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March 29, 2006
Le Nozze de Figaro
I like Opera. I like it very much indeed and, perhaps as a result, I am not an "Opera Snob." I can't tell you the names of all the great divas on the last fifty years. I can't compare the performances of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi. I probably couldn't even tell you the range of voice in which various parts are sung. I know that I can't articulate the difference between the various types of Soprano (a defect I shall set out to remedy upon completing this entry).
As a result, I am in a wonderful place to enjoy Opera when it is available--performed capably by Amateurs or professionals.
Friday evening we bundled the family into the car and headed downtown (if Orlando can truly be said to have a "Downtown"--in this respect it is much like a former home--Columbus, Ohio) to see Le Nozze de Figaro, perhaps the best-loved of the Mozart operas, and one of the all-time great comic operas.
When we arrived at the place where the presentation was to occurs, I was taken aback. The building was small, dingy, showing typical Florida wear-and-tear. The parking lot very limited and due to road construction no real alternative anywhere.
Upon entering the building nothing of my first impression was changed. This was a building perfectly suited to the offices of the local gendarmerie. Indeed more institutional and less cultural a center would be difficult to find anywhere. In my mind this did not bode well for the performance.
Then there were the programs that announced that tonight's performance in this more "intimate" setting would be sung by the "second-string" singers. Now, the Orlando Opera Company is not what one would call a world-class performing company to start with. Imagine my chagrin at thinking that we would be hearing from the singers-in-training for this company! Well, actually there was more chagrin with where we were than with who would be singing. I've heard very nice productions indeed from College troupes--so I had no doubt that this group, which consisted of people who hoped to make a living with their voices, could be very good indeed--even if they had the inauspicious name of the "Lockheed-Martin Troupe."
If that were not enough in itself, the entrance to the "theatre" was enough to send even the most sanguine of people into fits. We were ushered into a small room sectioned off from the surrounding cinder-block with black curtains suspended from rings on an aluminum runner. The seating area was perfectly flat and filled in the front with "reserved" seating chairs that looked like inexpensive additional seating for a boardroom. The rear consisted of plastic lawn-chairs with tissue-thin cushion set in them. Overall, the layout reminded me of the cafeteria/auditorium I had in elementary school, where everyone sat at the same level and looked up at a very small stage.
The stage was indeed, quite small. But Figaro is a "bedroom" opera requiring no large sets or stage. It can be performed to perfection (as I was to find out) in even the most inauspicious of locations.
Taking our seats, we awaited with something approaching dread, and with a lot of complaining from all around, the commencement of the opera. The "Orchestra" (of perhaps seven people) walked into the theatre and to the pit via a side aisle. The Opera was about to begin.
All the build-up and dread vanished within a minute as a superb baritone started up the opera by measuring the floor of the bedroom for the bed that the Count had given the couple to be married as a wedding gift. Surprise piled upon surprise as each of the performers both sang and acted their parts beautifully.
Le Nozze de Figaro is really an ensemble opera. That is, there are four parts of about equal importance as the opera plays out. Each of these four parts was sung very, very well. Despite this, a couple behind us, who, we had been informed, "had seen performances at La Scala" walked out at intermission. They hadn't time for these amatuerish performances. And that is really a pity for them because they missed out on some real joy to be derived from people who were really enjoying what they were doing, doing particularly well.
After the opera the cast lined up outside in a kind of receiving line, another real pleasure and joy because we were able to express our thanks and appreciation to each person individually. The person who played Figaro commented to Samuel that he had not been able to attend an opera until he was in college. I think everyone was surprised that there could have been a child so young who behaved so well through the entire performance. And Samuel was very well behaved.
Any way, what started as a dismal, disheartening evening turned out to be a gem of a show, one highly memorable for the quality of its singing and for the opportunity to meet the cast. I could only wish for more such opportunity and for a larger, more appreciative audience for opera as a whole.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:41 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
Dove Descending
Yesterday I received the final package in an Amazon order I had placed some time ago. In this package was a copy of Thomas Howard's Dove Descending: A Journey into Eliot's Four Quartets.
