A few days ago, as I was nattering at Marianne about some of the mental and spiritual house cleaning I have found necessary over the past while, I said something that provoked her to say, "That's because God is incomprehensible."
If I remember correctly, what I had said was something to the effect of wondering why I had recently been feeling as if I had been much better at keeping my mind clear, that is, out of the devil's continual programme for confusing me, when I was a mere beginner in the spiritual life than I was at the moment. Of late, I said, I had been continually making mental errors. From the strictly human point of view within the process of ordinary logic, what MT said had no plain connection. At least to me it didn't. But it carried an obvious conviction, from her point of view, and I accepted it. Good thing I did, because the Incomprehensible has just shed some light, in fact so much light, that I can at least say that a fair chunk of spiritual activity within myself that I had been much puzzled over has suddenly, very dramatically, become astoundingly clear.
And, as an old newspaper man, I rather like the way God chose to illuminate me the way He did, not only through the secular press, which the Church periodically fails - sometimes grossly fails - to appreciate, but through the very big city daily I once worked for, the Vancouver Sun.
In a household dedicated to the spiritual life, while it is unquestionably charity that makes the day go round, what makes the charity real is good order and teamwork. You have to have a game plan, and designated assignments, and you have to learn to play only your own position, stick to your own duties, and don't interfere with the other person's unless asked for help.
This attitude and programme works utter wonders in nature and grace on our property, but not always without clashes of opinion, and even, for the moment, personal conviction. With a novelist's imagination I have to be the chief offender in this regard, but my companions also know occasional moments when their bright ideas have to be growled at, usually over breakfast, which is always leisurely as well as delicious and very worth getting up for. Nobody leaves the table until all apparent contradictions have been resolved. Case in point. At one time I left early, feeling the call of other work. Shawn told me I was to stick around for another fifteen minutes or so, and her schedule proved to be the correct one.
All these organizational problems arise, of course, from the apparent conflict between the Lord's two fundamental commandments: love God with your whole being and love thy neighbour as thyself. At our age and experience the chance of dissension arising from self-love is virtually non-existent. All errors come from misjudging the three-fold radar devices' continual sweep of the always needy human race.
As befits contemplatives, a lot of this sweep is entirely of a divine causality, immediately sourced from God, or clued from the pages of a distinctly spiritual text: the breviary or a spiritual writer. You have to lead with these, day in and day out, and at regularly scheduled times. This is the routine that incarnates that boldest of prayers: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Back in the days when we all stood up first thing in the morning and recited The Lord's Prayer, even in government schools, that was the one sentence I felt I had no hope of understanding. The rest of it seemed straightforward enough, so why the mysterious part? I had to wait years even to begin to see why something apparently so impossible should be included with requests that were not only quite achievable but actually made such obvious good sense.
The Lord, of course, was simply including his contemplatives. Only they, and only a fraction of them at that, were going to get his point in all its fullness, but that didn't mean that such a small audience should be left out. His mother already understood him, and Mary Magdalene and a few others would eventually catch on. Even I, unschooled contemplative as I was at the time, would catch on.
But, of course, only because of the grace and providence of God.
Possibly this is the most concentrated essay on the pastoral theology of a domestic monastery that I have produced so far. After all, the Christian life is best fulfilled by looking beyond one's own needs, as soon as they are, as they must be, taken care of. Vatican Two, for example, insisted that even bishops, as diligently as they were obliged to care for their own dioceses, were to consider the needs of other parts of the Church not as fortunate, one way or another, as their own. If this inward look is indeed so emphatic, its cause is my just learning of the establishment of another monastery, in my own province yet, very much to my own liking. The nuns involved have been in the province, in the archdiocese of Vancouver, for over a decade, but I had not heard of them until precisely a week ago, when Shawn descended the staircase between the first and second floors to hand me a page from the Vancouver Sun (August 11 edition) long ago, for a very interesting six months, my employer.
It's always been one of her jobs, the locating of a text, large or small, that she knows I need to read.
Sometimes it's a book - Beethoven's sonatas, Turgeniev's Sketches From a Sportsman's Diary - or a magazine or newspaper article. She has an old friend from her museum days who passes on his Suns, Globe and Mails, and Macleans for her to browse through. Out of her enormous concern and compassion for the needs of the universe, and of her interest in its triumphs and tragedies, she reads from cover to cover, front page to back, and prays accordingly. When she finds something she instinctively recognizes I need not only to pray for but to deal with, she hands it to me.
Thus a few years back, as she was sensing my getting closer and closer to using the computer, she handed me a Macleans with an article on Tim Berners Lee, the man who invented the Web and thus became one of the most important agents of civilization and the spread of the Gospel since Gutenberg. That was very interesting, and an unmistakable sign, but I don't think it hit me in the heart like the front page of the August 11 Sun.
That was a show stopper, as they say in theatrical circles. The audience rises to its feet, and roars such a volume of approval that the conductor has no alternative but to direct the performers and orchestra back to the beginning of the piece, and do it again.
Not only a convent of contemplative nuns, but eventually twenty of them, it was hoped, and Dominican sisters at that. It was almost too much to believe, for an old contemplative long schooled in the inertia of the world and the spiritual sluggishness of Canadian Catholicism, but there it was, not in the pages of a Church publication, but on the front page of, arguably, the leading daily of western Canada, the story of the foundation, 5 million dollars' worth, at Squamish, of The Queen of Peace Monastery.
