Christ with clouds

"It's all about clouds." That's what my friend said as she checked through her music for this afternoon's Bach cantata service.

"Why is it so dark?" asked my daughter, Eliza, as we crossed the street to go to church this morning. "Because it's a cloudy day," I said. "It might rain. It rained last night."

"The Clouds of Judgment Gather" and "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending"--these were the hymns this afternoon to go with "Wachet auf!" Bach didn't have Christ the King Sunday. He had the end-of-the-church-year lessons about Christ's return and Judgment Day, the ones that kept me awake in bed late into November nights when I was a child. I hoped against hope that I would live a long life and die. That seemed less frightening than a supersize Jesus appearing suddenly in storm clouds above my head.* I didn't want to stand in the line of sheep and goats, or in the line-up where he pointed out that I had seen him many times naked and hungry, hadn't recognized him, hadn't helped and had blown my chance at heaven.

Of course, this isn't what's in the cantata. The bridesmaids are waiting, not for a judge, but for the bridegroom. There's some seriously passionate longing going on in the first duet between soprano and bass, the soul and her Lord. In the second duet where they're united, well, the flights of ecstasy in the music can be experienced with more than just the ears. The vocal music has all the urgency of lovers singing together at the opera. And then there's that sensuous oboe.

But what about those foolish virgins whose lamps ran out of oil? More than likely that's me. My planning-ahead skills are good--when I remember to use them. I don't much expect to be the one hanging out with the bridegroom. It's been decades since I sang a love duet, metaphorically or for real.

But there is Christ the King, ascended until the clouds hid him from view, enthroned with God. Jesus who walked the walk down here, perfectly, and now reigns over a kingdom that theologians describe as "both here and not yet."

On the way to writing this blog post, I got distracted and ended up trying yet again to sync my phone calendar, my computer calendar, and my online calendar without producing two and three copies on each machine of every choir rehearsal and day off from school. Compared to this, wrapping my mind around "here and not yet" is easy. I do believe that God's kingdom comes on earth, that the transcendant compassion that Buddhists speak of points to this, that the kingdom is seen where two or three gather together in Christ's name, that humans live collectively in hope, and this is wise, not foolish.

But not yet have I let go of the fear of being judged and, inevitably, found wanting. It's like seeing shapes in the clouds--your brain goes there because it tries to make sense of things. Why is it so dark? Why can't we see and understand God fully? Yet that passionate union seems so close, so knowable.

Cloudy tomorrow?




*Anyone who has ever visited St. John, Forest Park, the church of my childhood, has seen exactly what I saw when I closed my eyes on those nights.

Do something creative first thing in the morning. I read this advice somewhere recently.

It makes sense to me. There's only so much good energy in a day, and it is soon dissipated. So it should be spent wisely, on something that matters. Probably not on reading the New York Times online. Not that what I read there doesn't matter--there's just not much I can do anything about.

The one thing I read this morning was an op-ed piece on how consumer spending drives the nation's economy. Consumer debt is the grease that helps those gears grind. We're all in this together--my spending creates your job, and your job gives you the income that funds my job. Interdependence. Not the fuzzy, sharing meals together, I'll support you through a crisis kind of interdependence. It's what? Structural? Unavoidable? An economic parable for the rest of our lives? Maybe even for the rest of the social contract.

That's a thesis that 's more involved than I care to argue before 8:00 a.m. Maybe I should just go read the paper.

In which she turns little things into bigger questions

Kurt and I switched bedrooms over the weekend. Actually the switch is still going on. The dining room table is loaded with stuff that came out of his closet. His desk, which he doesn't want any more, is still in my room. It turns into a trapezoid when pulled out of the corner. The rectangular piece of heavy cardboard that's supposed to hold it square has mostly come away from the edges. Angle irons, I'm thinking, from the hardware store. But I'll have to find the power screwdriver first. My sewing machines and the storage units that go with it are in the living room and the dining room. And meanwhile, here at my desk, last Saturday's cleaning operation was interrupted halfway through by my niece's car accident. (Nobody hurt, but she had Eliza in the car, so off I went.)

So the house is not just cluttered or messy. It's completely out of sorts. I'm very tolerant of clutter--in fact, I need to see things out, not put away. But this is too much. Until I get it all sorted out, I don't know exactly how to live. And I won't get it all sorted out for a couple weeks, because I have to figure out how to wake up in a new space, how not to head upstairs to change clothes, where to knit and watch TV, where to knit and prop a book.

Is this a sign of age? Being such a creature of habit? I'm not against new habits. I just don't want to do the work of figuring out what they should be. It's just like figuring out what to wear these days, after losing 30-plus pounds over the summer. None of the old solutions work. I've bought new clothes. Moving closets forced me to weed out much of the too-big stuff yesterday. But how will it all work? How will it all end? Why am I here? Where am I going? And as my high school German teacher used to say, "Wo kommt es alle zu ende?"

It's not quite like what Jesus said about leaving mother and father and husband and wife behind. But still.

"Morgenlich leuchtend in rosigen Schein"

I was out walking this evening, pounding along to the jazz trio on my iPhone. The playlist ran out. I stopped. What to listen to next?

It's not an easy decision. The wrong music at the wrong time irritates me. No, not those Bach cello suites again. (And I love Bach cello suites--at certain moments.) Ella Fitzgerald? Good for walking fast. When she sings Cole Porter, man, it takes energy to listen. Good for a burst of speed in the middle of a walk, but not for the winding-down stretch.