I haven't been able to read much of the book, but this is precisely the right fit. This was what I had been hoping for back when I read Paglia's Break, Blow, Burn and I had been so sorely disappointed. I wanted someone who would treat serious poetry seriously and at length. Howard does that--covering a twenty-odd page poem in a book of some 140 pages.
Four Quartets is a later poem than The Waste Land written after Eliot had reverted to Christianity of the Anglo-Catholic variety. It is every bit as dense and as difficult to follow as The Waste Land even if there is less of the random throwing-in of multiple foreign languages.
Howard's books pulls away the curtains in the first few pages and uncovers theme after theme and symbol after symbol. I've not gotten half-way through the book, but I'm very pleased at the progress so far, and I am much more aware of Eliot's purpose in Four Quartets than I started out being.
If you're interested in tackling and understanding "difficult" poetry, and attempting to understand WHY it is so difficult, this may prove a useful guidebook in your journey. I'll let you know later when I have had more of an opportunity to digest the contents.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Jesus and Baha'ullah
You might not ever have heard of Baha'ullah; however, back in the before times, this saintly man was very important to me. I considered for a long time whether or not to join the Baha'i faith, and finally decided in the negative because of a logical inconsistency. Baha'i's insist that all revelations of God are indeed revelations of God and they are all paths to God and as such equal, except for Baha'i which is the true path to God. This sort of syncretism appealed to me very much because, as I hope to explain in a later post, in my religious thinking I have always skated around the brink of universalism. However, if all were equally valid, how could one be better than any of the rest; what impetus had I for choosing Baha'ullah over Mohammed or Jesus? (The Catholic Church gets this point exactly right, noting that God has granted to each religion some rays of light, some truth, some of the knowledge of Him, but the fullness of knowledge of Him and salvation lay only in the person of Jesus Christ.)
Anyway, my point wasn't so much to analyze Baha'i as to point out one very concrete realization that was brought home by my assoication with some very good Baha'is. During his lifetime Baha'ullah was "martyred" for his faith, which is a renegade Muslim offshoot (I'm overgeneralizing, and if any Baha'i stop by, please forgive my elision here.) As Muslims don't have a high regard for heretics, he was probably constantly in danger of his life and he was frequently imprisoned. Baha'is would point out to me that Baha'ullah was imprisoned because of the sinfulness of humanity.
I thought about that a lot. Baha'ullah went to prison for my sins. And I contrasted that with Christ died for my sins. With that contrast, I had a new view of the atonement. I was nearly completely unmoved by Baha'ullah's imprisonment. After all, he could have preached elsewhere, gone someplace more hospitable, etc. His martyrdom, which involved very real suffering, was certainly more than I might be willing to bear for the majority of humanity--but months, years, even decades in prison don't begin to convey to me one iota of the sacrifice made even during the trial of Jesus.
While the justice of God may require in some way I don't begin to understand the death of His son. I do understand though that in some deep human way, this sacrifice speaks to me as none other could. The atonement may be required by God, but it is clearly required by the broken, perverse humanity Jesus sought to serve. Jesus was whipped for you sins (even badly), or Jesus went to trial for your sins, or Jesus was imprisoned for your sins simply doesn't speak to me. It is simply a yawn. Jesus died for my sins--THAT gets my attention.
Perhaps I am simply in a minority.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thoughts Skirting Universalism
First, it should be perfectly clear that Holy Mother Church in no uncertain terms condemned a certain brand of Universalism. (Mr. Sullivan disagrees with me on this, and I acknowledge that, but respectfully disagree with his interpretation of the anathemas.) The type condemned is that which say that at the end of time God will be reconciled even with the fallen Angels and all shall be restored to his good graces. There is a Greek word for this that I have to look up every time I refer to it and the thought has been attributed to Origen, although perhaps incorrectly.
