.

People have always sought and found glimpses of the transcendent in music; this surely dates from the moment in which the first human being sang. (And certainly people have been annoyed by music since the time that the first human stomped on the floor to tell his downstairs’ neighbor to turn it down.) We might look around the world sometimes and wonder if the scientific reductionists have it right, if human beings really have no special purpose in any transcendent order, but are merely freaks of nature—nothing more than chipmunks with swollen brain cavities. But how many chipmunks (other than Alvin, maybe) sing like Ella Fitzgerald, or even like your mother or grandmother used to in the kitchen? We credit birds with song, and whales, and frogs, and the sounds they make are wonders of creation, but we humans seem to be pursuing melody and harmony on a very different level. And even if we don’t make music ourselves, we cannot resist listening to it (I deeply pity the rare soul who just never listens to music).

Yours truly spent some years without any easily definable or shall-we-say-biblical beliefs, but never shook off a belief in a God at the bottom of it all, and there’s no question that a love of music was the major reason for that. And it was purely popular music which I listened to during those years, and indeed that remains the form of music I’m happy to listen to most, hour for hour (albeit that some of it stretches the definition of “popular”). Being able to detect some shred of the transcendent in a song and performance which brought tears to my eyes for reasons that were ultimately inexpressible kept me in mind of the fact that there was, after all, a transcendence out there. Many are happy enough to concede the reality of an impersonal transcendence, but to me at least it’s always felt very personal in those moments, shot through with mercy and with hope. Continue reading “Music as prayer (featuring Abraham Joshua Heschel and Harry Secombe)”

December 24, 2012December 4, 2013

Merry Christmas, You Beasts

Below, a photo of our little mutt, Billie, posing cooperatively and carefully amidst some very breakable Christmas ornaments (recycled from a previous Christmas photo session, in case anyone remembers).

There were reports in the media earlier this year regarding a new book from Pope Benedict, the current commander-in-chief at the Vatican, titled “Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.” It was said that he had debunked some traditional notions regarding Christmas. One of those had to do with the specific year in which Jesus was born, to the effect that it was likely not in the year 1 AD, but rather in the year 5 or 6 BC. This fact is really nothing new (although it must have caused no end of confusion for calendar-makers back then: “Well, is he here yet or isn’t he here yet? We can’t cancel another print run!”)

The other reported-debunking was more controversial, however. It was widely broadcast just as in the following story: Continue reading “Merry Christmas, You Beasts”

December 9, 2012October 28, 2014

Advent Musings

Happy Chanukah to Jewish friends and readers, that festival having begun yesterday evening and continuing until next Sunday. Here in New York City one can have a tangible sense of the holiday being celebrated without being Jewish, due to the make up of the population, a sense which I must assume is pretty uncommon elsewhere. It is one of the nice things about this city.

Although (judging by appearances in the stores) it seems that Christmas began sometime in October, it is still weeks away. Yet, many Christians do continue to observe at least some of the traditions of the season known as Advent, a time of anticipation of the arrival of Jesus. It encompasses roughly four weeks in advance of December 25th, today counting as the second Sunday of this year’s Advent season. I’m far from being the religious historian or theologian to attempt to fully explain the tradition, which has many rich and varied aspects, but on a very basic level I would judge its purpose is to help in nurturing and recalling a sense of longing for the Messiah. This is a strange thing, and maybe all the more worthy of cherishing for that reason. People who grow up as Christians, whether in actuality or merely nominally to one degree or another, are naturally prone to taking the birth of Jesus for granted. It’s old-hat, even. Yeah, Jesus was born, whether it was 2012 years ago or a few years earlier. But we’ve moved beyond all that now. We’ve got other problems.

Advent offers a means of stepping back and remembering why the arrival of such a Savior was something for which to yearn. Then, the celebration of His arrival can be something more than rote and something more than just a religious holiday that coincides with the zenith of the retail year. It can rather be something that gives genuine relief to souls badly in need of it.

…

Advent has its own songs. Tunes like “Jingle Bells Will Be Ringing Soon” and “Santa Claus Is Beginning to Make Plans to Travel.” But those are just the secular ones. An Advent hymn heard at church today was “On Jordan’s Banks the Baptist’s Cry.”

On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
announces that the Lord is nigh;
awake and hearken, for he brings
glad tidings of the King of kings.

Then cleansed be every breast from sin;
make straight the way for God within,
prepare we in our hearts a home
where such a mighty Guest may come.

