In preceding days I must have heard fragments of the Mozart Requiem and the Barber Adagio more times than I can count. As Polish media outlets struggled to find music to frame the astounding events unfolding on their screens and a nation came to grips with their tragedy, a predictable thing happened:
They reached for the greatest music possible.
Inasmuch as terrible tragedies have a way of revealing truth for a short period of time, so too do they lead us to the greatest artistic expressions available to our society. I couldn't help but feel, as I mourned along with my kin and country, that it was truly sad that this tenderness, mutual understanding, and outpourings of faith would soon be gone from the public square. With nothing to sustain them in everyday life, such noble passions fade away in the onslaught of our modern relativistic culture.
It is also deeply unfortunate that a nation's collective good taste -- and mutual seeking after the infinite -- lingers only so long as the tragedy is present. Can it be that the very music which we use to help us cope during difficult times can be -- by virtue of its unparalleled depth and expressive power -- capable of helping us retain the best sentiments brought about by tragedy? I firmly believe that God calls artists to create works to help us penetrate more deeply into the fiber of reality, in the process seeking greater meaning and depth to each and every day.
Rather than write further on this impossible loss, I offer two more pieces to help us cope not only with an international tragedy, but to take with us into everyday life, to use as tools of deeper spiritual communion with the ultimate reality.
The first work, by Wojciech Kilar, is one of the most moving renditions of Agnus Dei I have ever heard. It is written in the new contemplative spiritual style of other composers like Henryk Gorecki and Arvo Part.
The second work -- Memento Mori -- is from the progressive klezmer band the Bester Quartet. Beginning in a modernistic noise sculpture meant to evoke a physical crash, a heartbreaking melody emerges from the wreckage to bring sense to the difficulty encountered.
As to the Poles lost, I can only say: "Hail the Victorious Dead -- may Christ bring them to their eternal rest."
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Way of Beauty - A Great New Blog!
David Clayton -- head of the "Way of Beauty" program at St. Thomas More College -- has a new blog up, and it is well worth your time to become acquainted with. His latest entry, Creativity in Science through Beauty," explores the depths of classical beauty and modern physics. The gem of a quote below (from the afformentioned article) will give you an idea of what to expect:
...'Christian culture, like classical culture before it, was also patterned after this cosmic order; this order which provides the unifying principle that runs through every traditional discipline. Literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy –all of creation and potentially all human activity- are bound together by this common harmony and receive their fullest meaning in the liturgy…When we apprehend beauty we do so intuitively. So an education that improves our ability to apprehend beauty develops also our intuition. All creativity is at source an intuitive process. This means that professionals in any field including business and science would benefit from an education in beauty because it would develop their creativity. Furthermore, the creativity that an education in beauty stimulates will generate not just more ideas, but better ideas. Better because they are more in harmony with the natural order. The recognition of beauty moves us to love what we see. So such an education would tend to develop also, therefore, our capacity to love and leave us more inclined to the serve God and our fellow man. The end result for the individual who follows this path is joy.’
Great work! Please visit and bookmark David's blog at:
http://thewayofbeauty.org/
...'Christian culture, like classical culture before it, was also patterned after this cosmic order; this order which provides the unifying principle that runs through every traditional discipline. Literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy –all of creation and potentially all human activity- are bound together by this common harmony and receive their fullest meaning in the liturgy…When we apprehend beauty we do so intuitively. So an education that improves our ability to apprehend beauty develops also our intuition. All creativity is at source an intuitive process. This means that professionals in any field including business and science would benefit from an education in beauty because it would develop their creativity. Furthermore, the creativity that an education in beauty stimulates will generate not just more ideas, but better ideas. Better because they are more in harmony with the natural order. The recognition of beauty moves us to love what we see. So such an education would tend to develop also, therefore, our capacity to love and leave us more inclined to the serve God and our fellow man. The end result for the individual who follows this path is joy.’Great work! Please visit and bookmark David's blog at:
http://thewayofbeauty.org/
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
My Argument with a Pro-Abortion Journalist
It is difficult to respond with charity when "progressive" leftists show nothing but regressive disdain to their opponents.
