Monday Morning Music Ministry

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.