With Lent upon us, I began thinking about the burden of being an Irish Lutheran. Several of my friends and I get together for coffee after school on Wednesdays. The email went out on Tuesday, "Coffee"? I replied with a certainly but have to leave early to go to Ash Wednesday services for ashes and repentance. That I am just miserable sinner and thank God for grace, a guarantee that I won't be roasting marshmellows in the hereafter. A reply came back that Catholics beat Lutherans in the guilty category for they repent for sins they didn't even know they committed.
We gathered for coffee, enjoyed some time together. I stood up and said I had to leave for services and everyone else left as well. On the way home, I began to think about the special burden I have as an Irish Lutheran. As an Irishman, I am prone to melancholy. Norwegians may say it can always be worse, the Irish are certain it is.
We Irishmen have the inherent weakness of keeping our demons around our necks. Being Lutheran keeps the noose of demons tightly around my neck. But there is a bright spot in being Irish Lutheran...the Irish have great voices and it's not a Lutheran service unless you sing and sing alot...a great combination. Welcome to Lent.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Lincoln, Copland and Today
President's Day is the first day off since the Christmas break, that was all I was thinking last week. Every day, almost every minute of every day...President's Day...a long weekend of relaxing. Today, I needed some calmness and I turned to who I always turn to, Aaron Copland, the great American composer. His music, so distinctive, so flowing, so American. At school, I put MPR on for background, but once the first notes of a Copland composition come on, my ears pick up, my head turns and I give a huge sigh...my blood pressure goes down and I feel a wonderful warmth.
I have several Copland CDs, so I just grabbed one, put it in the CD player and hit play. I listened to Appalacian Spring and then Lincoln's Portrait came on. I hadn't heard that in a long time. After seven minutes of wonderful, graceful music, Gregory Peck began the narration. Taken from a book by a British Lord, it was a combination facts about Lincoln and snipits from several speeches. Lincoln wrote of the 1860's as a time of extreme difficulty and how the Congress and Administration would be judged by the future. It was time to rise to the occassion. He described the eternal struggle of right and wrong...master and slave and saving the country. It was time to act. I began to think about now. How this Congress, this Administration will be judged in the future, by our children now coming of age in their 20's and early 30's, not yet in a position to take power.
Lincoln by all accounts was despised while in office, and the Congress didn't have to deal with gridlock because the opposition walked out and created it's own Congress in Richmond. Yet each side felt duty bound to what they thought was right and to action. It cost this country a generation of unfullfilled talent and gifts to the greater good. But it saved the Union, it saved the country.
Today, there is no Lincoln, there is a nice guy who can't seem to get his feet under himself. If there are Congressmen and Congresswoman fighting for our greater good, they are being swept under by those who are more concerned with destroying the other side, of getting elected in November than doing the country's work. The Constitution gives our government the responsibility to provide for the common welfare among other things. Defining how to provide for the common welfare and just exactly what that is gives us the great divide between Democrats and Republicans philosophies. What is so troubling now is that Democrats and Republicans are not fighting for their believes, their philosophies, their ideologies, they are fighting to destroy each other. And while they posture in Washington, lives are being damaged and destroyed in this country. A whole group of young people are coming out of college facing debt and job despair. Talking heads on the Sunday morning gabfests continually discuss how we have to protect ourselves from forces outside who are determined to destroy us. Right now, I say to those wanting to destroy the United States, take a breather, our elected government officials are doing a better job than you could ever do.
I think I better get back to Copland...
I have several Copland CDs, so I just grabbed one, put it in the CD player and hit play. I listened to Appalacian Spring and then Lincoln's Portrait came on. I hadn't heard that in a long time. After seven minutes of wonderful, graceful music, Gregory Peck began the narration. Taken from a book by a British Lord, it was a combination facts about Lincoln and snipits from several speeches. Lincoln wrote of the 1860's as a time of extreme difficulty and how the Congress and Administration would be judged by the future. It was time to rise to the occassion. He described the eternal struggle of right and wrong...master and slave and saving the country. It was time to act. I began to think about now. How this Congress, this Administration will be judged in the future, by our children now coming of age in their 20's and early 30's, not yet in a position to take power.
Lincoln by all accounts was despised while in office, and the Congress didn't have to deal with gridlock because the opposition walked out and created it's own Congress in Richmond. Yet each side felt duty bound to what they thought was right and to action. It cost this country a generation of unfullfilled talent and gifts to the greater good. But it saved the Union, it saved the country.
Today, there is no Lincoln, there is a nice guy who can't seem to get his feet under himself. If there are Congressmen and Congresswoman fighting for our greater good, they are being swept under by those who are more concerned with destroying the other side, of getting elected in November than doing the country's work. The Constitution gives our government the responsibility to provide for the common welfare among other things. Defining how to provide for the common welfare and just exactly what that is gives us the great divide between Democrats and Republicans philosophies. What is so troubling now is that Democrats and Republicans are not fighting for their believes, their philosophies, their ideologies, they are fighting to destroy each other. And while they posture in Washington, lives are being damaged and destroyed in this country. A whole group of young people are coming out of college facing debt and job despair. Talking heads on the Sunday morning gabfests continually discuss how we have to protect ourselves from forces outside who are determined to destroy us. Right now, I say to those wanting to destroy the United States, take a breather, our elected government officials are doing a better job than you could ever do.
I think I better get back to Copland...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)