America, God, and the Necessity of Natural Law

Church and state, so much hate...

Recently in an online debate concerning Prop-8, I suggested -- without stating my own thoughts on the issue -- that both sides, regardless of belief, should examine both prevalent scientific research on the topic, as well as the common-sense conclusions of Natural Law, before agreeing to legislate one way or the other. Two of the numerous vitriolic responses were telling:

"You need to keep your archaic religious beliefs out of this."
--and--
"Take your Natural Law and go live in the forest -- you'll be more comfortable there."

Ouch. But funny, considering -- in the first case -- that I had never brought religion into the issue, and -- in the second case -- that this person clearly did not know what Natural Law is.

It occurs to me that in order to justify the existence of the American experiment, both God and the Natural Law must be assumed as a measuring stick. You are free to be an atheist, of course, but you cannot request that "God be removed from the public sphere" without burning both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as well.

The foundation of the American experiment, and the very justification of our revolution, stems from Natural Law. (For those unfamiliar, a reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law)

For instance, take the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence:
hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

"Laws of Nature, and Nature's God," you say?

How, in a public debate free of any mention of God, could the resulting relativistic morass agree that any truths are "self-evident?" The answer is simple: they couldn't. Nor would any self-respecting liberal agree that the last sentence above invalidates abortion-on-demand, but that's another debate.

And now we move to the first amendment of the Constitution, which states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redres of grievances.

The phrase "separation of Church and State" does not appear in the document. Our Founding Fathers assumed that religious belief -- as a key forming element of every educated man's conscience -- would enter into the public debate. This is not to say that Congress should -- or even can -- debate theology. It is to say that the very human dignity which our elected representatives are sworn to uphold and consider cannot be fully justified outside of the theistic realm. End of story. No absolute truth, such as human dignity or freedom, is ultimately possible without an absolute referrant. To see the alternative, I refer you to the "people's" French revolution, or the experiments of 20th century communism.

You are free to believe whatever you want, but you must acknowledge certain basic facts about the American experiment, or become party to its unraveling.

You may not believe in God, or you may not be sure of what you believe... but be glad that other brave men of belief have made your disbelief a safe and legal possibility.

Natural Law is part of the Foundation of America, and we have no right to eliminate her source, nor to pass laws which go contrary to her common-sense dictates.

Don't like it? Move to China and have your relativism.

Being Nice.

I am eternally thankful for my courageous friends.

For every mercy I have received in life, none have been greater than those which have helped to correct or curb whatever fatal flaws I may have. Some friends have courageously plucked me up and chastised me for whatever stupidity I might be engaging in. Others have lived by an example so powerful that I could not help but be impressed -- and inspired to emulate. (It's an ongoing process...)

Some I have met in the flesh -- others have spoken to me through the decades (or the ages) via great books and wise words and beautiful music.

One truth rings out at me daily: that I am my brother's keeper. Had others not believed this simple truth, I'd be in a much sorrier state in life, be it my moral life or professional career. If they had the courage to live this creed on my behalf, then I would be a coward to do otherwise.

I recently lost a friend. This person chose to remove their person from my life because I happen to state "contentious" opinions in a written forum. Despite every kindness and patience I had shown this person in reality, they found my "crazy" and "illogical" opinions on such issues as abortion to be too much to deal with (even though we never once debated them personally.) They had to "remove such negativity" from their lives.

In sorrowing over this lost friendship, I was reminded by a friend that "anger is often the first response to truth." In listening to a talk by Fr. Corapi today -- a great warrior in his own right -- I was reminded that "I am my brother's keeper." Fr. Corapi reminded me that losing a friendship is not as painful as losing self-respect, or as painful as sitting idly by why insanity reigns, or as painful as losing my very soul.

Why do I blog? Well, partly -- and to be honest -- it helps relieve inner frustrations, all while getting the creative juices flowing for composition. Before blogging existed, I had saved many pages of commentaries, all necessary venting before the deeper expression. (Yes, for better or worse, I've been critiquing society and writing commentaries since the first grade.)

Yet I've discovered that such simple public postings go much deeper. We all have particularly keen abilities and viewpoints, "angles on truth" if you will. We have them in order to share them, and in sharing them, I have found immense blessings in return.

What is our greatest calling in life? To be our brother's keeper. C.S. Lewis reminds us that there are only two paths in life -- that to eternal glory, or eternal horror. Our every interaction with another person, be it trivial or otherwise, pushes them in one of two directions. When all is said and done, even those straddling the fence will be blown in only one direction. (Think of that the next time you cut somebody off in busy traffic!)

It is a painful reality, and one that we all sense in some level of our being. Some embrace it and live accordingly, others run and deny for as long as they have breath. Yet one thing has become clear to me:

Being nice -- or "tolerant" -- earns no points in eternity. Absolutely none.

Martin Luther King Jr wasn't "nice" or tolerant. He was a brilliant firebrand. Gandhi may have been passive, but he wasn't tolerant -- he fought evil with the fierce fire of peace. None of the great preachers or prophets were "nice guys."

In fact, as Father Corapi reminds us, most Churches would send a modern-day Jesus Christ into sensitivity training. In seeking to emulate the greats -- as we should -- we soon learn that niceness and tolerance don't go very far. Only goodness reigns, and goodness can be difficult.

Our initial brushes with Truth (capital T) reveal a cold, hard reality. There is no tolerance for "interpretations," no room for semantics, no expectations of niceness. There is only the necessity for change, the need to let go, and, in the end, only...

Joy.

A friend once reminded me that "nice guys don't go to heaven. But good men do." Being "good" necessarily entails that you live courageously (even when you're afraid), and virtually guaruntees that you'll ruffle some feathers along the way. Do it anyways, and trust in posterity to correct the collateral damage.