What a bloody miracle, not only in the fact, but in the presentation of the story. I suspect it's going to take a number of posts to explain why this establishment is one of the most exciting pieces of news I've heard in a long time.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
A Perfect Diet
This morning I hit the bathroom scales at 168 pounds, so now the story is safe to tell. This diet really does work, and faster and easier than any diet I ever designed before. No doubt part of the reason for the better pace is that at least one of the principle ingredients was not due to my input, but Marianne's, via Dr. Christopher the herbalist. And even that was something of an accident, because the two little capsules of cayenne pepper turning up at the dinner table for me before each meal were not chosen initially because anyone had any ideas about them helping weight loss. They were there because of the threat of high blood pressure.
And I speak of diets that I have designed only because my previous compilations of calories out versus calories in always featured a significant degree of exercise. In the summer of 2006, for example, I was logging 35 miles a week along the Nelson waterfront walkway. And of course ripping off the fat, in spite of my then intention to create a programme actors would like, which means that I was not especially stinting on the booze. But I hurt my knee, as I have related, and then turned to solo dancing, as I've also related, and that was also very efficient, without any damage to the joints. So I felt very happy with myself, grateful for some of the great groups there are to dance to, and the technology of walkmans and earphones. Life was good.
But there was not just an obligation to health, there was also the obligation to researching music instruction, and the conditions for this were a definite enemy to fat watch. The little rubber keyboard and the earphones that went with it were definitely a Godsend, because I could hammer away, for an hour every morning, at not only my ignorance, but also that of the teaching and publishing industry - which since the Renaissance seems to have lost touch with some of the most important pedagogical fundamentals - in the sacred privacy of my own head. But anyone who has to get out of bed at four in the morning simply to face into his own stupidity needs a little comfort, and also a little stimulation from legitimate pleasure. It's dark, it's cold, it's lonely, especially with a cat who thinks the only good that can come out of the only man in the house is food. It wouldn't be lonely, the mystic must insist, if I were just there to read John of the Cross, but that was not the mission statement. So a sensible red blooded male does the sensible thing: he opens a bottle of beer, or pours himself a good shot of sweet vermouth. But you must not drink on an empty tummy, so a stout piece of homemade bread also joins the mini feast. Calories? Oh yeah.
So for two or three years, it was an elevator ride with the weight scale. It was at Christmas, eighteen months ago that I peaked at 183.5 pounds. As I graduated from high school at 150, you can imagine the profile. But I still "had miles to go," as Robert Frost said, and no sooner did I realize another secret of sound piano fundamentals than a further problem turned up. I did get down to 170 or so last September, with the walking, dancing, rowing, but then I was still miles from the core of the musical earth. I said to hell with the weight scales, and dedicated the months up to Christmas to a bare knuckle, no holds barred, assault on some remaining conundrums. Thus by the festive season of six months ago, I had sufficient final clues to abandon that schedule of consumption, but I was back up to 180.5
Now at that point I definitely got the grace to stick with the change in the game plan. At this moment I do not actually recall what the great secret of music analysis it was that freed me up, and I'm not going to look in my journals at this point to find it. It may have been a key discovery regarding analytical structure, it may have been something about reading music - always my bugbear. Whatever it was turned Tim McDaniel, as well as myself, in a further right direction, and that's the important thing. So it was time to return to the weight question.
I made modest progress with my current methods, and looked forward to the spring, when some lengthy jogs would up the progress.
But then I got sick. At the end of March I came down with a bronchial problem, preceded by a spiritual event of some six days that was at the beginning incredibly painful, then for the latter half of the schedule most consoling. I was sick enough that I had to miss three consecutive Sunday masses, and of course the household was attentively concerned. From my studies of nasal breathing I could calculate that the invasion of my bronchial tubes had cut my oxygen supply faculties by a third, and I thought that my exercise opportunities were thus totally trashed. Until the affliction passed, therefore, weight loss would be impossible.
But at the same time as the bronchial problem, more or less, Marianne came upon Dr. Christopher's thought on blood pressure and cayenne and introduced a pair of little capsules before each meal. Concerned about the blow from my illness, I consulted the scales frequently, and happily realized that I was not gaining weight, but still losing it, although I was aware that the lack of exercise had also diminished my appetite. This pleasant situation continued, making my curious, and one day I was inspired to some research of my own, Googling for the connection between cayenne and weight loss. And there it was: there was no herb known that was more effective than cayenne for raising the metabolism, thus aiding digestion. And the history of my recent weeks was proof positive.
Of course, it must be said, the cayenne is not entirely the magic bullet. MT runs a model kitchen, not totally vegetarian, but as vegetarian as most well-organized convents, so mindless fat sources don't have a chance to screw things up. And for years we have done the Ayurvedic daily schedule, with the big meal at noon, so the afternoon activities can burn the calories, and a light supper, so the calories unburned by little or no activity can't resolve themselves into unwanted lard.
My target? At least 160. And at that point, perhaps some other issues the Ranger has discussed will be resolved as well.