The reference is to John the Baptist, who didn’t actually foretell the birth of Jesus (as he was a contemporary) but foretold His ministry. The Gospel reading in many churches today would have been from Luke, chapter three, and also concerned John the Baptist. It struck me in one particular way this morning. A slightly abridged version:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar … the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”

What happened to strike me this morning was this concrete example of why all Christians at least ought to be extremely dubious of anyone who claims they know how any biblical prophecy will actually be fulfilled. The evangelist Luke is indicating pretty clearly that the passage from Isaiah (chapter 40) is a foretelling of the ministry of John the Baptist. (In the Gospel of John, this same assertion is attributed to John the Baptist himself.) A Jewish exegesis of this passage would inevitably be different. But when one piece of Holy Scripture (of the New Testament) characterizes another piece of Holy Scripture (of the Old Testament) in this way, believing Christians pretty much have to take it as, well, the Gospel truth. What does it mean to accept that this prophecy was fulfilled in this very specific way?

“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low …” Is that what John the Baptist did? It is glorious language from Isaiah, poetic and powerful and rightly stirring. Yet, on the most mundane level, what John the Baptist did was to preach repentance from sin, which was something that prophets had done often before to the people of Israel, and in his way he inspired a kind of spiritual revival amongst those who listened to him. He wasn’t saying anything so dramatically new—I don’t think—but instead was reminding people of the urgency of repentance and of following God’s law. Although very few of his words have been recorded (only those few that are in the Gospels) he was apparently very inspiring to those who heard him. Even King Herod of the time, a decadent and corrupt man by all accounts, was intrigued and compelled by things that John the Baptist preached. However, John didn’t literally fill the valleys and level the mountains. The physical geography remained unchanged. What he did was inspire people and gather followers, and when Jesus began his public ministry he found a ready audience in people who had already been following John. John was a warm-up act, one might say. Perhaps in a certain sense he did the spadework, helping to enable Jesus to work at a higher level in his own preaching. Continue reading “Advent Musings”

December 4, 2012April 27, 2020

Leonard Cohen: “Amen” and “Come Healing”

In concert lately, Leonard Cohen has been following his song “Amen” with his song “Come Healing,” which are both from his most recent album, Old Ideas.

There’s a fan’s YouTube clip embedded below, and a few thoughts from yours truly on the songs below that.

I think that “Amen” is as harrowing a song as he’s ever written. To my ears at any rate it is a deep moan to God, without sentimentality, laying out the worst of this world, begging maybe just to be able to believe it will be put right. Can God really want us, actually love us, after all of it? It’s a prayer for the evidence. Continue reading “Leonard Cohen: “Amen” and “Come Healing””

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012

Celebration versus entertainment: more Abraham Joshua Heschel (from “Who Is Man?”)

There could really be no end to picking things out to reflect upon from Abraham Joshua Heschel’s little book Who Is Man?

Take this brief passage:

The man of our time is losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating, he seeks to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state—it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle. Entertainment is a diversion, a distraction of the attention of the mind from the preoccupations of daily living. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

When did he write that? This morning? It reads like the perfect commentary on our 24/7-non-stop-info-and-entertainment-cavalcade of existence, bouncing from one screen and gadget to the next, sucking up amusement from fifteen different sources every second. But the book is from 1965, based on lectures given in 1963.

Of-course, he is also highlighting a tendency in human nature that is timeless; that is, to bury oneself in entertainment and amusement and to forget the meaning at the heart of everything, or indeed to forget even to ask whether there is any meaning. It was possible to live that way three thousand years ago, although there were probably more frequent reminders of the limits of one’s powers and one’s lifespan. Today, it’s merely a lot easier to keep the volume up and drown out any still small voice that might be asking one to celebrate instead of just to continue blithely consuming. Continue reading “Celebration versus entertainment: more Abraham Joshua Heschel (from “Who Is Man?”)”

November 21, 2012November 21, 2012

Thanksgiving

This evening, at a Thanksgiving Eve service at our little chapel in the wildwood, we heard a beautiful performance of a piece called Dank sei Dirr, Herr, sung by a mezzo-soprano accompanied by only piano. I was not familiar with the tune, but it was credited to Siegfried Ochs (1858-1929) in the service guide, and a little checking suggests that this is the widely-accepted accreditation these days, although it used to be believed that Handel had composed it.

Anyway, I was quite struck by it, both the beauty of the performance and the composition, and also its moving aptness in a Thanksgiving service. I’m embedding a version via YouTube at the bottom of this post, a grand performance with a singer named Gundula Hintz. The lyric is in German (which I’ll put below the video) but the translation is as follows:

Thanks be to Thee,
Lord God of Hosts:
Thou broughtest forth Your people
with Your mighty hand
Israel safe through the sea.

Lord, like a shepherd
Thou hast led us;
Lord, Thy hand protected us
in Thy goodness tenderly as in ages past.

The words sound reminiscent of any number of songs of praise and psalms from the Bible, but I don’t know a precise source, if there is one. The last few verses of Psalm 77 could be one.

Yet, the message is beautifully historic and specific and at the same time up-to-the-minute, relevant and universal. You might paraphrase it: Thank You, Lord God, for protecting Your people in the past, and thank You for protecting Your people now, every moment of every hour.

Some of us might just add a prayer that we indeed count among God’s people. Continue reading “Thanksgiving”

November 18, 2012September 18, 2023

Abraham Joshua Heschel on Happiness (from “Who Is Man?”)

What is happiness? It’s an odd word, one of such centrality to our lives, and to our reason for choosing to continue to be, yet so far beyond easy definition. The U.S. Declaration of Independence refers to the inalienable rights of every human being which (it says) include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We generally know what “life” means (although in our post-modern age it is not exactly a slam-dunk) and we can at least engage in meaningful debate over the definition of “liberty,” but where do we even begin in defining happiness? I do think that it is a beautiful thing that the U.S. Declaration of Independence includes this statement; it is the cleaving of a chasm between that moment and the way things were ordered in the world before it, and yet it is also somewhat maddening. It invites trivial and trite interpretation. What happiness? Whose happiness?

Legalisms aside, it is a little easier from a philosophical point of view to approach the question of what happiness is by first defining what it is not. The following is a very brief extract from Abraham Joshua Heschel’s wonderful little book, Who Is Man?, which I’ve recently read, in which he is touching on this question.

Happiness is not a synonmym for self-satisfaction, complacency, or smugness. Self-satisfaction breeds futility and despair. […]
Self-fulfillment is a myth which a noble mind must find degrading. All that is creative in man stems from a seed of endless discontent. New insight begins when satisfaction comes to an end, when all that has been seen, said, or done looks like a distortion.

The aim is the maintenance and fanning of a discontent with our aspirations and achievements, the maintenance and fanning of a craving that knows no satisfaction. Man’s true fulfillment depends upon communion with that which transcends him.

So, if as Heschel says “man’s true fulfillment depends upon communion with that which transcends him,” then that is a communion which can never be quite complete. You can reach for communion with that which transcends you, but you cannot totally commune with it … because it does transcend you. In effect, you can pursue happiness, but never quite get there. Alternatively, it is in the pursuit of happiness that happiness is most tangibly present. Continue reading “Abraham Joshua Heschel on Happiness (from “Who Is Man?”)”

October 28, 2012October 28, 2012

Reformation Sunday

Today is Reformation Sunday (except for the Orthodox who celebrate it next week*). That means it’s the nearest Sunday before October 31st, which was the day in 1517 on which Martin Luther—an incredibly brilliant if imperfect man—nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, creating a stir which continues in motion to this day.

The notion of this as a holiday to celebrate is strange to some Christians, and I understand that well, having been brought up Roman Catholic and only in relatively recent years having learned to embrace the Lutheran I always was. Why celebrate schism? I have a simplistic way of looking at these matters, but I’ll share it since we’re going to press and there’s nothing else to put in this space.

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So says Jesus in Matthew 16:18, and in the original Greek in which it was written it is also a pun, since “Peter” is derived from “petros” meaning stone or rock. What exactly is that church—the church of Jesus Christ which he announced he would build that day? It is commonly understood as a source of sorrow that the church of Christ is divided, that Christians are divided, and such a division surely has to be a source of sorrow to some extent. However, the key question for this believer is this: At what point was the church “undivided” in our ordinary human terms? The Reformation was not the first incarnation of deep disagreement amongst people who otherwise agreed that Jesus is the Son of God and our redeemer. The Eastern Orthodox churches had split centuries before from the concentration of power in Rome. Even among the early church fathers, there was much disagreement and controversy. And then there’s this: While Jesus himself walked the earth, the gospels record that the apostles argued amongst themselves about who among them was “the greatest.” Jesus endeavored to correct them, and he had a great deal of influence in these matters, but still I believe that history does not record a period of time during which there was no serious disagreement amongst Christians over anything. Continue reading “Reformation Sunday”

September 28, 2012May 9, 2025

Abraham Joshua Heschel: “Who Is Man?”

I’ve become a big aficionado in recent years of the writing of Abraham Joshua Heschel, a great philosopher and a Jewish theologian (1907 – 1972). Most recently I got a copy of his book Who Is Man? Considering its focus, it probably would have made ideal reading in advance of reading Heschel’s great (though earlier) works Man Is Not Alone and God in Search of Man, but no matter.

Like Heschel’s work generally, it’s very rich, at times quasi-poetic, and rewards enormous reflection on each page. Following is a short section on what Heschel characterizes as man’s inherent “nonfinality.” (In using the word “man,” of-course, Heschel is referring to humankind, both on the general level and the individual, and is not trying to disrespect the ladies.)

Nonfinality (pg 40)

Where is man? At what stage of his life and in what situation of his existence do we meet him as he really is? He is variable, fickle, appearing in different roles. Is he the same as father or mother as he is as salesman or soldier? Does he remain the same from the cradle to the grave, from the cave to the rocket?

All the definitions cited above have a ring of finality and presume to be definitive. However, there is no such entity as man in his permanent and final form. Man is rarely to be found in a definitive edition. A salient characteristic of being human is inconstancy both in behavior and in self-understanding, inability to remain what he is once and for all. Finality and humanity seem to be mutually exclusive. Man is caught in the polarity of being both tentative, undecided, unsettled as well as final, fixed, determined.

Anything is possible. The ambiguity of his traits and the ambivalence of his actions are such that his consistency involves inner contradiction. Man has many faces. Which is canonical and which is apocryphal?

To understand his being it is not enough to see him as he acts here and now, for example, as conditioned by our industrial society. Man is a being in flux. Yielding to a particular pattern of living he remains both compliant and restive, conforming and rebellious, captive and insurgent.
[…]
To claim to be what I am not is a pretension. To insist that I must be only what I am now is a restriction which human nature must abhor. The being of a person is never completed, final. The status of a person is a status nascendi. The choice is made moment by moment. There is no standing still.

I think that’s all true, and yet these are things we rarely stop to examine in our own selves, and probably even less so with regard to others.

It also struck me as something worthy of filing in my “Dylanosophy” section. If you’re a Dylan fan you may already know why. It’s because all of this reflection on the ever-changing nature of man sounds a lot like some scholarly (or at least rock-criticly) writing I’ve read about Bob Dylan in the past. In fact, you could substitute “Bob Dylan” for “man” in the text above and come out with something that would seem to fit the portrait so many have painted of Dylan in their effort to get their heads around his work.

Don’t believe me? Let’s try it:

However, there is no such entity as [Bob Dylan] in his permanent and final form. [Bob Dylan] is rarely to be found in a definitive edition. A salient characteristic of being [Bob Dylan] is inconstancy both in behavior and in self-understanding, inability to remain what he is once and for all. Finality and [being Bob Dylan] seem to be mutually exclusive. [Bob Dylan] is caught in the polarity of being both tentative, undecided, unsettled as well as final, fixed, determined.

Anything is possible. The ambiguity of his traits and the ambivalence of his actions are such that his consistency involves inner contradiction. [Bob Dylan] has many faces. Which is canonical and which is apocryphal?

Ha! Write it up, print it out, send it in, and you may just win yourself a Pulitzer. A new, great interpreter of Bob Dylan is born!

Yet, the amusing thing, obviously, is that Heschel is writing about all men, all humans; he’s writing about humanity, about what it means to be human.

That writers and critics are always singling Bob Dylan out for traits that seem common to all of us might tell you a few things.

However, today I’m not going to belabor any of those things. I’m just putting it out there.

August 21, 2012March 22, 2022

Narrow Way (and The Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn)

One of the songs on Bob Dylan’s upcoming album, Tempest, is called “Narrow Way.” I haven’t heard it yet, so I don’t now where Dylan takes it—quite possibly somewhere unexpected.

Yet the phrase is one of those immediately familiar ones that a different wordsmith came up with a little less than 2000 years ago. From Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV):

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Or, via the King James translation:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

It’s one of the tougher statements of Jesus with regard to salvation, in that he seems to be saying quite bluntly that few will will be saved. It ain’t for me to argue with the Man, but there is a duality that believers wrestle with in Scripture, as in Mark 10:25-27:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

And from John 11:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Merely believing doesn’t seem a terribly high threshold, does it? Maybe especially in this world where we clothe ourselves in beliefs so offhandedly. But the theology will not be settled here.

