Thoughts after a Funeral

Recently I attended two funerals in successive weeks. An older friend whom I love dearly was at both of them. After the second one he turned to me and said, " We don't want any more of these for a while. Two in as many weeks, once they start ........!" and he shook his head. I know what he meant, nobody enjoys going to funerals. Many attend out of a sense of duty but even those who go because they want to honour the departed usually go reluctantly.
Funerals seem to me to be important, not only because we attend to give thanks for a life lived, but also because they should (even momentarily) remind us of our own mortality. We hear the words of the psalmist -

Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
when the wind goes over it, it is gone
and its place will know it no more.
 
and we instinctively try to forget them as soon as possible.

However, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ transforms the Christian's view of death. Two quotes that spring to mind here -

George MacDonald in an Unspoken Sermon on the Temptation of Christ -

"Without the bread he will die, as men say; but he will not find that he dies. He will only find that the tent which hid the stars from him is gone, and that he can see the heavens; or rather, the earthly house will melt away from around him, and he will find that he has a palace-home about him, another and loftier word of God clothing upon him."

And C.S. Lewis -

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

I suppose that it would prove to be puzzling and maybe even contentious but I cannot think of a better or more simple epitaph than "Hatched"

Grado, Mahler and Veni Creator Spiritus

Last week I finally got around to sending for some replacements for my Grado SR80 earphones. Some months ago I noticed that the spongy material on the ear pieces had degraded to the point where they were not just leaving black rings around my ears but also a kind of black dusting down the front of my shirts.
I had thought to invest in some expensive replacements but heyI'm 65 and the frequency range of my hearing must be deteriorating by now - so after an online search I found some replacement "doughnuts". which duly arrived at the end of last week. The reorganisation of my workroom also meant that I hadn't got my Sony CD player back in action until quite recently either and this coincidence of events prompted me to play something - but what?

During my late teens and early twenties I had been introduced to Mahler's first and fourth symphonies. I was intrigued by the contrasts between the beauty of so much of his music and the cacophony (or so it seemed) of some of the more raucous passages. However I was coming around to a genuine appreciation of the man's genius. I was 24 when I was persuaded by a good friend to accompany him to some concerts in London, On Sunday 10 September 1972 at 5:00PM we, with hundreds of others, stood in the Royal Albert Hall, having queued for several (enjoyable) hours to hear a prom concert. How can I be so precise? Well mainly because I still have a programme and also because the BBC have provided an archive of prom concert programmes from as far back as 1890. Here's the entry -

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 in C minor 'Resurrection'

Elgar Howarth associate conductor
Sheila Armstrong soprano
Anna Reynolds mezzo-soprano

Philharmonia Chorus (1964-77, New Philharmonia Chorus)
Munich Philharmonic
Rudolf Kempe conductor

I believe that the work is 80 to 90 minutes long. I could not have told you how long it lasted (nor could I since) because time was totally suspended and I could have stood there for hours. This was the concert at which I really began to appreciate Mahler's genius. A live performance of the 3rd symphony at the Festival Hall on my way to a work-related course followed soon after and I was a convert.

But it was not the second symphony that I turned to last night. Back in July last year after a gap of a few years, I had listened again to Mahler's 8th symphony, "The Symphony of a Thousand", being performed at the proms. The opening movement - Mahler's setting of the ancient hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" is one of the most spectacular and moving pieced of music ever written. It is also a piece of music that has been in my mind for months now. So I dug out my recording by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado and hit play.

WOW! What an experience! After recovering from the full-on opening I sat enraptured for the 24 minutes of that first movement, hearing intricacies and nuances that I had never before noticed. This is music that has layer upon layer of wonderful counterpoint, harmony, dissonance. It's by turns angelic, brash, daring. It has more climaxes than it seems possible to fit into 24 minutes. It seems almost impossible that soloists and choir can sing such high notes. But above all it's glorious.

The soaring double fugue "Accende lumen sensibus infunde amorem cordibus" (Kindle our sense from above, and make our hearts o'erflow with love) is just thrilling and when the chorus and orchestra finally burst into "Deo Patri sit Gloria" (Now to the Father and the Son, who rose from death, be glory given, with Thou, O Holy Comforter, henceforth by all in earth and heaven.) I always feel that this must be the absolute climax - what can top this? And then just to confound all expectations the "Amen" soars to the highest heaven before the final triumphal E flat major chord. I will confess freely that the finale never fails to move me to tears.

Just a couple of technicalities. I am a huge Solti fan and still rate his recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra highly but I have to say that this Abbado recording is brilliantly produced and the sound is amazing. The Grado's did me proud - clarity and loads of punch.

Thank you Grado, Sony, Abbado, BSO. Thank you Mahler for over 40 years of delight and pleasure and thanks be to the God who inspires such glorious words which inspire such glorious music.

(In case anyone should think otherwise, I love the rest of the symphony too although somehow, this first movement seems almost to stand alone)

An Inconsolable Longing

Tim Keller paraphrasing a quote from C S Lewis 'The Weight of Glory'

"The inconsolable secret within each one of us, the secret that hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like nostalgia, or romanticism or adolescence – that is our lifelong longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we all feel now cut off; the longing to be on the inside of some door that we have always seen from the outside.  That inconsolable longing, that secret, is no mere neurotic fantasy but it's the truest index of our real situation. The sense that in this universe we are strangers; the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality is part of our inconsolable secret. 