And I speak of diets that I have designed only because my previous compilations of calories out versus calories in always featured a significant degree of exercise. In the summer of 2006, for example, I was logging 35 miles a week along the Nelson waterfront walkway. And of course ripping off the fat, in spite of my then intention to create a programme actors would like, which means that I was not especially stinting on the booze. But I hurt my knee, as I have related, and then turned to solo dancing, as I've also related, and that was also very efficient, without any damage to the joints. So I felt very happy with myself, grateful for some of the great groups there are to dance to, and the technology of walkmans and earphones. Life was good.
But there was not just an obligation to health, there was also the obligation to researching music instruction, and the conditions for this were a definite enemy to fat watch. The little rubber keyboard and the earphones that went with it were definitely a Godsend, because I could hammer away, for an hour every morning, at not only my ignorance, but also that of the teaching and publishing industry - which since the Renaissance seems to have lost touch with some of the most important pedagogical fundamentals - in the sacred privacy of my own head. But anyone who has to get out of bed at four in the morning simply to face into his own stupidity needs a little comfort, and also a little stimulation from legitimate pleasure. It's dark, it's cold, it's lonely, especially with a cat who thinks the only good that can come out of the only man in the house is food. It wouldn't be lonely, the mystic must insist, if I were just there to read John of the Cross, but that was not the mission statement. So a sensible red blooded male does the sensible thing: he opens a bottle of beer, or pours himself a good shot of sweet vermouth. But you must not drink on an empty tummy, so a stout piece of homemade bread also joins the mini feast. Calories? Oh yeah.
So for two or three years, it was an elevator ride with the weight scale. It was at Christmas, eighteen months ago that I peaked at 183.5 pounds. As I graduated from high school at 150, you can imagine the profile. But I still "had miles to go," as Robert Frost said, and no sooner did I realize another secret of sound piano fundamentals than a further problem turned up. I did get down to 170 or so last September, with the walking, dancing, rowing, but then I was still miles from the core of the musical earth. I said to hell with the weight scales, and dedicated the months up to Christmas to a bare knuckle, no holds barred, assault on some remaining conundrums. Thus by the festive season of six months ago, I had sufficient final clues to abandon that schedule of consumption, but I was back up to 180.5
Now at that point I definitely got the grace to stick with the change in the game plan. At this moment I do not actually recall what the great secret of music analysis it was that freed me up, and I'm not going to look in my journals at this point to find it. It may have been a key discovery regarding analytical structure, it may have been something about reading music - always my bugbear. Whatever it was turned Tim McDaniel, as well as myself, in a further right direction, and that's the important thing. So it was time to return to the weight question.
I made modest progress with my current methods, and looked forward to the spring, when some lengthy jogs would up the progress.
But then I got sick. At the end of March I came down with a bronchial problem, preceded by a spiritual event of some six days that was at the beginning incredibly painful, then for the latter half of the schedule most consoling. I was sick enough that I had to miss three consecutive Sunday masses, and of course the household was attentively concerned. From my studies of nasal breathing I could calculate that the invasion of my bronchial tubes had cut my oxygen supply faculties by a third, and I thought that my exercise opportunities were thus totally trashed. Until the affliction passed, therefore, weight loss would be impossible.
But at the same time as the bronchial problem, more or less, Marianne came upon Dr. Christopher's thought on blood pressure and cayenne and introduced a pair of little capsules before each meal. Concerned about the blow from my illness, I consulted the scales frequently, and happily realized that I was not gaining weight, but still losing it, although I was aware that the lack of exercise had also diminished my appetite. This pleasant situation continued, making my curious, and one day I was inspired to some research of my own, Googling for the connection between cayenne and weight loss. And there it was: there was no herb known that was more effective than cayenne for raising the metabolism, thus aiding digestion. And the history of my recent weeks was proof positive.
Of course, it must be said, the cayenne is not entirely the magic bullet. MT runs a model kitchen, not totally vegetarian, but as vegetarian as most well-organized convents, so mindless fat sources don't have a chance to screw things up. And for years we have done the Ayurvedic daily schedule, with the big meal at noon, so the afternoon activities can burn the calories, and a light supper, so the calories unburned by little or no activity can't resolve themselves into unwanted lard.
My target? At least 160. And at that point, perhaps some other issues the Ranger has discussed will be resolved as well.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
l939 Revisited
Writers have a variety of sources for inspiration, and anytime they feel they are suffering from writers' bloc, they are especially conscious of the extent of that variety. Although the latest chapter of Not Without the Angels has generally been going well as far as I can see, the too many days previous to yesterday afternoon's installment were not a little trying, with no production, and no ideas about how to get any. A day or two off I'm very used to, even when I feel on a roll, simply because the nature of spiritual writing in itself rarely allows quantitative output, but when the days start to multiply I can get anxious. For some reason I've never completely shut down the devil trying to tell me I'm lazy as quickly as I would like to. I always beat him in the end, but the end doesn't always come as quickly as I think it should, and the bastard gets his licks in. Time wasting, of course, but this is not quite heaven, and the father of lies must be allowed his innings, I suppose.