The Church, wisely, is silent on the question of the disposition of any given soul, and although theologians speculate, the Church remains silent on the question of whether or not all people will be saved. There is certainly a good deal of scriptural evidence that can be argued either way on this point.
However, one reason that I am Catholic is that this door remains ajar. Admittedly, it takes a person of strong constitution to deny that there are people who are capable of saying no to God out of sheer cussedness. I believe this is possible, but I do not believe that it is common. Moreover, I do not hold with those who say that a great many shall be condemned. I know that the visionaries of Fatima seemed to see this, but Fatima, being private revelation is not binding on anyone except, perhaps, the visionaries themselves.
The Catholic Church is agnostic on the question of who is saved and who is not, even while remaining adamant that Hell exists and contains at least the fallen angels, and that unfortunate part of humanity that rejects God's mercy and salvation.
Here are some points that I often reflect on. I have no answers, because I can argue back and forth using scripture, theology, logic, common sense, intuition and any number of other even less effective means. Is God's arm too short, or His grace too weak to save those He wills to save? And who does He will to save--only the remnant, the smallest portion of humanity? If the latter, what sort of God is He, who claims to be love, and yet out of hand condemns the majority of His creation to an eternity of punishment? What is the meaning of love, if we can say in one breath God is love, and in the next, but the majority of humanity is damned? What must a person do to be saved if God is so busy keeping track of all of our sins to send us on the express freight to Hell? And what does this say of the image of God as father?
I will suggest answers to none of these, because there is a perfectly legitimate series of counter questions that could be asked: If God is simple and purely Holy, how can He abide what is unholy? How does perfect justice allow the unrepentant sinner to come to the same end as those who lived lives of forbearance and service to others? The list goes on, but I don't ponder that list nearly as much, and there are better people to ask and answer those questions. I point them out merely to indicate that the question is not so cut and dried as I would like it to be.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:11 PM | Comments (33) | TrackBack
The Illogic of Sin
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom 6:23
The wages of sin is death--possibly the eternal death of punishment in Hell. But there is a more immediate implication as well. Each time one sins, one alienates oneself from God; one turns one's back on the good, the true, and the beautiful. And for the duration of the time that one's back is turned, one is dead to some of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the world. Sin deadens the sensibilities until it becomes nearly impossible to say what is sin any more.
Sin delivers a double whammy--one offends God and one steals from oneself. All the time spent pursuing the illicit good of sin, the small pleasure that may come from it, is time that is not spent in pursuit of the real good. This may not seem like much, but as with watching television, an hour here, an hour there adds up to a fifth of a lifetime with nothing to show for it.
Sin is so interesting because its illusory pleasure dims with each repeat of the action until the person committing the sin no longer does so for the pleasure, but out of sheer deadened habit. At the same time the sensibilities are so worn down that what once cheered and gave cause for rejoicing now activates a dull echo in the deepest chambers of the heart. Our longing for God becomes a mere dull ache that is terribly hard to reawaken.
But take heart. God promised His people:
And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh Ez 11:18
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Ez 36:26
Twice within the span of a single prophet, and many other times, God promises redemption from our own hardened hearts. He will give us one heart--His Own heart, the sacred Heart of Jesus that bleeds and is wounded for all of humanity--this is the heart that gives life, that breaks the chains of our bondage to sin, that strikes off the shackles we have so willingly taken onto ourselves. God speaks, it is He who promises redemption--He redeems our stony hearts and gives us hearts that can feel again. When we turn even a little bit, when we even desire to say yes, when we hearken enough to the grace that He showers upon us moment by moment and turn to Him, He can make real blood come from a stone. Just as He caused water to flow from the rock, He can cause our hearts to beat once again with His blood and His life and His redemption for all.
We may be dead in sin, but we are not without hope, for God dogs us, chasing us through the years and the passages of our lives, waiting always for us to turn and accept the embrace of Love that gives life.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 30, 2006
Burnt Norton and the Box Circle
Reading Thomas Howard's Dove Descending and finding the insights helpful in opening up Four Quartets. Obviously in so short a work it is impossible to be exhaustive, but I thought I'd share an insight that came as I was reading the explanation of the "box circle" that occurs in the first division of "Burnt Norton."