It's a longing to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God – not just pitied – but delighted in as an artist delights in his work. Acceptance by God, acknowledged by Him, welcomed into the heart of things – then the door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last." 

For the full text of C S Lewis' original sermon  look here. 

http://ericredmond.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/the-weight-of-glory-by-c-s-lewis/

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The View from the Bridge

I must confess to being an involuntary river-gazer! I can never resist peering over the parapet of any bridge that I walk over - and I don't appear to being the only one.  I can't tell why others do it but I know that one of the reasons apart from fish spotting is just the fascination that rivers have for me. Whether it's a slow moving canal or a roaring torrent I can't resist - although the sight of a good flow in sunshine is perfect.

I grew up in the Mid Wales town of Brecon which had three river bridges. the main one on the Usk, a small one nearby over the Honddu where it joins the Usk and one over the Tarell. At certain times of the year it was common knowledge that to see certain well know locals staring over the bridges was a sure sign that salmon were either in the river or expected very shortly. I recall one occasion when I was working near the Tarell bridge there was great interest being shown in a pool just above the bridge. Curiosity getting the better of me I walked up to the bridge to see what was so interesting. The river was low and two large salmon were lying practically motionless in the pool awaiting the arrival of some fresh water before being able to make their way upstream. It was soon obvious that the temptation was far too great for one local character and after a brief exhortation to all present to keep a sharp look-out (by this time there must have been about ten people on the bridge) a gaff hook was magically produced from an inside pocket and quickly lashed to a stick cut out of the hedge. In what seemed no time at all the two salmon were lying on the bank and the next minute had vanished into a bag on the back of a bike which also promptly disappeared. The whole thing was so slick that the assembled company broke out into spontaneous applause and cheers.

But more vividly I also recall a morning in late summer standing on the Usk bridge. Mist had formed over the river overnight but the sun was beginning to burn it away. Looking upstream the scene was brilliant, not a hint of mist. Downstream looking East the mist hung over the river in curtains and the rising sun behind the curtain gave the mist a backlit ethereal glow.

Thinking about that today it's a kind of metaphor for the present. Upstream, in the past are 64 years and 364 days of my life, for tomorrow is my 65th birthday. Downstream the future is shrouded in mist but though the detail is unclear yet there is a growing light which guarantees that ultimately the sun will break through in all its glory. In one respect this birthday is no different to any other, neither is tomorrow any different to any other day - I am always on this bridge. However, if I'm honest as I grow older I do gaze a lot more upstream than I used to. There are more times when the traffic on the bridge and others on it seem less absorbing than the view upstream - but that is only temporary. For here, now in the present there is so much to rejoice in and to give thanks for. Like God's people of old, here I raise my Ebenezer stone - hitherto hath the Lord helped me - and look downstream with the confidence that the future is in safe hands - thank God they're not mine. So the song from the bridge today is simply this -

Pardon for sin

And a peace that endureth

Thine own dear presence

To cheer and to guide

Strength for today

And bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine

With ten thousand beside

Great is Thy faithfulness

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed They hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me

Must Ought Would - will they survive?

Technically called auxilliary verbs the three words "must, ought and should" express in decreasing emphasis the existence of a moral imperative or obligation. In a moral univese they have meaning but as the world is becoming increasingly relativistic and even amoral; the words are gradually losing their proper meaning - although they continue to be used.

"Must" implies a necessity or compulsion to fulfil some imperative. I must treat ny mother kindly implies that I feel more than an obligation to do so.

"Ought" is slightly weaker than must but still expresses some obligation or duty (desirable or otherwise). I ought to visit my mother.

"Should" used in one of its senses also expresses a sense of obligation to some kind of moral code.

However, once we remove any notion of a moral necessity outside of ourselves (amorality) or acknowledge only ourselves to be the arbiter of morality (relativism) then these words lose much of their meaning.

The strange thing is that even those who firmly believe in an amoral /relativistic universe still use these words as though they had some meaning for them. They are swift to cast a suspicious eye on anyone who would use these words to express some imperative, necessity or obligation  - seeing that person as someone trying to gain control over them. What makes you think that we ought or should help the poor and infirm? What hidden agenda do you have here? Are you attempting to gain some kind of control over me by implying that whatever moral code you live by is somehow superior to mine? Are you attempting to induce some sort of guilty feeling in me?

But even stranger is the fact that even those who are most resistant to any kind of moral standard outside of themselves not only continue to use the words but seem unable to live without them. Most strange of all is the continued existence of guilt. Guilt about what exactly - if, as modern man would claim, the universe is amoral? And yet guilt continues to make men miserable and angry, even to the point of despair and suicide. How can it be that those who reject any kind of absolute moral standard are still prone to feelings of guilt?

Few have managed to live without some notion of a higher external moral standard. Those who have usually have a deterministic view of man - i.e. that man is no more than a collection of natural elements. Those who have often end up either totally devoid of any genuinely loving impulse or in the madhouse.

The paradox (in this case good news) is that those who confess that they are created in the image of God and as such have fallen short of His absolute moral standard, confessing the reality of conscience and the guilt of sin, find in that same holy and righteous God a loving and forgiving disposition - a disposition made possible and demonstrated by His willingness to enter His own fallen creation in the person of His Son and take upon Himself our sin and die in the place of those who had rejected His moral authority and alienated themselves from His love.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10

 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.  And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11