So I have to be patient, and humbly wait to be surprised by the next source of inspiration and clarity. Do I need to prowl in a book? Will the insight come from a story in the media or a film drama? Does someone in the household have the gifted word? The parish? Or should I take another stroll downtown? Or do I simply need to wait through an extended stretch of the dark night, with or without it being connected with the latest words being run through the computer?
With yesterday's input it was mostly waiting. The day before, I did find myself coming out of the black tunnel with an idea - which turned out to be the key - but I had to wait twenty-four hours before it was anything but the barest skeleton. This was not very pleasant, but I knew I could not push the Muse around just so I could feel good at supper time.
Besides, He had decided to give me the grace to get reunited with my apprentice days and Ernest Hemingway, and I had been somewhat enjoying The Sun Also Rises. I say "somewhat" because there's an awful lot of booze and sodden company involved in that tale, and the relationship between Jake Barnes and Lady Brett is so painful, but the boy from Chicago remains a provocative stylist and I can never quite give up thinking that he could have been a great metaphysician if he read as well as he fished and hunted, and maybe given up that hogwash about bull fighters being the only men who lived life all the way up. But, as I said, he was definitely a writer's writer, as well as, for me at least, a huge insight into how to think about my own wilderness, and when I went to the computer, to see if I could move forward - I could not - I was moved to reread what I had written so far, and cut out more than one quite superfluous adjective, and then, as I said, wait a day. The neat things about the other side of the Muse is that, for a long time now, the tiniest correction has always carried so much of a mental reward, actually hard to believe.
And then came yesterday. A lot more Jake and Brett, but the promise of the trip to Spain, and then I was suddenly back to the typewriter, where some stuff I'd always known as extremely challenging to get right, actually was made to work, and I came out of it all rather buoyant, finished the modest heel of a bottle of sweet vermouth, and sat down to a very tasty supper. I couldn't help but feel that some corner had been turned, and I couldn't help but feel for some time that I might have enough bounce to follow up with what is now this post. But I didn't, because while I was waiting for the computer I read my daily ration of Marianne's poetry, and I think that left me thinking I had better wait again. Besides, it was almost time for the weather news, and then the household's evening recreation, which for the past few weeks has been the BBC series, from the books of James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small.
The last half-dozen episodes have all carried a mention of the immanence of World War II, and last night we heard Neville Chamberlain announcing the decision to keep Britain's promise to Poland and take on Germany.
Which was precisely what I needed to remind me of the need to go on treating the Canadian Conference majority as if it were public enemy number one.
When will I stop? When their deliberations and canonical actions annihilate the ridiculous tone of our Sunday liturgies, unless of course the Pope simply bans guitars and pianos. Unlike Gregorian chant, which has within itself sufficient spirit to persuade the Holy Spirit to inspire good souls singing just a capella, the current popular slop, like AM radio, could never survive without an instrumental foundation, or at least a celebrant who so confuses noise with prayer that he takes any opportunity to perform.
The War had its Nuremberg Trials. When this nonsense is over, will we have the Liturgy Trials? Do we have enough gallows to hang all the guilty? Perhaps not. but Purgatory has lots of space, and I think God has considerable eagerness to punish those, clerical and lay, who have so blithely defied those very early words in Sacrosanctum Concilium. If, as John of the Cross insists, God will certainly
punish spiritual directors who do not do their job properly, even though they are responsible for only the tiniest fraction of the Catholic population, what can He possibly say to the leadership that has so abused just about everybody who shows up for Mass? Christ died for every man and woman of good will, not just for that little band that tries to take perfection seriously.
So I have to be patient, and humbly wait to be surprised by the next source of inspiration and clarity. Do I need to prowl in a book? Will the insight come from a story in the media or a film drama? Does someone in the household have the gifted word? The parish? Or should I take another stroll downtown? Or do I simply need to wait through an extended stretch of the dark night, with or without it being connected with the latest words being run through the computer?
With yesterday's input it was mostly waiting. The day before, I did find myself coming out of the black tunnel with an idea - which turned out to be the key - but I had to wait twenty-four hours before it was anything but the barest skeleton. This was not very pleasant, but I knew I could not push the Muse around just so I could feel good at supper time.
Besides, He had decided to give me the grace to get reunited with my apprentice days and Ernest Hemingway, and I had been somewhat enjoying The Sun Also Rises. I say "somewhat" because there's an awful lot of booze and sodden company involved in that tale, and the relationship between Jake Barnes and Lady Brett is so painful, but the boy from Chicago remains a provocative stylist and I can never quite give up thinking that he could have been a great metaphysician if he read as well as he fished and hunted, and maybe given up that hogwash about bull fighters being the only men who lived life all the way up. But, as I said, he was definitely a writer's writer, as well as, for me at least, a huge insight into how to think about my own wilderness, and when I went to the computer, to see if I could move forward - I could not - I was moved to reread what I had written so far, and cut out more than one quite superfluous adjective, and then, as I said, wait a day. The neat things about the other side of the Muse is that, for a long time now, the tiniest correction has always carried so much of a mental reward, actually hard to believe.