Howard offers a very fine explanation of the significance of the box circle, including it as both the hedge and the "box seats" of a theatre performance. But, perhaps because of space, he left out some details that I think add to the density and texture of the poem.
The lines in question refer to a movement in the poem to a garden:
from Four Quartets--Burnt Norton
T.S. EliotSo we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light. . .
We have been called into this "first garden" by the singing of a thrust. Entering we have found it filled with "presences." Now we are moving deeper into the mystery of time encompassed in the garden. The box circle refers to the hedge of boxwood in a formal garden--a formal designed essence. But what Howard fails to mention, and what I believe to be critically important is that the "box circle" often occurs at the center of the formal garden. It is set so that the person looking from the upper story of a house overlooking the garden will seen at it's exact center a circle inscribed in a square, usually with four entrances in the center of the side of the square.
Also, I think there is reason to believe that this "box circle" is an oblique reference to "squaring the circle." That is, using the primitive instruments of geometry (straight-edge and compass) attempting to construct a square that has exactly the same area as a circle of given radius. This is an impossibility unless we cheat and use a rational approximation of pi. And what Eliot is telling us in this box circle is the impossibility of abiding in this perfect garden for reasons that he will go on to articulate. One of which is eerily reflected in The Haunting of Hill House:
"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality."
So, I add this little aside to a really fine and interesting study of the poem. Using Howard's insights as a leg up, I'm finding passage through this poem a much more reasonable proposition that it was some years ago. Also, I think this is one of those poems that you have to have lived to begin to understand. This pining and nostalgia cannot make a lot of sense to most twenty-year-olds.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Salvation is of the Jews
Once again I have had the dismal experience of exposure to antisemitism from people who should know better. The usual charges of deicide were leveled and "the Jews" were accused of committing this crime. Once again I pointed out that while some small fraction of the Jewish leadership was indeed complicit in the act, these were individual sins, not corporate sins. Once again I pointed to the fact that Jesus Himself was a Jew and accusing "the Jews" of deicide implicates Christ Himself (which would make Him a suicide), his mother, the apostles, the disciples, and all the faithful community of Jerusalem.
But I realize that I waste my breath. For some, the need to place blame and to shift the focus from our own complicity in the terrible act to the shoulders of another is too great. For people who are trapped in their own closed schema, only prayer is a sufficient remedy. They too often ignore the historic impact of the charges they level at "the Jews" and they seem to imply that there is no anti-semitism in this awkward and untoward charge. If anyone should be charged it is the Romans who actually performed the execution. Certainly some of the members of the Sanhedrin might be accomplices before the fact, but that isn't even all the leadership of the Pharisees, much less of the Jews as a whole.
Jesus was a Jew. Salvation came through the Jews. The Jews are the chosen people and remain precious to Him to this day. They are the wellspring of the Daystar and the Bright and Shining pool from which arose our Lord and Savior. To malign them as a group is to malign Him. To speak ill of them is to strike Him. May God have mercy on each person who knowingly or unknowingly utters once again the sentence of death on an innocent people.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Why She's a Saint and I'm Not
Amongst other reasons:
from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints:
St. Teresa Benedicta of the CrossThe cross is again raised before us. It is the sign of contradiction. The Crucified looks down on us, "Are you also going to abandon me?" . . . The fountain from the heart of the Lamb has not dried up. We can wash our robes clean in it even today as the thief on Golgotha once did. Trusting in the atoning power of this holy fountain, we prostrate ourselves before the throne of the Lamb. . . .Let us draw from the springs of salvation for ourselves and for the entire parched world.
A true found poem embedded in the prose-- see it:
The cross is again raised before us
the sign of contradiction--
the Crucified looks down on us,
"Are you also going
to abandon me?"
