Exploring is journeying in the domain of purposeful action. We can stand in awe, or sit and wonder; when we explore, we make life’s journey more complete. Awe is a feeling, mainly. Wonder is mainly about our thoughts. When we explore, we take action. We could say that awe and wonder produce the behavior we call exploration. However, as is…
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Value for Sunday of Week 47 in the season of Harvest and Celebration
Flourishing
Early on, we identified some basic preferences, which give shape and content to an ethical system: health, satisfaction of basic needs, pleasure, longevity, happiness and fulfillment. Many people group these under the single category of happiness.
This week, we approach this question again, this time with more informed eyes. How can we get the most out of life? We choose to give a spiritual answer to that question: an answer that considers the well-being of others, and our relationships with them, and an answer that takes into account questions of meaning and purpose, which are at the heart of spirituality and religion. For a person to whom happiness always meant these things, there may be no difference.
Real
True Narratives
- Wilfred Rembert, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South (Bloomsbury, 2021), “. . . documents racial and economic violence under white supremacy as a living history. It also gives us an example of how to live without bitterness or seeking revenge.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
Some clichty folks / don't know the facts, / posin' and preenin' / ]and puttin' on acts, / stretchin' their backs.
They move into condos / up over the ranks, / pawn their souls / to the local banks. / Buying big cars / they can't afford, / ridin' around town / actin' bored.
If they want to learn how to live life right / they ought to study me on Saturday night.
My job at the plant / ain't the biggest bet, / but I pay my bills / and stay out of debt. / I get my hair done / for my own self's sake, / so I don't have to pick / and I don't have to rake.
Take the church money out / and head cross town / to my friend girl's house / where we plan our round. / We meet our men and go to a joint / where the music is blue / and to the point.
Folks write about me. / They just can't see / how I work all week / at the factory. / Then get spruced up / and laugh and dance / And turn away from worry / with sassy glance.
They accuse me of livin' / from day to day, / but who are they kiddin'? / So are they.
My life ain't heaven / but it sure ain't hell. / I'm not on top / but I call it swell / if I'm able to work / and get paid right / and have the luck to be Black / on a Saturday night.
[Maya Angelou, “Weekend Glory”]
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Franz Schubert, Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, “Great” (1828) (approx. 49-57’): Fellow composer Robert Schumann wrote of this symphony: “Here, beside sheer musical mastery of the technique of composition is life in every fiber, color in the finest shadings, meaning everywhere, the acutest etching of detail, and all flooded with a Romanticism which we have encountered elsewhere in Franz Schubert. And this heavenly length, like a fat novel in four volumes by Jean Paul—never-ending, and if only that the reader may go on creating in the same vein afterwards . . .” Great recorded performances were conducted by Furtwängler in 1951, Szell in 1970, Tennstedt in 1977, Abbado in 1988, Harnoncourt in 1992, Wand in 1995, Végh in 1996, Nott in 2007, Abbado in 2011, Norrington in 2018, Emelyanychev in 2019, Blomstedt in 2022, and Savall in 2022.
- The first movement (Andante – allegro ma non troppo) is a big, grand affirmation of life and everything in it.
- The second movement (Andante con moto) makes short work of life’s challenges.
- The third movement (Scherzo: Allegro vivace; Trio): the scherzo here is an extended and joyous laugh, in fast waltz tempo, and a dance with life. Midway through the movement, the dance turns into a slower, more tender waltz. The opening mood and themes return, then alternate with the second tempo to close the movement in tandem.
- The fourth movement (Allegro vivace) opens with an announcement that we are off to the races! Soon we are traveling at a more sustainable pace, our optimism and joy unabated. Justifiably pleased with this state of affairs, Schubert continues in it – returning to the initial theme several times – until the end of the symphony, adding just enough spice to make it interesting.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 (1808) (approx. 30-36’), is playful, positive and rich, as life should be. “. . . the work brims with athletic vigor and admits both contemplative rumination and puckish humor”. “Instead of an epic journey from darkness to light, Beethoven’s Fourth is a beguiling work full of comedy and enchantment.” “Although many fans of Beethoven’s symphonies may still think this symphony is a kind of regression towards musical styles of the past, Schumann and Berlioz recognized that it holds a unique and independent position between the Third and Fifth Symphonies, standing on its own as a masterpiece worthy of the master symphonist.” Top recorded performances are conducted by Toscanini in 1939, Karajan in 1962, Furtwängler in 1943, Toscanini in 1951, Karajan in 1953, Bernstein in 1977, Zinman in 1998, Vänskä in 2003, Iván Fischer in 2010, Chailly in 2010, Bell in 2013, Haitink in 2019 and Savall in 2021.
Georges Bizet, Symphony No. 1 in C Major, WD 33 (1855) (approx. 25-35’), “was composed when Bizet was only seventeen years old, as part of an assignment given to him by his teacher Charles Gounod at the Paris Conservatory.” “Youthful works are usually, and appropriately, heard as just that – apprentice pieces that hint of greater things to come. Not so here. Bizet hit the ground running at the callow age of seventeen, and, with a total absence of youthful pretentiousness, nevertheless gave us work of mastery, charm, and grace.” “The spirited opening movement Allegro vivo, which is full of energy, stands out, as does the second movement Adagio for its lovely, extended melodic line for oboe in writing that evokes for me the onset of dusk after a long summer evening.” Top recorded performances are conducted by Beecham in 1959, Bernstein in 1968, Martinon in 1972, Marriner in 1973, Plasson in 1994, Prêtre in 1999, and Leleux in 2020.
Other compositions:
- Joviality and good feeling, in community, characterize William Hurlstone’s Piano Trio in G Major (1905) (approx. 30’).
- Aleksandr Glazunov, Lyrisches Poeme (Lyrical Poem) in D flat major, Op. 12 (1887) (approx. 11-12’)
- Franz Schmidt, Symphony No. 1 in E Major (1899) (approx. 45-47’)
Allegra Levy is a young female jazz singer whose art evokes a young urban woman, doing well, and thoroughly in touch with herself. Here are links to her releases, interviews, and live performances.
Albums:
- Kenny Barron, “Live at Maybeck Hall, Volume Ten” (1990) (63’)
- Orchestre National de Jazz & Steve Lehman, “Ex Machina” (2023) (71’): “The virtuosic composer, altoist and improviser Steve Lehman explores the vast possibilities of spectral jazz and technology in partnership with Frédéric Maurin and his vibrant Orchestre National de Jazz. The album, aptly titled Ex Machina, includes compositions from both musical master minds, and are shaped with the help of computer generated responses (created by Jerome Nika) as well as live electronics. This musical interdependence between humans and machines evokes the work of 20th-century French composer Gérard Grisey and his studies of time.”
- George Freeman, “The Good Life” (2023) (51’): “Freeman plays a smooth and mellow guitar, using well-shaped single-note runs to underline his candid and always engaging point of view.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Rascal Flatts, “My Wish” (lyrics)
- U2, “Beautiful Day” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Maurice Pendergast, May Day, Central Park (a/k/a Central Park, or Children in the Park) (c. 1900)
Film and Stage
- The Sessions: A dramatization of Mark O’Brien’s life. Severely disabled by polio since childhood, he overcame many of his demons, and learned to live more fully, by developing relationships and his sexuality.