And then came yesterday. A lot more Jake and Brett, but the promise of the trip to Spain, and then I was suddenly back to the typewriter, where some stuff I'd always known as extremely challenging to get right, actually was made to work, and I came out of it all rather buoyant, finished the modest heel of a bottle of sweet vermouth, and sat down to a very tasty supper. I couldn't help but feel that some corner had been turned, and I couldn't help but feel for some time that I might have enough bounce to follow up with what is now this post. But I didn't, because while I was waiting for the computer I read my daily ration of Marianne's poetry, and I think that left me thinking I had better wait again. Besides, it was almost time for the weather news, and then the household's evening recreation, which for the past few weeks has been the BBC series, from the books of James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small.
The last half-dozen episodes have all carried a mention of the immanence of World War II, and last night we heard Neville Chamberlain announcing the decision to keep Britain's promise to Poland and take on Germany.
Which was precisely what I needed to remind me of the need to go on treating the Canadian Conference majority as if it were public enemy number one.
When will I stop? When their deliberations and canonical actions annihilate the ridiculous tone of our Sunday liturgies, unless of course the Pope simply bans guitars and pianos. Unlike Gregorian chant, which has within itself sufficient spirit to persuade the Holy Spirit to inspire good souls singing just a capella, the current popular slop, like AM radio, could never survive without an instrumental foundation, or at least a celebrant who so confuses noise with prayer that he takes any opportunity to perform.
The War had its Nuremberg Trials. When this nonsense is over, will we have the Liturgy Trials? Do we have enough gallows to hang all the guilty? Perhaps not. but Purgatory has lots of space, and I think God has considerable eagerness to punish those, clerical and lay, who have so blithely defied those very early words in Sacrosanctum Concilium. If, as John of the Cross insists, God will certainly
punish spiritual directors who do not do their job properly, even though they are responsible for only the tiniest fraction of the Catholic population, what can He possibly say to the leadership that has so abused just about everybody who shows up for Mass? Christ died for every man and woman of good will, not just for that little band that tries to take perfection seriously.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Two Thumbs Up, and How!
In three days it will be precisely four years since I began the Kootenay Ranger, the blog that became a little family of blogs, and the perfect kind of outlet for a writer like myself, a much studied senior citizen who suffers fools gladly in any office except that of the editor or publisher. April 30, 2008, feast day of that stern old Dominican pope, Saint Pis V. I didn't intend the timing, it merely came up as the result of my asking the junior agent's opinion on yet another prospective guinea pig for piano studies. It was getting close to lunch time, and in order to make sure I actually got fed - the agent also wears a chef's hat - I had to back away from the student plan, quickly, and agree that it was time I started putting my ideas on the Net. The rest, as they say is history, and not a little success, given that a writer who spends so much effort promoting the toughest writer that ever lived, the impregnable John of the Cross, king of all the mystics, can acquire four thousand hits from around the world. Selling pain has never been the route to fame and fortune, even when it is acknowledged that the great Carmelite's brand of agonies paves the fastest track to Heaven man will ever find, so those four thousand nods, even though many of them were entirely accidental, are not a little satisfying.
What is equally satisfying, I have lately been made to realize, was that my instinctive reaching out for what would have been my youngest experimental student was not entirely in error. There was something utterly primitive provoking my inquiries over basic fingering fundamentals, which was most certainly not being answered by any teachers or texts that I was aware off. I think now that I would never have found the solution with a child that young, however, and I know that there was still a great deal of analytical probing to be done. And oddly enough, and I think quite to my surprise, the solution actually lay in close study of written music, and not only written, but written in four-part harmony. In other words, a lot of attention to Bach's two-part inventions, etc, was not the full answer by any means.
Again, Marianne had a lot to do with this. She has been getting more and more involved with chant and Latin, partly through listening to what's available on the Net, and partially by printing from the same source. About two months ago she found the Vatican Kyriale, all 156 pages of it, laid down in four parts by the Belgian musician, Achille P. Bragers, in 1937. She printed it out and put it all in a big ring binder in nice plastic sleeves. I did not actually leap with joy at first, to tell the truth, but quite quickly some great progress with Tim McDaniel's reading skills led to my realizing that Bragers would be the perfect text. I had learned. more or less, how to decipher modes so that we could read the chant texts in numbers and Tim was eager to fly at it, with something more substantial than nursery rhymes and folk songs.
And some how, I had found the secret I had been hunting for so long: with four parts the key is to begin reading with the alto and tenor lines, played at first - and for some time - only with the respective thumbs. And I mean respective, just one at a time, at least for a while.
Tim has done so much work with intervals, with both thumb involved and thumb entirely removed, that he is very precise. Adding soprano and bass notes with the requisite finger follows quite naturally.
Honey, we're home.
Now, how long will it take the Canadian Conference, currently playing around in the music publishing business with the worst melodies imaginable, to catch on?
What is equally satisfying, I have lately been made to realize, was that my instinctive reaching out for what would have been my youngest experimental student was not entirely in error. There was something utterly primitive provoking my inquiries over basic fingering fundamentals, which was most certainly not being answered by any teachers or texts that I was aware off. I think now that I would never have found the solution with a child that young, however, and I know that there was still a great deal of analytical probing to be done. And oddly enough, and I think quite to my surprise, the solution actually lay in close study of written music, and not only written, but written in four-part harmony. In other words, a lot of attention to Bach's two-part inventions, etc, was not the full answer by any means.