The fountain from the heart
of the Lamb has not dried up--
we wash our robes clean in it even
today as the thief on Golgotha once
did. Trusting in the atoning
power of this holy fountain,
we prostrate ourselves before
the throne of the Lamb.
Let us draw from the springs
of salvation for ourselves
and for the entire parched world.
It isn't just the trickery of playing with the lines, the words themselves are the poetry of salvation. Mechanics and poetry combine in the Cross and open wide the doors of its saving power--princes, poets, people of all walks of life are invited to walk through. They are invited to add their love to the love of centuries, the love of ages, the love without end--perfecting the perfect by making it present in every day.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Via Crucis II
from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
St. Teresa Benedicta of the CrossTo suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one's feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father's right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels--this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth.
As Brandon said of another post a similar context, sometimes whatthis saint has to say is eerily prophetic. Who would know more about "the dirty and rough paths of this earth" than one who road in the boxcars of a train that emptied at Auschwitz? Who encouraged all, the mothers, the children, everyone as she road that train to an end she well knew? Who better to sing the praises of God, than a woman from among the Chosen People, raised to the honors of the Altar--not in spite of her heritage but, indeed, because she embraced her identity as one of the Children of Israel, suffering with her people and for her people.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 31, 2006
The Veil of Veronica
from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
Blessed Elizabeth of the TrinityHe will communicate His power to you so you can love Him with a love as strong as death ; the Word will Imprint in your soul, as in a crystal, the image of His own beauty, so you may be pure with His purity, luminous with His light.
In prayer and in surrender to Jesus, we become imprinted with His image as did the cloth with which Veronica wiped His face. But the image imprinted upon us is a living image, full of purity and luminosity--bright beyond brightness, light so light that what we see as brilliance is all dark. In the spiritual union that occurs in deepest prayer, each person assumes the place assigned and does the work appropriate to that part of the body--some the head, some the heart, some the feet, some the hands--all One Christ, one mystical body serving our brothers and sisters in all that is done.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Notice to All Carmelites
You may not be aware of it, but a translation of the Institutes of the First Monks into English has recently become available. It is published in Rome as a hard-cover work by the Edizione Carmelitiana and costs in the neighborhood of $20.00.
The importance of this work is that it was for a long time second only to the Rule of St. Albert as a source book for understanding the Carmelite charism, way, and path. It was enormously important in the reformation of the order brought about by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, being the main source of inspiration for the "return to contemplation."
I don't know whether or not it could be considered as important a source today, but then, until one reads it, that question must remain unresolved.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The End of the Road
from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
St. Teresa Benedicta of the CrossIn the Passion and death of Christ our sins were consumed by fire. If we accept that in faith, and if we accept the whole Christ in faith-filled surrender, which means, however, that we choose and walk the path of the imitation of Christ, then He will lead us "through His Passion and cross to the glory of His Resurrection." This is exactly what is experienced in contemplation: passing through the expiatory flames to the bliss of the union of love. This explains its twofold character. It is death and resurrection.
What more is there to say. The culmination of a life of contemplation is a direct participation in the death and resurrection of the Lord. The passage through the Dark Night means death to the senses (which is not to say that one becomes an unanchored, floating, ethereal spirit) and ultimately leads to Union with God. Said Union is a union in both the Death of Christ, and so a Union on the way of the cross, which, by supporting our own burdens (always with the help of grace), we help to lift some of the burden to the cross itself, and in the Resurrection of the Lord, which is a resurrection into His eternal life while here on Earth. That is the meaning of Spiritual Union--actual participation in the Being of God while we live today--and I can't imagine a state more to be desired and yet which also summons up such great fear. And so the sum of my spiritual life is approach-avoidance. I look in on this wonderful spectacle and desire to participate, but innate fear (and of what I cannot say) keeps me back. Nevertheless, His grace is stronger than my fear, and so I trust myself to Him and know that eventually (I hope in this life) I will come to Him and be what He has made me to be.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack