Johannes Passion ~ Johann Sebastian Bach

Just spent the regular morning hour at the piano. Spent the whole time on one aria of the Passion that kept pulling me into its spell. While playing I thought what a privledge it is to be able to bring Bach's profound religious emotion out of an instrument. I feel indebted to Bach for showing me the depths of sorrow and making me feel it in a way that no other medium ever has.

Wonders of Childhood ~

But wasn't it in childhood that I experienced the most wonderful awarenesses. Like that day at the age of 3 or 4 when in that wallpaper shop with mother. The vague, harmonious memory of those moments there produces an overwhelming pleasure and strong longing for the happiness of childhood that differs so distinctly from all other later pleasures. Regrettably, it is not something I can recall at will. It is a feeling that has come over me maybe a dozen times in life, and when it does I realize that I am there in that place.

Flying to God ~

I once heard someone say that the soul, in its natural state, would fly to God. We block this natural movement by allowing our distractions to weigh the soul down.

Changing Perspectives ~ On Reading Shakespeare

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
The struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

I remember reading these lines as a High School student. I was amazed at the ideas Shakespeare presented, the beauty of the metaphors, the strange new way of viewing life. On reading this now there is none of that fascination for the artistry.

What I now read is a precise description of reality as I know it to be, a satisfying statement of truth.

Contraptions for Seniors ~

Now I find it useful: a shoe horn on a long shaft.

Graceful Seniors ~

Graceful? . . . When your nose runs continuously, embarrassingly?

Floating with God ~

Early Irish monks had an unusual way of doing God's will. They would get into a small boat and let it float to wheresoever. . . Now that sounds strange, but somehow I like the idea of floating with God.

St. Bernard ~ Intellectual ~

. . . So surprised to find him saying this:

"You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters."

Adapting ~

When the first passenger jets took to the air people were wary to fly in them because they felt unsafe without propellors.

Iraq ~

Today the cost of the Iraq War reached $250,000,000,000.

Parents' Lives ~

Often nowadays I find myself musing over my parents' lifetime in the '20s, '30s and '40s. How they lived such a full life. Their friends, their active social life, their successes. And now it is all ashes and dust, a forgotten story except for a few threads that still exist but will cease to when we pass on.

A Question for Architects ~

Would the great medieval cathedrals ever have been built if the builders were not absolutely convinced of the Eucharistic presence of the Person that the structure was to house?

Table Manners ~

They say you can tell more about a person by his table manners than by what he says.

Letting Go ~ Letting Be

My comments about playing the piano [Fingering] and letting the fingers find their place without my placing them according to numbers really apply to life itself. What I have this to learn: let myself be directed from a source outside myself. Let that determine how things should be. Stop trying to direct everying. Let go. Let be.

America's Tarnished Reputation - 2006

Mikhail Gorbachev said that the ending of the cold war a gift to the United States. He was telling reporters on this 75th birthday that despite the great opportunity that the end of the cold war presented to the U.S. to build a safer and more stable world, it only strengthened America's arrogance and we-don't-need-you attitude.

Piano ~ Fingering ~

Strange as it seems, I am learning to let the fingers tell me where they should be placed. I always used to study the suggested fingering numbers. But if I let them, the fingers show me where they belong.

I must work at that: letting the fingers to do the thinking.

Thoroughness ~

Carl Czerny, the famous piano teacher [1791-1857], told his students that they could only then play a piece before an audience only if they knew it so well that they could play it in private at least ten times in succession without a single mistake.

Changing One's Mind ~

Today I read that an overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately. Article

Shovelling Snow ~

This year, for the first time, I hired someone to shovel the snow. There has been loads of it. I wanted to save my back from further pains. Why spend the money on therapy afterwards? I had to admit to myself that I just wasn't able. Sitting in the house and hearing someone else clearing the walk and driveway is quite a luxury.

Succumbing to Pride ~

Stephanie Boehler, a former student of mine when I taught at St. Blasien College in Germany, is seen here with her German teammates after winning Olympic Silver in the Women's Cross Country Event.

I'm rejoicing with you, Stephanie, and proud to have had you as a student.

Hardships for Seniors ~

One of the plagues of age is this: you become aware of your own flaws and insufficiences. Those old weaknesses that you had all along but didn't clearly see. Now they all show themselves clearly. One feels shame. It takes a good portion of courage to master this troubling recognition. I learn humility late in life.

Cicero ~ On Old Age

We were High School students back in the late '40s and were reading Cicero's On Old Age. Back then I didn't know what to make of his statement that it was young men who had sent the most powerful governments crashing to ruin, but it was the old men who had either kept them strong or restored their strength.

Winter Thaw ~

Our fierce cold winter has broken, the deep snow has started to melt and already a reddish shimmer has shown itself on the birch trees in the grove.

Dresden, Germany ~ February 13-14, 1945

It is 38 minutes past midnight and I hear the planes flying overhead on their first bombing run to Dresden. How can I close my eyes in sleep recalling what human suffering we caused there?

Poetic conception of a bombing of a city back home.

State of the Union ~ President Bush

State of the Union: $439,000,000,000 allocated for defence in 2007. When will we have a President who spends half of that on making peace in the world?