Again, Marianne had a lot to do with this. She has been getting more and more involved with chant and Latin, partly through listening to what's available on the Net, and partially by printing from the same source. About two months ago she found the Vatican Kyriale, all 156 pages of it, laid down in four parts by the Belgian musician, Achille P. Bragers, in 1937. She printed it out and put it all in a big ring binder in nice plastic sleeves. I did not actually leap with joy at first, to tell the truth, but quite quickly some great progress with Tim McDaniel's reading skills led to my realizing that Bragers would be the perfect text. I had learned. more or less, how to decipher modes so that we could read the chant texts in numbers and Tim was eager to fly at it, with something more substantial than nursery rhymes and folk songs.
And some how, I had found the secret I had been hunting for so long: with four parts the key is to begin reading with the alto and tenor lines, played at first - and for some time - only with the respective thumbs. And I mean respective, just one at a time, at least for a while.
Tim has done so much work with intervals, with both thumb involved and thumb entirely removed, that he is very precise. Adding soprano and bass notes with the requisite finger follows quite naturally.
Honey, we're home.
Now, how long will it take the Canadian Conference, currently playing around in the music publishing business with the worst melodies imaginable, to catch on?
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Interdict
Is the Pope pondering the interdict?
I've just read a directive out of the Diocese of Calgary, written by Simone Brosig, PhD, Office of Liturgy. From the very first sentence to the last it is full of heresy, so flagrant that this woman must be suspended by her bishop, and if not, then he must be subject to Papal discipline. It is also, I suspect, full of lies and confusion over the question of not keeling in the pew after the reception of communion. I mean lies about the Vatican, and if it is not, then the Vatican is wonderfully stupid or wonderfully careless.
Having lived through some pretty careless papal thinking and papal acting, all in the name of letting the rats steer the ship, I could still be worried, as Benedict, I suspect, still has some lame brains in his curia. But he's cut them all off at the pass with his declaration of the theme for Lent: Fraternal Correction.
Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will correct My Church.
What Christ sees is that the Canadian Conference, having, with much help from Rome, finally more or less exorcized the devils of inclusive language from its midst, is now trying to develop one of the other lines of non-reasoning that hell has so generously tickled its privates with, sentimental doctrines of community, fed with the worst liturgical music in the history of the Church. The Conference has clearly yet to learn its lesson. Better from the Pope than a close personal friend of Elijah's, and perhaps the Transformation. I mean the real one, not the average preacher's concept.
I've just read a directive out of the Diocese of Calgary, written by Simone Brosig, PhD, Office of Liturgy. From the very first sentence to the last it is full of heresy, so flagrant that this woman must be suspended by her bishop, and if not, then he must be subject to Papal discipline. It is also, I suspect, full of lies and confusion over the question of not keeling in the pew after the reception of communion. I mean lies about the Vatican, and if it is not, then the Vatican is wonderfully stupid or wonderfully careless.
Having lived through some pretty careless papal thinking and papal acting, all in the name of letting the rats steer the ship, I could still be worried, as Benedict, I suspect, still has some lame brains in his curia. But he's cut them all off at the pass with his declaration of the theme for Lent: Fraternal Correction.
Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will correct My Church.
What Christ sees is that the Canadian Conference, having, with much help from Rome, finally more or less exorcized the devils of inclusive language from its midst, is now trying to develop one of the other lines of non-reasoning that hell has so generously tickled its privates with, sentimental doctrines of community, fed with the worst liturgical music in the history of the Church. The Conference has clearly yet to learn its lesson. Better from the Pope than a close personal friend of Elijah's, and perhaps the Transformation. I mean the real one, not the average preacher's concept.
Friday, December 16, 2011
All We Want for Christmas
To every thing there is a season, including maxims. Here are three:
Better late than never.
It wasn't a pretty goal, but we'll take the point anyway.
There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine that have no need of repentance.
After the past few weeks of spending much more time than we should have to deliberate over one of the most ridiculous decisions ever made by a national conference of Catholic bishops, we have finally been let off this annoying assignment by the bishops of Alaska. This is not to say that much in the way of damage control has actually been exercised in Canada, but the news from way up north indicates that it's only a matter of time, and we probably don't have to worry about it very much from now on. An example is an example.
I speak, of course, of this novel practice of making an entire congregation stand after receiving communion until the last parishioner has got his wafer. In actual fact, of course, nobody can actually make anybody do this, and we get regular reports of people who have the sense to do what they've always done: kneel and say a prayer of thanks, and perhaps offer their communion for another soul or two, as soon as they get back to their pews. Any Catholic who believes this standing around wrinkle is a matter of obedience and unity within the community is only telegraphing the poverty of his individual spiritual life. If there was ever a clear cut instance of where, when, and how to offer fraternal correction to a bishop or priest this is at the top of the list.
And speaking of lists, where are the Guiness Book of Records people? In this time of growing interest in making Mass more and more of a circus act, is there going to be a prize for the congregation which has to stand the longest? The record so far, that I have heard of, is fifteen minutes. But that should be topped come Christmas.
But the really big prize should not be given out for this small marathon. The big prize should go to the most idiotic sermon justifying the innovation, with a special bonus for the silly oaf that speaks the most abusively of 'individual piety'. Tape the moron, and send a copy to the Pope. It will make a nice subject to discuss at the next ad limina session of the Canadian bishops. The severest tongue lashing I've ever read in L'Osservatore Romano was John Paul to the bishops of Western Canada in 1988, but perhaps it will be outdone by Benedict this time around. You'd think they'd learn.