There is a certain major journalist -- whom we shall refer to as "Mr. Z" for the sake of anonymity and my legal well-being -- whom I routinely challenge on his many false pro(re)gressive arguments. We have previously had an email exchange, while one of my numerous letters was published in his newspaper.
In Mr. Z's most recent tirade, he lambasts the pro-life agenda (whom he refers to under the misleading moniker of "anti-choice") for "not worrying about real babies" and "defending pseudo babies while not changing any diapers themselves." In what be one of the most ridiculous sentences in liberal journalistic history, Mr. Z writes:
"I, like most Americans, differentiate between actual, born-and-alive-in-the-real-world-now babies and the fertilized egg the size of the period at the end of this sentence that typically gets aborted."
This, my friends, is apparently what passes for a well-reasoned opinion piece these days. I could not resist a response. My first email to Mr. Z and his newspaper read:
It is interesting that Mr. Z would heap such derision on activists who care about the welfare of (in his own words) a "fertilized egg the size of a period." Mr. Z seems to forget that he also previously existed as a being no larger then the period which ends this sentence. Furthermore, when you deny an entire segment of our population its humanity, you find yourself on the very same intellectual slippery slope which has previously been used to justify the brutal murder of millions of other innocent "non-persons." I would think that a Jewish thinker would be more sensitive about making such unwarranted generalizations.
Much to my chagrin, Mr. Z replied quickly:
"Like the baby metaphor, the abortion-equals-holocaust line of thinking only really works if you already believe it. I could just as easily point out that the tendency of pro-lifers to force their religious scruples through law onto the unwilling smacks of the Spanish inquistiion. But that would be insensitive, though I'm not sure how somebody standing in the street with a five-foot photo of mangled fetuses can talk of "sensitivity." Thanks for writng."
You're more likely to get cohesive arguments out of a high-school debate team than the average liberal journalist, it seems. While I elected to ignore Mr. Z's blatant lack of knowledge regarding historical events like the Spanish Inquisition (which were just about as religious as another more-political-than-religious event, the Reformation), I couldn't resist another response:
"Thanks for your response. I will only briefly tackle what you wrote, in all charity and respect, simply because I can see that you have not thought this issue through. I will only itemize the list to make it clear, not in the intention of being condescending.
1.) The word "baby" is not a "metaphor," but rather only a label, albeit an emotional one. Yet one my continue to ask: when is it a baby? When it is wanted? Only after it is born? It is a terrible burden to define the beginning of our shared humanity.
2.) I never said "abortion = holocaust." I clearly said that it is a philosophical slippery slope to remove the rights of our shared humanity from any segment of the population. The Nazis thought that the mentally ill and elderly were "undesirables" whose life was a social burden; they also had no qualms regarding abortion. Slippery slopes being what they are, itt was not a far intellectual leap to label an entire nationality as sub-human. Consider what manner of rationalization it took to allow otherwise cultured and mannered men to slaughter thousands of men with their own bare hands.
3.) I never mention religion, nor are you fair to assume that I am religious. I've always said that atheists and secular humanists should be the most vehement pro-lifers. To the Judeo-Christian mentality, there is at least an afterlife. To the secular humanist, you are robbing a unique human creature of their only chance at existence. This is a terrible crime to commit in the name of social convenience.
4.) The people who stand in the streets with pictures of dismembered fetuses are simply trying to express the truth about the abortion procedure; it is a truth that demands an insensitive expression, as nothing else seems to get through.
-I appreciate your return email, and hope that you take these points under consideration. You are far too intelligent of a man to write the manner of article which was published in today's paper."
Predictably, Mr. Z never responded to this, as those who are grossly in error seldom wish to confront the glaring failings of their arguments. Yet his most recent column betrayed either further disdain for his readership, or perhaps the presence of an editor asking him to "tone it down a bit."