Morning Visitor ~

The joys of retirement: This morning after breakfast had time to watch a furtive nuthatch land heavily on the feeder and make off triumphantly with a single sunflower seed.

January 27, 1945 ~ Liberation of Auschwitz

To an Unknown Girl in Auschwitz

by Charles L. Cingolani

I

Who are you who make your way
in the endless lines?
You, Two-Six-Nine-Five-Three,
You, the Flower of Jewry
proud, erect, your denuded skull
that once flowed rich black
with hair that tumbled fountain-like
around a slender neck of ivory
cascading onto shoulders
to fall divided gliding down
over breasts and back.

What noble forehead I see
above dark pools
wherein burn radiant eyes,
your soft sunken temples,
the slope of your regal nose.
Those lips, lightly pursed
above a chin held aloft,
borne with that silent certainty
of being loved already
by one yet unknown to you,
but whose presence now felt
propels your dauntless search.

Your every movement graced,
your feathered step,
your groping hands gliding
those fingers loosely stretched
that have yet to caress
a newborn babe
or cushion a lover's head
from loving spent.

II

On what hidden tether are you
being drawn to him
who has come here
searching for you among the fair,
for you, his longed-for love.

You are his Winter Rose,
You are his Rising Sun
You are his Evening Star,
You are his House of Gold.

He has looked for you in every bower
sought out the lions' lairs,
no latch undone, no hinge unswung
until he ventured through these gates,
searching for you
in one last despairing quest.

Was it not his nearness
that awakened you before dawn
set you on this path in darkness
seeking out his lodging place?

Done with watching, longing,
done with endless dialogue alone
done with patience, pining, waiting.
You move, irresistibly drawn
to juncture, fullness, oneness,
where waiting ceases
where union quenches thirst.

All your visions clung to nights through,
all anticipation that has long beaten
at your love-sick heart
crave for fulfillment, a bringing out
that you know now
will soon come about.

Is that his voice you hear,
your head lowered now
your eyes straining
as you rush in his direction?
Are you about to enter
upon a banquet prepared?
Do you see yourself reclining
in fruits from his trees,
cushioned in down, gazing at
swirling columns of incense rising
as you await his first light touch?

He must see you coming now,
you, so intent, in his direction.
Stands he there behind some board,
some cleft in a wall?
Hear you his words already?
Is he proffering a time, a tryst, a place?
Or is it a room, a loft, a nest—
like orioles make, a flaxen purse
hanging deep in foliage hidden
where union takes place?

Are you asking
if he knows of your longing,
if his will meld with yours
in folds of awareness so hermetic
as to envelop you in one endless ritual
of giving and yielding?
All this questioning but distracts
from your final rush to him
into whose presence you are entering.

III

Go, lift your beauty to him.
All convention, all words, all thought
recede now. There is no fetter.
You are beyond license, sanction, law.
All is assent, oneness, accord.

You are running now,
taking to the wing, gently, lightly.

But he, too, is in motion
nearing, so near
about to catch you up, sidelong, longing,
to envelop you
in the heat of his embrace.


Copyright © 2005

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ~ 250th Birthday

Attended a Mozart Birthday Concert. The first piece was a symphony by the eight-year-old prodigy. It contained the embryo of all that was to come. The pristine beauty and clarity as in his later themes, the joy and the magic. Mozart's music opens a drawer for us and there he presents us with music we somehow know but have never heard expressed. Every line of music keeps eliciting a "yes, that's it".

J. S. Bach ~ Musical Patterns

Quite aside from the sound of Bach's music there is the beauty in the patterns that the fingers must make on the keys to produce the sounds. It is a pleasure in itself to shape the fingers into the flowing geometric figures called for. Discovering these patterns, this fresh kaleidoscope of new-born forms, produces a deep inner delight for me at my piano.

Lesson in Prayer ~

He was an eldery priest, humble. He said: "When you talk to God you must always start with your own ego. You must become fully aware of yourself here and now. When you have done that you should say 'Here I am, Lord, ready to hear You'. And then you wait for Him in His presence. Wait, not demanding that He speak, and satisfied, too, if He doesn't.

A Sunday Morning ~

This morning at half past seven the eastern sky was tinted reddish-orange as the sun was just about to come up behind the hills, while in the western sky the bright moon was still hovering over the horizon. It was bitter cold. Five crows flew overhead, gliding lazily toward the sunrise.

Words of Strength ~

Tom's daughter found a poster that she framed and hanged beside Tom's bed. On it were the words: God spoke: I will not let you fall, and I will not abandon you. Josue I,5. Tom held onto those words in those last days.

War ~

And this nagging thought keeps coming back: We are a nation that was duped into war. Even though we know that, we take it all in stride. Where is the rage?

Thinking Back to Christmas ~

Joy, being joyous— that was the Christmas message. Joy dispersed fear [of the shepherds]. Then peace on earth could happen. Do the suicide bombers know what joy is? Tom knew joy, as he was dying. The source of our joy is Christmas, the birth of the Savior.

Letting Days Pass By ~

How I used to hang on to the days, holding them back, regretting their passing. But no. Let them pass— there is no holding. Allow them to carry you where they are leading, giving thanks.