I tapped W and went to Wagner. Yes, I have the Solti "Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg" on my iPhone. I don't think the whole thing is there--one of those syncs where I'm not really sure what happens. I looked at the lines of German dialogue in the playlist and tapped something I thought would be from Act IV.  I was hoping for Walter's prize song, but I didn't get it. What I heard, I think, was Beckmesser's rather pedantic effort. The beautiful voice was persuasive, not unpleasant to listen to, but the music did not go anywhere.

I kept listening, kept walking, and about four blocks from home, there it was. Three still, shining tonic chords to establish the tonality, and then a big ringing romantic tenor (literally big--Ben Heppner) at center stage singing "Morgenlich leuchtend . . . "  Finishes the first stanza, the crowd reacts--cautiously. He sings another, there's a buzz. He keeps going, the crowd is swept up in the music.

Here is Ben Heppner in a concert version. Or listen and watch Johan Botha here.  He sings beautiful phrases, although he looks kind of silly standing on that box. I liked the reaction shots of the crowd, everyone listening thoughtfully. But the staging doesn't show the crowd's excitement, which Wagner wrote so vividly into the music. To do justice to Wagner's music for the  townspeople I suppose you'd have to have a movie set with cameras zooming in from up high, quick cuts, a swirl of pleasure and discovery.

There was a big smile on my face as I walked that last quarter mile tonight. I came back in the house with my heart sitting six inches higher in my chest.

Eighth Grade Confirmation

I agreed to co-teach Sunday morning eighth-grade confirmation class. From now until mid-April it's a merry chase through half the catchism: the commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. The teacher's guide provides eight times as much activity as a sane, middle-aged adult could possibly want to tackle with 20-plus kids in 55 minutes. I could drink more coffee on Sunday mornings, but the result of that would not be pretty.

Still, this will be interesting, especially the commandments. How do they hook up with the grace and love of God that young teens need to experience? What's good about being shown your sin? And what are these sins in today's world. I spent this afternoon shopping for new pants--remembering the sabbath? How do you judge if someone purporting to speak for God is using God's name in truth or in vain?

I sat in on this morning's class, taught by the other teacher. A reality bath. Eighth graders are restless, wary, self-conscious, and oh, so very hard to engage. One young man suggested something was a metaphor for God, which led me to be hopeful--someone understands that God is more than the words in which we try to describe something both immanent and unknowable. Other kids searched for "right" answers--some for the ones the teacher was looking for, some for the ones that seemed right to them. Some wanted to be noticed. Some wanted to escape.  They were all acutely aware of one another.

Yeah. I'm either gonna like this or be very frustrated.

Thinner

I am approximately thirty pounds lighter than I was at the end of May. Thirty years ago I would have expected this to change my life. I would have expected to get great parts on stage. I would have expected to be much more attractive to men. I would have expected to be happier.

This time, I am simply thinner. I am eating better. I'm approaching the normal range for BMI, so presumably I'm healthier. I am fascinated by the whole process. If you limit yourself to about a thousand calories a day, the red numbers in the LED display on the bathroom scale go down as the weeks go by. Relentlessly. And skirts and pants and t-shirts that used to be tight hang low on my hips, flap around my middle.

People ask, so I have to tell them what I did. It's seems odd to be discussing this with others--it's not that interesting to me. No sugar. Only fruits and vegetables for snacks, not boxes of crackers or bags of chips. And I eat when my body needs nourishment. I don't eat because I'm unhappy or lonely. I'm still unhappy and lonely and stressed-out. But it's not a reason to eat a bowl of cereal, much less to open a bag of potato chips. Celebrating is no excuse either.

I'm thinner, but I'm not younger. My face is thinner, and that makes the sags and bags more obvious. I walk lighter. I do feel better about how I look and I want to wear younger-looking clothes, but without looking ridiculous. I still don't know how a person my age is supposed to act.

It's all pretty superficial. Yet we judge people by their weight. Hmm.

Morning post

Perhaps I need a vacation from screen time.

Too many ideas? Too few pursued and incorporated into my own? Too much abstract back and forth and not enough solid imagery that connects with the heart as well as the head--even if that heart, logically, must be located in my head.

Blog posts here often begin with an image--physical, or at least a moment in time or a specific interaction. Blog-reading, website-reading leave impressions that come and go too quickly, as soon as you click the link to the next item.

I've stayed home at the computer to listen to Carl Grapentine on WFMT, Chicago's classic radio station. Carl is a friend from church and I've been informed that between 8:00 and 8:30 this morning he's playing a recording of the Grace Senior Choir singing a piece by Paul Bouman that I wrote about on this blog a couple years ago.

Here it comes: strings introducing "Now Rest Beneath Night's Shadow." It's Paul's birthday. The sopranos have the first stanza. Oooh, a little flat over the top. Better at the second shot at that melodic line. One could wish for a little less violin and a little more choir, 'cause it's the melody line that's lovely: "Let praise to your Creator rise."

"Lord Jesus, since you love me." Good job tenors. This is the verse Paul made much of in his setting--a prayer prayed through a long life, from childhood to deathbeds. all the counterpoint coming to rest in Jesus with  "I rest in your protecting arms."

And then there's a choral setting of stanza three. Not heavenly-perfected chorale singing. The sound is not quite together--perhaps mostly because the congregation is singing along and there's lag time in the building acoustics and recording. But that imperfection that includes everyone--surely that's more like the kingdom of God than exclusive excellence.

There's my image for the day. Put that on a sampler.