Believe it or not, Alaskan Catholics have actually been enduring this heresy since 2005, when Roger Schwietz became archbishop of Anchorage and its 400,000 souls. And more incredible, a lot of American dioceses started inflicting it back in 2002 or so. We'd never heard of that, to tell the truth, until now, when we were sent to a Net interview, with Cardinal Arinze, then head of the congregation that governs worship practices, that he gave when he came to the States in 2003. He assured his audience that such nonsense had not come from Rome. (He also assured his audience that if he were Pope he would not allow altar girls.)
But now, the majority of American sees have taken their brains, at least in this regard, and because Alaska gets a huge tourist inflow from the lower 48, confusion has reigned supreme in visiting season for these half-dozen years and Schwietz and his fellows have finally seen the light. They actually saw it in the month of November, which I wish I'd known, for the sake of my good night's sleep, and got the change going for Advent. Joyeux Noel, Alaska.
May your thinking spread as quickly as possible. The round red fellow with the reindeer couldn't bring us a better Christmas present.
Better late than never.
It wasn't a pretty goal, but we'll take the point anyway.
There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine that have no need of repentance.
After the past few weeks of spending much more time than we should have to deliberate over one of the most ridiculous decisions ever made by a national conference of Catholic bishops, we have finally been let off this annoying assignment by the bishops of Alaska. This is not to say that much in the way of damage control has actually been exercised in Canada, but the news from way up north indicates that it's only a matter of time, and we probably don't have to worry about it very much from now on. An example is an example.
I speak, of course, of this novel practice of making an entire congregation stand after receiving communion until the last parishioner has got his wafer. In actual fact, of course, nobody can actually make anybody do this, and we get regular reports of people who have the sense to do what they've always done: kneel and say a prayer of thanks, and perhaps offer their communion for another soul or two, as soon as they get back to their pews. Any Catholic who believes this standing around wrinkle is a matter of obedience and unity within the community is only telegraphing the poverty of his individual spiritual life. If there was ever a clear cut instance of where, when, and how to offer fraternal correction to a bishop or priest this is at the top of the list.
And speaking of lists, where are the Guiness Book of Records people? In this time of growing interest in making Mass more and more of a circus act, is there going to be a prize for the congregation which has to stand the longest? The record so far, that I have heard of, is fifteen minutes. But that should be topped come Christmas.
But the really big prize should not be given out for this small marathon. The big prize should go to the most idiotic sermon justifying the innovation, with a special bonus for the silly oaf that speaks the most abusively of 'individual piety'. Tape the moron, and send a copy to the Pope. It will make a nice subject to discuss at the next ad limina session of the Canadian bishops. The severest tongue lashing I've ever read in L'Osservatore Romano was John Paul to the bishops of Western Canada in 1988, but perhaps it will be outdone by Benedict this time around. You'd think they'd learn.
Believe it or not, Alaskan Catholics have actually been enduring this heresy since 2005, when Roger Schwietz became archbishop of Anchorage and its 400,000 souls. And more incredible, a lot of American dioceses started inflicting it back in 2002 or so. We'd never heard of that, to tell the truth, until now, when we were sent to a Net interview, with Cardinal Arinze, then head of the congregation that governs worship practices, that he gave when he came to the States in 2003. He assured his audience that such nonsense had not come from Rome. (He also assured his audience that if he were Pope he would not allow altar girls.)
But now, the majority of American sees have taken their brains, at least in this regard, and because Alaska gets a huge tourist inflow from the lower 48, confusion has reigned supreme in visiting season for these half-dozen years and Schwietz and his fellows have finally seen the light. They actually saw it in the month of November, which I wish I'd known, for the sake of my good night's sleep, and got the change going for Advent. Joyeux Noel, Alaska.
May your thinking spread as quickly as possible. The round red fellow with the reindeer couldn't bring us a better Christmas present.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Appointment Number One
Remember the Michael Keaton film Dream Team? It has a wonderful opening that occurs to me as the perfect image to identify the fantasy life of, apparently, the majority of Canadian Catholic bishops.
The movie opens in a mental hospital, with Christopher Lloyd, white-coated like a staff member, carrying a clip-board as he moves from to room taking notes on the patients. It's all very serious for a little while until a real doctor shows up and we realize that good old Chris is actually a patient. A roaring great laugh from the audience, and once again we enjoy the blessings of the talents of a great comic actor.
By now, there are a lot of bishops, priests, religious and grossly undereducated but nonetheless self-confident parish assistants in Canada who are trying to convince themselves and each other that I am just like the character Mr. Lloyd plays in that movie. After all, did I not use the term for one of our cultural high priests, the psychiatrist, in opening post for this series? I call it series because I suspect it's going to take considerable time and effort to bring so many unfortunate minds to their senses, if not their knees. And if I can actually think of myself in a psychiatric capacity without actually having taken a degree, must I not actually be somewhat off my rocker?