New Years's Concert ~

Was privledged to attend the New Years's Concert: Handel's Messiah in Freiburg, Germany. Choir of Claire College, Cambridge. Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. René Jacobs. A sublime rendering, three hours of worship. Singing to our God.

Christmas Tree ~

In the evening we light the twenty or so candles on the Christmas tree and sit there in long periods of silence.

At Midnight Mass ~

The priest stood there and read In Praise of Christmas Eve by Thomas a Kempis, composed in the year 1395. I was impressed. It was the joy that went out from the words. And perhaps the way the priest delivered them, obviously stirred. It was an overwhelming gladness that sprang from the realization of what happened at the stable in Bethlehem. You could literally feel the enthusiasm of Thomas a Kempis. He was so full of rejoicing that he could hold no more and had to pass it on to his listeners.

Deep Snow ~

The little Christmas tree I have set up on our terrace outside the dining room is covered and weighted down with snow. The tiny lights have to reflect from deep under the snow and the tree is leaning precariously. There are a few suet feeders on the tree like Christmas decorations that attract the goldfinches, titmice and now and then chickadees. How sparingly they feast.

Tom ~ Funeral

It was bitter cold this afternoon as we filed out to the gravesite. Sheets of snow flew at us in the brisk westwind as we stood waiting for the large crowd of mourners to congregate. The minister stood there bravely with snow in his face waiting to say the Our Father. Then, individually we approached the open grave. I stood and looked down at the coffin now lowered to its earthen resting place. I didn't take the little shovelful of earth or the holy water sprinkler, but just stood there and looked down for five seconds, then made way for the next mourner.

As If He Were Still There ~

Made my way back to Tom's house this morning. Delivered a note of sympathy from my wife. Told Alice how much I admired her loving perseverence during the long ordeal. A short embrace. Then I went to the cemetery and stood looking at the pile of earth with flowers on it. Numb.

Tom ~ Passage

It was a cold winter afternoon but full of sunlight and reddish streaks of cloud. Tom passed away at noon. I had been there during the morning hours. Tom was breathing laborously and already seemed distant. His family of six was at his bedside. A candle. Death came on tiptoe and took him without a struggle. . . I walked home and sat quietly at the piano and played Bach's Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden while the evening darkness set in.

From Tamara Deuel ~

Dear Charles,
It is hard for me to express the feelings I have when reading your poem because it is very emotional for me. A deep and incredible poem. Thank you sending it to me. I think that you . . .
I am sending you two of my pictures. They are not the latest but I wanted you to see them.
You are blessed,
Tamara

Advent Music ~

Bach's Cantata for the third Sunday in Advent concerns the intense longing of an individual soul for the coming of Christ, quite in keeping with the Advent theme. That strong mystical German tradition: very personal emotions expressed in words we are not accustomed to hearing, but striking and captivating, especially when accompanied by the ingenious scores Bach has created. I am no longer "distracted" by the artistry but am moved by the strong religious impact. Every moment with J. S. Bach is a wonderous gift.

Tom's Family ~

Tom's wife and family of six are there this weekend. His oldest daughter has a bad cold and must keep her distance. Poor Kathrin, his wife, is exhausted. Tom was doing so well this morning that I could tell him about Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. The red flag went up, as usual in our conversations in the past on that theme, and he had to grab for the oxygen mask. Then the smirk and wink.

Tom - Critical Condition ~

Yesterday Tom almost passed away. Had a critical breathing attack. The doctor came but said he had now reached the end of his medical know-how. He gave Tom an injection, some medication, too. Told him the only thing would be to send him to the hospital for resuscitation. Tom rejected that. Wanted to be at home with his family.

Now today Tom was well. Had had a good night, breakfast, felt strong. Had that old smirk on his face when I told him about our awful choir performance.

Astonishing, how peaceful he is. Never complains. Taking everything in stride. No fear. No drama, little emotion. Well aware that death is near. It would seem as if abundant help coming from elsewhere.

Christmas Tree ~

Bought a Christmas tree today. All the while thinking about living simply in a society that has everything. Almost any object that one can imagine is available and can be had. Living in such a society poses its own problems: the desire to have is one, dissatisfaction not to have is another. To be satisfied with owning little is an ideal to keep striving for because it frees me from so many things that clutter up my life.

Hubris ~ Knowing Oneself

When studying Greek tragedy I remember our professor telling us how the playwrights used hubris [arrogance, pride] in their plays to demonstate how a protagonist who displayed hubris could be led to his own downfall. The Gods would show their disfavor by allowing him to have even more success, then when he felt himself to have achieved everything he wanted they would let him fall and drive him headlong into on into his own undoing.

Tom - The Night

He was awakened at 2 a.m. gasping for breath. After that couldn't get back to sleep for fear it would return. Was drowsy during my visit and slept most of the time. Came away with the feeling we are losing contact.

Tom - Music

In his situation Tom said that he doesn't care to hear music, not even classical. The only music he can listen to is Gregorian chant. Tom is Protestant and his tradition is anything other than Gregorian. He said that the chant makes him peaceful and carries him off.