I heard the shocking news from Norway- a week ago- while I was in the midst of funeral and Sunday preparation. I would have agonized all Saturday about my Sunday sermon, but this was not a week for preaching. Instead, we had what was perhaps the best response of all: 7 young adults singing beautiful arias, Lieder and oratorio excerpts, within a Celebration of Music service.
Some years ago on CBC radio, I heard that the classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin had performed, just after World War 2, to concentration camp/Holocaust survivors. These survivors had experienced what I would name "hell"; not a place one goes to receive punishment after death [I have never believed that , for a host of reasons] but a condition human beings unfortunately create on this earth, all too often. Words fail us , and words should fail us, when responding to such a terrible manifestation of evil and inhumanity. Music goes where words fail, reaching parts of our hearts which words cannot. And there is something defiant, resistant about music- a refusal to be silenced by all the forces and dynamics which so easily stifle and silence, and snuff out whatever spirit is in us. Music makes me able to believe in "resurrection".
A few years ago, I visited an exhibition on the Holocaust and Anne Frank, showing in Halifax at ,I think, the Museum of Natural History. I read German. And so not only did I get the emotional impact of the pictures of Anne Frank and her family, and the pictures of Hitler, atrocities against the Jews, and the death camps themselves- but also every word of the Nazi propaganda in ads, placards and the like! The nastiness and brutality was there already to see in those words, even without the means to predict where it would lead.
By the time I left the museum, I was feeling physically ill, and rightly so. I was glad of the fresh air and the beautiful trees lining Summer St, with a view of Halifax's Public Gardens. On my way down Spring Garden, I happened into the late lamented Madrigal music store, just in time to hear a glorious performance of Beethoven's 7th Symphony by the wonderful Orquesta Sinfonica Simon Bolivar conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. I remembered again the ultimate healing power of music. In no way does it change or erase or make tolerable any past or present injustices, atrocities, suffering and death. But it is surely the breath of the human spirit which won't give up, which opens to the flow of "beauty and grace" [to quote a favourite phrase of mine from Annie Dillard].
The Simon Bolivar is a youth orchestra, many of its members from very underprivileged backgrounds who have been given this chance to find their musical voices and experience the joy of creative community. We cannot change all the young lives so tragically cut short by the Holocaust, and indeed by wars and violence past and present. But what better response than to do everything in our power to nurture the bodies and hearts and minds and souls of the young lives we can still tend, encourage and enjoy?
I mourn the deaths of those visionary, idealistic youth on what should have been a safe island haven. I have many such youth and young adults in my life and I would be devastated to see any of their lives cut short by any means. My abiding passion is to see young people grow and thrive and be all they can be. My abiding sadness is that we have made a world that is so fraught with danger, difficulty, injustice, environmental degradation and persistent violence- what are they to do with such a world?
Reminded so vividly of what a world our young are living in, I was all the more consoled and delighted on Sunday to hear these aspiring young singers. They are working and studying and managing performance anxiety and subjecting themselves to critical evaluation, in order to let beauty, and truth, and grace flow through their words and their very breath. And as I write , I hear Opera Workshop students singing beautifully outside my office. Two of them, and the pianist/saxophonist husband of one, are staying in my house , filling it with music and the energy, warmth and openness I so often find in my young adult friends. And there is a song in my heart and , amid all that is to mourn, I give thanks, and I have hope.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Welcome to Jane's blog
Welcome !
Why eclectic ? I have formally studied Classics and Modern Languages [Latin and German], Late Latin language and literature, church history and many branches of theological studies, and more recently many aspects of spirituality. Informally, I have explored fiction and poetry - starting with English but branching out from there- , politics, peace and justice, mystery novels, biography , journals , essays, classical music, art history etc. Although I am a Christian and in fact work in a church, I am fascinated by other religions- I continue to learn what I can about Judaism, Buddhism and Islam and any other religion. If you were to visit my house you would find books on these and other topics. If you were to have a conversation with me in person, we would end up with piles of books on the table and the floor, as we looked up this and that which came to our minds.
Eclectic has a deeper meaning for me too. Even as I may , and do, have my own personal convictions, I have always sought to respect, encourage and enjoy diverse experience , beliefs, gifts and perspectives. My hope for this world with all its troubles is that we draw on all manner of insights and wisdom, not only that possessed by the most visible and powerful few. Also I care about traditions, movements, languages, cultures and species which are at risk of being lost and forgotten. I have often lived in small communities at the periphery of the centres of power, and have wanted those voices to be heard. So often I have learned not only from books but from the experience , wisdom and compassion of people who are not published or publicized.
Why peripatetic? The word peripatetic derives from the Greek- meaning "walking about". It was the name of a philosophical school, and I suppose I am , literally, someone who seeks wisdom, though not in an academic department of philosophy. I am one of those who is always moving, who is not sure what if any place to call home. I started out in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic coast of Canada. I spent some of my school years in Toronto and some of my weekends and vacations in rural Nova Scotia. I travelled to Europe as a child and again as a teenager, and had the opportunity to live in England for 12 years, appropriately as a would-be perpetual student. Since then I have lived in a Canadian prairie city- Saskatoon- and then in small Saskatchewan towns, followed by a Nova Scotian coastal village, a small Maritime university town, and now beautiful St Andrews on the southwestern coast of New Brunswick, almost at the Maine border.
I have not yet found anywhere where I can live and work for more than 5 1/2 years, and in these rapidly changing times, I am not sure I ever will. But I cannot regret any of the places where I have lived- they all have their gifts and wisdom. Place is very important and formative, I think- so if you move as much as I do, every place has made you who you are now. I am sure I will be writing about some of these places in this blog. I also like to hear, and read about, the experience of others who also find themselves to be wanderers on the face of the earth, often in much more perilous circumstances than a sheltered North American like me has ever known.
I am peripatetic in my spare time too, when time and weather permit! If funds are short, I happily explore the towns, the landscapes, the art galleries, the coffee shops, the music and theatre within driving distance. When money and location have allowed, I have travelled in Europe- France, Germany, Austria- but my greatest love so far is Italy. If I could afford it , I would spend a month a year in Florence, immersing myself more and more in the art and architecture, and exploring the Tuscan countryside. Venice is magical too. Another revelation was a trip to Istanbul, and I would love to be able to see more of Turkey- I have read much of Orhan Pamuk's writing and am fascinated by Turkey's unique and complex blending of- and tension between- East and West.
I am as much of an internal peripatetic as an external one- so I will be wandering from one topic to another, and "visiting" writers, artists, activists and sages across time and space. My next posting will take me to Egypt but also to the late 1960s United States and who knows where else.
Welcome to any who read this page!
Why eclectic ? I have formally studied Classics and Modern Languages [Latin and German], Late Latin language and literature, church history and many branches of theological studies, and more recently many aspects of spirituality. Informally, I have explored fiction and poetry - starting with English but branching out from there- , politics, peace and justice, mystery novels, biography , journals , essays, classical music, art history etc. Although I am a Christian and in fact work in a church, I am fascinated by other religions- I continue to learn what I can about Judaism, Buddhism and Islam and any other religion. If you were to visit my house you would find books on these and other topics. If you were to have a conversation with me in person, we would end up with piles of books on the table and the floor, as we looked up this and that which came to our minds.
Eclectic has a deeper meaning for me too. Even as I may , and do, have my own personal convictions, I have always sought to respect, encourage and enjoy diverse experience , beliefs, gifts and perspectives. My hope for this world with all its troubles is that we draw on all manner of insights and wisdom, not only that possessed by the most visible and powerful few. Also I care about traditions, movements, languages, cultures and species which are at risk of being lost and forgotten. I have often lived in small communities at the periphery of the centres of power, and have wanted those voices to be heard. So often I have learned not only from books but from the experience , wisdom and compassion of people who are not published or publicized.
Why peripatetic? The word peripatetic derives from the Greek- meaning "walking about". It was the name of a philosophical school, and I suppose I am , literally, someone who seeks wisdom, though not in an academic department of philosophy. I am one of those who is always moving, who is not sure what if any place to call home. I started out in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic coast of Canada. I spent some of my school years in Toronto and some of my weekends and vacations in rural Nova Scotia. I travelled to Europe as a child and again as a teenager, and had the opportunity to live in England for 12 years, appropriately as a would-be perpetual student. Since then I have lived in a Canadian prairie city- Saskatoon- and then in small Saskatchewan towns, followed by a Nova Scotian coastal village, a small Maritime university town, and now beautiful St Andrews on the southwestern coast of New Brunswick, almost at the Maine border.
I have not yet found anywhere where I can live and work for more than 5 1/2 years, and in these rapidly changing times, I am not sure I ever will. But I cannot regret any of the places where I have lived- they all have their gifts and wisdom. Place is very important and formative, I think- so if you move as much as I do, every place has made you who you are now. I am sure I will be writing about some of these places in this blog. I also like to hear, and read about, the experience of others who also find themselves to be wanderers on the face of the earth, often in much more perilous circumstances than a sheltered North American like me has ever known.
I am peripatetic in my spare time too, when time and weather permit! If funds are short, I happily explore the towns, the landscapes, the art galleries, the coffee shops, the music and theatre within driving distance. When money and location have allowed, I have travelled in Europe- France, Germany, Austria- but my greatest love so far is Italy. If I could afford it , I would spend a month a year in Florence, immersing myself more and more in the art and architecture, and exploring the Tuscan countryside. Venice is magical too. Another revelation was a trip to Istanbul, and I would love to be able to see more of Turkey- I have read much of Orhan Pamuk's writing and am fascinated by Turkey's unique and complex blending of- and tension between- East and West.
I am as much of an internal peripatetic as an external one- so I will be wandering from one topic to another, and "visiting" writers, artists, activists and sages across time and space. My next posting will take me to Egypt but also to the late 1960s United States and who knows where else.
Welcome to any who read this page!
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