Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-25-26

Memorial Day is as close as America can come to a non-sectarian holy day. Veterans Day, for instance, is a large and proper “thank you” to military veterans; but Memorial Day has been set aside for honoring those who died in uniform. Protecting us; sacrificing; sustaining injuries; willingly enduring much for family, friends, even strangers back home; dying.

We honor them not so much for hating enemies but for loving their homeland.

By “honoring” we are asked much less than was asked of them. We should pause, pray (by tradition at 3 p.m. local times), and share lessons of history. The holiday was originally proposed by Gen. John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an association of veterans after the Civil War; and was for some years called Decoration Day. Celebrants were asked to decorate graves of late servicemen as a basic token of respect. I remember mothers in Ridgewood, Queens, in New York City where I was born, decorating baby carriages with red, white, and blue bunting, and marching in parades. Such observances occurred in towns across America then; I wonder how many places host such memorial events today.

Through the years the “official” date for Memorial Day has changed. Sad, but somehow appropriate, as the society has changed. A “holy day” has become a holiday. It has been moved to a certain Monday instead of a fixed date, so, as with other adjustments to commemorations, used-car dealers and Walmarts can smother patriotic impulses with commercial overlays. Memorial Day now is confused with Veterans Day and perhaps the 4th of July, Presidents Day, and maybe even 4/20, the day celebrated by drug users.

God forbid – whoops, too late to employ that cliche – that people think soldiers sacrificed themselves to secure Americans’ freedom to smoke weed and take cocaine; or have the liberty to abort their babies and have the government pay for the murders; or save a country that eventually would chill the free exercise of religious worship and free speech, by calling Bible “hate speech” and impose transgenderism and sexual perversions on students; and so forth. Are these what the stars on our flag have come to represent?

America is not the only country that honors its war dead; other nations do in their own fashion. Germany, for instance, whence I recently returned, observes “Peoples’ Mourning Day” (Volkstrauertag) which is a sombre commemoration of all people around the world, military and civilian, who died in armed conflict or as a result of civil unrest and oppression. In this way it expands, so to speak, the flags of countries and honors the larger communities of martyrs.

This is eminently proper. In Lincoln’s words, “It is for us the living… to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced.” In other words, to me, what we can memorialize on this holiday transcends flags and borders. We honor that aspect of the human soul that consists of love, sacrifice, and dedication. We honor acts of bravery, which is an instinctive reaction to threats or danger.

Moreso do we honor courage – a far superior characteristic. Courage consists of a conscious commitment, intentionality, and a certain disregard of personal consequences. It is why military forces sometimes plan elaborate burials of hard enemies: recognizing that humans can achieve nobility by fighting, even dying, for a cause. A larger fraternity. In Americans’ case at one time the causes were just, and courage inspired acts of bravery.

Let us honor those principles, and honor those whose martyrdom ennobled them, as the rest of us mortals went about our business at home, and still do – by God’s grace and the courage of exceptional people.

I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do to us. – Luke 12:4

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Click: Traurermusik for our times?

1-17-11

The shootings in Tucson should direct us to think about heroes and villains. There is an obsession in America to fill in every space on the template of every event. Of course there were heroes that morning, but the people so called in that horrible scene firmly have rejected the honorific. Also to be rejected is the compulsion of some people instantaneously to invent villains. The shooter was villain enough.

Whether we call them heroic, or wise and courageous, two figures impressed us: an older lady and a young man. Patricia Maisch grabbed the second ammunition magazine. Twenty-year-old Daniel Hernandez rushed toward the gunfire, and rendered aid to Rep Giffords in ways that likely kept her from dying. One prevented more killings; the other saved the wounded.

We all have seeds of heroism in us; and, God help us, possibly cowardly tendencies as well. The moment of crisis cannot be scripted. On the other hand, wisdom and bravery are acquired traits. They can be cultivated, and are more worthy of honor than “mere” heroism… especially in a country where athletes and movie stars routinely are called heroes. The term has become cheap.

I am reminded of William James’s observations during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. He noticed that, in the chaos, a new social order instantly was established. Upper-class bankers, for instance, readily performed menial tasks as they saw the need; conversely, many manual laborers instinctively assumed superior tasks – directing traffic, managing people, assuming responsibilities. None of those acts was merely heroic, they were more: wise, courageous, displaying character. Human nature in the crucible.

I could not escape the thought that the “memorial service” on Wednesday was a stark contrast to the Character Amidst Carnage we all saw Saturday morning. It was a pep rally, with whoops and whistles and chants; not a service. There was more adulation for a celebrity, than grief for the dead, wounded, and survivors.

A pagan ritual with feathers and importuning to Father Sky replaced – not even accompanied – prayers that would have been coherent to 95 per cent of the people, and to their God. Shouts and cheers from the bleachers at inopportune moments were more redolent of rock concerts; and, if he had wanted, the First Celebrity could have stilled the multitudes and returned to the reverent duty at hand.

What we sorely need is fewer theatrics at such events, if, indeed, such events are necessary at all (after all, victims’ churches and families held their own observances). TV spectacles in huge stadiums. Logos created for this service’s hand-outs. T-shirts manufactured for the “memorial service.” Politically correct, and politically hostile, statements to the press. Presidents of universities and of countries asking for “moments of silence.” Silence? Is the word, or the act of, PRAYER radioactive?

That is what we need more of: prayer. Excuse me — Shut up and pray. Simply pray. Where are simple prayers, simple faith, simple services, simple responses, these days?

…’tis a Gift to be simple, after all.

The University of Arizona Orchestra closed the rally with a performance of Simple Gifts, from Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Specifically, it was an arrangement of the orchestral score by Copland to Martha Graham’s ballet of that name. As such, it was discordant, both musically and in suitability. The secular music is of two lifelong supporters of Communism and the Communist Party; both virulent secularists; Copland a homosexual crusader — the performance, perhaps fine in some contexts, I simply consider out of place at a “memorial service.” Better, if the words and music pleased, to perform a… simple… version of the original work that not many Americans know.

Simple Things did not have its origin with Copland, nor its fate in countless TV commercials. Simple Things is a hymn of the devout Shaker community, written by Elder Joseph Brackett in 1848. The sect’s Christian faith, like their music and their famous furniture, was simple… and the Shakers themselves may be nearly as extinct as admirable Simplicity in America today.

Complicated, choreographed extravaganzas, with everything figured out for us and arranged in every politically correct detail – and spiritual substance left ‘way behind – is not the type of prize to be sought in a Christian Republic like America once was. ‘Tis a Gift to be simple.

Click: A Gift To Be Simple

A beautiful performance of this American hymn by Alison Kraus and violoncellist Yo-Yo Ma… simple, just the two of them.