When I write, I don't do it to ruffle feathers, or to express egotism, or to alienate friends. I do it to humbly pass along the wisdom which has found itself at my doorstep, the very same wisdom that I struggle daily to accumulate into my very flawed life. If there is fire to my words, it is because I also do it in defiance of an age where opinion has trumped reason, while belief is eroniously held to be a private matter.

I do it because I am my brother's keeper, whether I like it or not.

Was Modern Music a Slavic Age?

(Warning: potentially contentious statement later in this article...)

Last month's issue of Classical FM magazine dealt beautifully with the subject of modern Russian music. Reading over the roster of names -- many of whom did their work in the 20th century -- got me to thinking:

Which nation or geographic region had the greatest effect on the course of 20th century music?

While this may seem like a loaded question, music history texts have no problem pointing to various eras where styles and trends were dominated by Italy, France, or Germany. Indeed, the Germans seem to take the crown historically, providing us with more geniuses from the Classical era than any other nation.

It was a supremacy they fought hard to keep. Arnold Schoenberg predicted -- with the typical Tuetonic flair of that unfortunate era -- that he had "discovered something that will guarantee the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years." (Thankfully both him and that other Aryan supremacist war-mongering occultist intellectual dictator were both wrong in their grand predictions. You could call me bitter, but I'm not exxagerating.)

I will celebrate this 11/11 -- the 90th anniversary of Polish independence from her less-friendly neighbors -- by making a potentially contentious statement:

Where music is concerned, the 20th century was a Slavic Century. While I know this is a personally biased statement, it nevertheless has great historical weight. I firmly believe that when leveled in the perspective of (non-Boulezian) history (assuming certain racial stereotypes in music are perhaps dulled or forgotten), students will one day learn about the powerful Slavic turn of 20th century music.

I also believe that it is the Slavic composers who saved modern composition, at least as far as audiences are concerned. The 19th century folk-tinged rumblings of Chopin, Dvorak, and the Russian Five led to a veritable musical explosion in Central and Eastern Europe. A brief survey of names includes: Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski, Glazunov, Gorecki, Scriabin, Penderecki, Schnittke, Janacek, Ligeti, Gubaidulina, Part, Kurtag, Rachmaninov, Szymanowski, and of course Bartok. (This was a list off the top of my head -- feel free to add your favorites.) Then there was the mighty teacher, Nadia Boulanger -- Catholic, half-Russian, and deeply aware of both.

While western Europe blazed a trail of largely soulless music, Stravinsky (bolstered by his mentor Boulanger) brought another version of musical modernity into being. The echoes of the rite still reverberate through our concert halls and conservatories.

Where Schoenberg & Co. codified atonality and paved the way to musical modernism, it seems that it is the composers of Eastern and Central Europe -- always placing the demands of expressionism over the demands of craft -- that gave modernism a soul.

Then there are the quasi-folk musings of Janacek and Bartok, who stooped classical high-browery back to the earth, unleashing tremendous expressive possibilities which are still being explored across numerous cultures today.

A glimpse back to the Russian five may give us the roots of this cultural success. These men were concerned with music for its spiritual and expressive properties, rather than any numerical interest it might engender. They were certainly under-trained as musicians and composers (or, perhaps, unhampered by over-training?) They were humanists first, seeking an expressive nationalistic vision for their resurgent nation. They also recognized the inherent power of folk music. This began a trend which would carry through most of the following century.

I am particularly proud of Poland, where modernism both found a soul -- and a way out. Long before his neo-romantic musings, Penderecki was at the head of the avante-gard in composition. Most of us are too young to remember the extreme cultural impacts of his Threnody and St. Matthew Passion. In all fairness, we can thank the Germans for embracing -- and funding -- most of Penderecki's international successes.

In Estonia, Arvo Part began his career by writing some of the most expressive serial music ever penned, before realizing the limitations of such a musical language and withdrawing to reconsider his craft.

1976 will likely be considered a magical year in future music history texts. It was in this year that Gorecki penned his magnanimous Third Symphony. After the premiere, one member of the modernist hegemony was said to decry that "Gorecki has abandoned 200 years of musical progress with a single piece." Yet it has become the best-selling recording of modern music in history, inspiring countless composers to return to a new simplicity. (It is also the piece that saved my young compositional life.)

In that very same year, Arvo Part emerged from his long self-imposed silence with a new musical language, blending ancient religiosity with a stark modern simplicity. In the end, the very nations that either resisted abstract modernism -- or gave it a soul -- also provided composers that -- along with the American minimalists -- showed a way out of the cultural morass of modern music.

In short, it was these men who maximized the modern, while later giving us permission to dream a different musical dream. Faced with the bleakness of a secular, mathematical century, the "Kyries" and "Agnus Dei's" poured forth once more. The end of the Slavic century presented a fitting musical gift, turning our hard-headed art back to more basic human needs.

It is curious, then, and perhaps even a bit xenophobic, when music schools require German or Italian from their musicology students. Should not Polish and Russian be added to the list?
Often impossible to analyze, often too simple for academic prose, the music of the Slavic century may have more than cultural biases to overcome in order to assume a proper historical prominence.

It's still too early to say where the new century will lead us. Will it, by virtue of our continued melting-pot status, become the American century? Will the Chinese seize cultural dominance? Or will the rise of communications technology make it the first truly international era of music?

Contrary to popular belief, classical music has never been stronger or more widespread then it is now, despite the lack of (generally pessimistic) major-media coverage. Out of the political darkness of the 20th century, we've been handed a battered baton of hard-earned progress from the Slavic greats. It is a baton covered with the sweat of the politically-hounded and the blood of freedom fighters, emerging from a modern history stranger (and more brutal) than fiction. Where will we run with it?