This most recent column, after the vicious anti-life attack, was about muffins.
Yes, "muffins." . . .
There is a certain major journalist -- whom we shall refer to as "Mr. Z" for the sake of anonymity and my legal well-being -- whom I routinely challenge on his many false pro(re)gressive arguments. We have previously had an email exchange, while one of my numerous letters was published in his newspaper.
In Mr. Z's most recent tirade, he lambasts the pro-life agenda (whom he refers to under the misleading moniker of "anti-choice") for "not worrying about real babies" and "defending pseudo babies while not changing any diapers themselves." In what be one of the most ridiculous sentences in liberal journalistic history, Mr. Z writes:
"I, like most Americans, differentiate between actual, born-and-alive-in-the-real-world-now babies and the fertilized egg the size of the period at the end of this sentence that typically gets aborted."
This, my friends, is apparently what passes for a well-reasoned opinion piece these days. I could not resist a response. My first email to Mr. Z and his newspaper read:
It is interesting that Mr. Z would heap such derision on activists who care about the welfare of (in his own words) a "fertilized egg the size of a period." Mr. Z seems to forget that he also previously existed as a being no larger then the period which ends this sentence. Furthermore, when you deny an entire segment of our population its humanity, you find yourself on the very same intellectual slippery slope which has previously been used to justify the brutal murder of millions of other innocent "non-persons." I would think that a Jewish thinker would be more sensitive about making such unwarranted generalizations.
Much to my chagrin, Mr. Z replied quickly:
"Like the baby metaphor, the abortion-equals-holocaust line of thinking only really works if you already believe it. I could just as easily point out that the tendency of pro-lifers to force their religious scruples through law onto the unwilling smacks of the Spanish inquistiion. But that would be insensitive, though I'm not sure how somebody standing in the street with a five-foot photo of mangled fetuses can talk of "sensitivity." Thanks for writng."
You're more likely to get cohesive arguments out of a high-school debate team than the average liberal journalist, it seems. While I elected to ignore Mr. Z's blatant lack of knowledge regarding historical events like the Spanish Inquisition (which were just about as religious as another more-political-than-religious event, the Reformation), I couldn't resist another response:
"Thanks for your response. I will only briefly tackle what you wrote, in all charity and respect, simply because I can see that you have not thought this issue through. I will only itemize the list to make it clear, not in the intention of being condescending.
1.) The word "baby" is not a "metaphor," but rather only a label, albeit an emotional one. Yet one my continue to ask: when is it a baby? When it is wanted? Only after it is born? It is a terrible burden to define the beginning of our shared humanity.
2.) I never said "abortion = holocaust." I clearly said that it is a philosophical slippery slope to remove the rights of our shared humanity from any segment of the population. The Nazis thought that the mentally ill and elderly were "undesirables" whose life was a social burden; they also had no qualms regarding abortion. Slippery slopes being what they are, itt was not a far intellectual leap to label an entire nationality as sub-human. Consider what manner of rationalization it took to allow otherwise cultured and mannered men to slaughter thousands of men with their own bare hands.
3.) I never mention religion, nor are you fair to assume that I am religious. I've always said that atheists and secular humanists should be the most vehement pro-lifers. To the Judeo-Christian mentality, there is at least an afterlife. To the secular humanist, you are robbing a unique human creature of their only chance at existence. This is a terrible crime to commit in the name of social convenience.
4.) The people who stand in the streets with pictures of dismembered fetuses are simply trying to express the truth about the abortion procedure; it is a truth that demands an insensitive expression, as nothing else seems to get through.
-I appreciate your return email, and hope that you take these points under consideration. You are far too intelligent of a man to write the manner of article which was published in today's paper."
Predictably, Mr. Z never responded to this, as those who are grossly in error seldom wish to confront the glaring failings of their arguments. Yet his most recent column betrayed either further disdain for his readership, or perhaps the presence of an editor asking him to "tone it down a bit."
This most recent column, after the vicious anti-life attack, was about muffins.
Yes, "muffins." . . .
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