Frankly, I have to admit, I have been moved to wonder the same myself. But that was decades ago, and anyone who is by any means a student of John of the Cross, possibly even without actual experience of the dark night, understands that such thoughts are simply the work of the devil, because the mystical life itself is the prize of all spiritual gifts and no just God is going to allow it to be easily won, or easily retained, and is thus obliged to test those to whom it is given. Wondering if you're crazy is only one of the abuses to be suffered.
One of the learned - and experienced - of these souls was the recently beatified John Paul II, my spiritual student from 1984 until 1994. He was not in the Seventh Mansion, but I was, so he was open to conversation, and became, they say, the wiser for it. But not quite wise enough to excommunicate bishops who cluttered their altars with those tedious and spiritually very unsightly young females, mind you, and for this I had to resign my office. All the Vatican knows that the day he got my letter, more or less, is the day he broke his hip. But the beginning was very, very good, and offered some future hope for the Church, if only because it also led to perhaps the more important result, my becoming known to the man who is Pope now. Benedict and I go back to July of 83, and the imagery I was moved to use even then has a remarkably current relevance: the throat-slitting of the 400 false prophets on the slopes of Mount Carmel.
In 83, however, I assumed that the image - symbolic rather than literal, of course - applied only to certain Catholic leaders only in Canada. I was aware of some troublesome johnnies in the US, but did not really consider them my business. My principal concerns were Canada and getting a novel finished. (It was then far from being even half done.) Also, even a mystic can take on only so much, and the sex abuse situation of those days, especially in our diocese, was a big enough burden to labour with, or so one would think.
But then it became increasing obvious that even Rome was part of the abuse problem: it gravely lacked a suitable machinery for dealing with the offenders in an expedient manner, clearly a travesty of justice. Those failures have been corrected.
And now it may be possible that it is faltering on the questions of liturgical practice, by insisting, perhaps because of certain lacks of detachment on the part of John Paul, on a power in the liturgy it cannot have in this earthly sphere. Heaven on earth exists only the souls of those granted perfection at the highest practical level. John of the Cross has ceased to become a theory: he is the norm of discernment for questions at this level, and if necessary, Christ may show up in various ways to make sure the Church uses that norm.
The Pope has been warned.
This means everyone else should take heed.
The movie opens in a mental hospital, with Christopher Lloyd, white-coated like a staff member, carrying a clip-board as he moves from to room taking notes on the patients. It's all very serious for a little while until a real doctor shows up and we realize that good old Chris is actually a patient. A roaring great laugh from the audience, and once again we enjoy the blessings of the talents of a great comic actor.
By now, there are a lot of bishops, priests, religious and grossly undereducated but nonetheless self-confident parish assistants in Canada who are trying to convince themselves and each other that I am just like the character Mr. Lloyd plays in that movie. After all, did I not use the term for one of our cultural high priests, the psychiatrist, in opening post for this series? I call it series because I suspect it's going to take considerable time and effort to bring so many unfortunate minds to their senses, if not their knees. And if I can actually think of myself in a psychiatric capacity without actually having taken a degree, must I not actually be somewhat off my rocker?
Frankly, I have to admit, I have been moved to wonder the same myself. But that was decades ago, and anyone who is by any means a student of John of the Cross, possibly even without actual experience of the dark night, understands that such thoughts are simply the work of the devil, because the mystical life itself is the prize of all spiritual gifts and no just God is going to allow it to be easily won, or easily retained, and is thus obliged to test those to whom it is given. Wondering if you're crazy is only one of the abuses to be suffered.
One of the learned - and experienced - of these souls was the recently beatified John Paul II, my spiritual student from 1984 until 1994. He was not in the Seventh Mansion, but I was, so he was open to conversation, and became, they say, the wiser for it. But not quite wise enough to excommunicate bishops who cluttered their altars with those tedious and spiritually very unsightly young females, mind you, and for this I had to resign my office. All the Vatican knows that the day he got my letter, more or less, is the day he broke his hip. But the beginning was very, very good, and offered some future hope for the Church, if only because it also led to perhaps the more important result, my becoming known to the man who is Pope now. Benedict and I go back to July of 83, and the imagery I was moved to use even then has a remarkably current relevance: the throat-slitting of the 400 false prophets on the slopes of Mount Carmel.
In 83, however, I assumed that the image - symbolic rather than literal, of course - applied only to certain Catholic leaders only in Canada. I was aware of some troublesome johnnies in the US, but did not really consider them my business. My principal concerns were Canada and getting a novel finished. (It was then far from being even half done.) Also, even a mystic can take on only so much, and the sex abuse situation of those days, especially in our diocese, was a big enough burden to labour with, or so one would think.
But then it became increasing obvious that even Rome was part of the abuse problem: it gravely lacked a suitable machinery for dealing with the offenders in an expedient manner, clearly a travesty of justice. Those failures have been corrected.
And now it may be possible that it is faltering on the questions of liturgical practice, by insisting, perhaps because of certain lacks of detachment on the part of John Paul, on a power in the liturgy it cannot have in this earthly sphere. Heaven on earth exists only the souls of those granted perfection at the highest practical level. John of the Cross has ceased to become a theory: he is the norm of discernment for questions at this level, and if necessary, Christ may show up in various ways to make sure the Church uses that norm.
The Pope has been warned.
This means everyone else should take heed.
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