“Narrow is the way.” It’s no doubt that phrasing in the King James version which was in Ralph Stanley’s head when he wrote “The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn,” many decades ago, with its chorus: Continue reading “Narrow Way (and The Darkest Hour is Just Before Dawn)”

July 15, 2012April 22, 2022

On “Abide with Me,” Sung by Harry Secombe

During the part of my childhood and adolescence which I spent living in Ireland, I recall encountering the “holy hour” that British television featured on a Sunday evening. There were shows like “Stars on Sunday” and “Songs of Praise” (the latter of which I believe still runs) where hymns would be sung, sometimes with grand cathedral choirs and celebrity guest vocalists.

Harry Secombe always seemed to be popping up in this context. Secombe (Sir Harry as of 1981) had achieved fame as a comedian, on the Goon Show from BBC Radio in the 1950s, with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Even at this stage (the 1970s and early 80s) the Goon Show was something of which I couldn’t help but be aware. You would hear references to it: clips, re-runs, and latter day imitations. And of-course the alumni of the Goon Show had moved on to individual fame. So Harry Secombe was in my perception a Goon, and a significant part of his role as a Goon was in singing their lovably daft little songs.

It was a little odd, then, to be flicking through the channels of a Sunday evening and suddenly see him standing there and performing—with what appeared to be total devotion and sincerity, in his large Welsh tenor—a big old hymn like “How Great Thou Art” or some such. I couldn’t make the connection between my one image of Harry Secombe and this other incarnation. It seemed he must have lost his way somehow.

I didn’t linger with the issue. Those kinds of TV programs were not for me, nor even for my more religiously-devout parents, truth be told. We were, after all, Roman Catholics, and Irish ones. These shows, it was well-enough understood, consisted of a bunch of English Protestants singing their Protestant songs. However sweetly they might sing them, it was just not something that belonged to us. These weren’t the same songs that were sung by the choir at Sunday Mass (not that anyone in the pews dared to sing along with the choir, of-course). There was a huge cultural chasm there, and the thing was basically incomprehensible to my youthful mind. Protestants on TV. British comedians singing hymns. Change the channel.

…

Times change. The passage of time often seems the great tragedy of life, but flip it over and it might also be the great blessing of our existence. For yours truly, having fallen away in my youth (with some significant enthusiasm) from observant Catholicism, I found my way back to church-going Christianity later in life in New York City through a Protestant church; specifically, through a traditionally-minded Lutheran congregation. One of the elements that both drew me in and continues to enrich my experience in that church is being able to hear and to sing songs from the great tradition of Christian hymnody. Some great hymns are shared by the various traditions, of-course, but I don’t think there can be any debate over the fact that the best damned songs of Christian devotion are ones written by Protestants; at the very least it must be conceded even by the pope that the Protestants have composed the greatest number of great hymns.

So, not terribly long ago, I was wasting time on YouTube as many of us are wont to do, and something I cannot name put Harry Secombe into my head, and I recalled the strange incomprehensible experience of seeing him sing hymns on a Sunday evening on British television. I thought I would like to see that odd thing again. I did not succeed in finding clips of him on those actual old TV programs, but there were many songs and slide-shows uploaded to YouTube by fans of Sir Harry, including of him singing various hymns just like those he would sing on those shows. One that popped out at me right away was Secombe singing “Abide with Me.” Simply put, Christian hymns do not come better than that one. I clicked on it, and hearing his voice sing that song even through my tinny computer speakers transfixed me in an other-worldly manner, one which I could not have imagined when I was twelve-years-old, flicking through the TV stations back in Ireland. More bluntly, it made me break down in uncontrollable tears.

There was not any longer any cultural chasm. Harry Secombe’s willingness to throw his comic persona to the wind and sing in this devotional manner no longer required any explanation, and the song was one that seemed to belong to me as surely as it belongs to anyone.

I was simply grateful that I had lived long enough to hear it like this.

…

“Abide with Me” (the lyric) was written in 1847 by Henry Lyte, a Scotsman and an Anglican. Three weeks after he finished it he died of tuberculosis.

The melody “Eventide,” credited to William Henry Monk in 1861, is the one most associated with the song.

Inexplicably, this song is commonly sung by crowds at sporting events in England. I guess you can’t outlaw it. (In truth, we should be very grateful for it. Perhaps, after all, there will always be an England … )

Henry Lyte, as mentioned, died in 1847. Sir Harry Secombe passed on in 2001.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

June 6, 2012June 2, 2013

FDR’s Speech and Prayer on D-Day, June 6th, 1944

President Franklin D. Roosevelt went on the radio to speak to the nation on D-Day (June 6th, 1944) and to invite the nation to join him in prayer.

And today being the anniversary of that event, it certainly seems a good day to thank God for answering all of those prayers.

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest—until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violence of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home—fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them—help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too—strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment—let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace—a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.