Archive for September 2010
Thought for Thursday, September 23rd
Memorial of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, priest (readings)
Poor Herod. The gospel writer tells us that Herod keeps trying to see the source of all the confusion and controversy, but he is unable. Herod is unable to see, to figure anything out, because Herod isn’t concerned with what’s really there, what the truth of the matter really is. Herod represents a kind of self-destructive tendency so prevalent in our culture today, in which we do everything we can to bend reality to suit individual desire. It’s impossible for Herod to see the Truth in Jesus Christ, because he is not at all concerned with the truth as it really is.
Contrast Herod with the figure of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, more commonly known to us as Padre Pio. Pio joined the Capuchin Franciscans at a very young age, and immediately dedicated himself to God. He was often in poor health, and suffered great spiritual trials. Beyond the stigmata Padre Pio is immediately famous for, he also underwent direct physical abuse from evil, malicious spirits, not to mention a public which was all too immediate to cast doubt upon a shy, holy priest who seemed to take no joy in being the cause of such attention.
For St. Pio, life was never about rewriting God such that he fit his own terms. Life was about living out his baptismal commitment in the unique way through which God called him. And because he was able to approach God as he really is, that he was able to catch a glimpse of the immalleable Truth.
Thought for Wednesday, September 22nd
Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time (readings)
If you dump me over at any given time, you’ll find a host of things falling from my person: cellphone, watch, wallet, pocket knife, keys, maybe a flashlight. I carry these things because I might need them at any given point during the day, and I don’t want to be caught without them.
We tend to hold on to stuff, to keep it with us just in case. Many a traveler has been caught cramming everything one might possibly need for a relatively short trip into a relatively small bag. On any given day, I don’t need half the stuff I carry with me, just as the traveler rarely needs two curling irons or an extra shoeshine kit.
We hold on to these things because we want to be safe. Certainly, we need to be prepared to meet duties and responsibilities; the traveler who neglects to take deodorant with him because he expects God to provide will soon find himself very unpopular amongst his fellows. But we tend to take it too far with material things: we want to be secure in the knowledge that we have everything we need with us, available in the moment, as if success or failure hinges upon whether or not we are able to take care of ourselves.
And yet, God reminds us that He alone ultimately gives us what we need, and it is He alone who takes care of us. It is only when we begin to cede control that we begin to grow more deeply in our sense of the divine.
Thought for Tuesday, September 21st
Worship Songs
Great post over on the First Things blog by Jeremy Pierce, in which he examines the elements of a bad worship song. It’s tongue-in-cheek, of course, as his point relates to how these songs are often biblically based.
For my part, I loathe just about every single praise and worship tune I hear. It’s all saccharine: sweet and tasty, but the aftertaste is there to remind you that what you’ve just consumed is fake. P&W tunes operate out of an emotional construct, which is unsustainable in both human and spiritual relationships. My argument isn’t always with the content of these songs (often being very scriptural), but rather with the method of delivery and what one hopes to incite in the worshiper.
Any art involving words — if it is to have any lasting, enduring affect — must appeal primarily to the intellect. It should give you cause to pause, to relate, to grow, to ponder. It should be actualized. All too often, the point of P&W is to get you excited, to pump you up and get you going. And then what?
I say I loathe “just about” every P&W song I hear, because occasionally I run across a good one. The music I hear when I’m with a local young adults group always seems to fit the mood of Eucharistic Adoration, and is extremely well done.
I haven’t posted this quote by Flannery O’Connor in a while, but I’m always reminded of it when I encounter terrible Christian art:
The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that, because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality…But the real novelist, the one with an instinct for what he is about, knows that he cannot approach the infinite directly, that he must penetrate the natural human world as it is.
UPDATE: My buddy (the newly-minted Br. Benedict — woohoo!) brings up a good point with the “me me me” theme so prevalent in P&W.
One of the places Jeremy Pierce’s satire falls short is that he doesn’t acknowledge the larger theological sense of what the “me/I/my, etc” means in the Psalms. When I pray the psalms — and I do, five times a day, as I promised my bishop I would — the “me” isn’t Josh Miller. “Me” isn’t even the original composer of the Psalm, in the traditional narrative sense.
The “me” we refer to when we pray the Psalms through a Christian context is Jesus Christ, addressing the Father. Thus, in my prayer, I unite with Christ as he unites with the Father. It becomes relational inasmuch as I incorporate myself into the mystery of my adopted sonship, through the Son Jesus Christ.
In the end, then, the Psalm really isn’t about “me” even when it uses the term. It always points toward Jesus Christ, who points towards the Father.
In every good icon, notice where Mary’s hand leads. She’s the preeminent example of what it means to be Christian for a reason: it was never about her.
UPDATE (x2): Instead of simply providing negative examples, I thought I’d post a positive example of a song that might be considered P&W (in a gospel sense) which does precisely what these songs should do.
Unfortunately, not every songwriter is Bob Dylan, and not every songwriter is capable of crafting a work whose lyrics about God aren’t easily interchangeable with the word “baby.”
Great performance by this kid, by the way: