The large stage of Sanders Theater, filled to its last square foot with young people as singers and players, provided the setting last week for a stirring musical performance. Verdi’s Requiem resounded through the hall with all the vigor, and the subtlety, of the great composer’s creative art. Members of the audience, clearly held in rapt attention during the performance, at the end rose to their feet and applauded mightily the conductor and all who had brought us such an experience.
Category Archives: Spirituality
Love and Death
Donald Hall, a celebrated poet and writer rooted in the New Hampshire soil where his ancestors have lived for generations, is a man of profound feeling and spirituality. Having had to face life-threatening illness himself as well as the agonizing death of his wife, Jane Kenyon, also a poet, he knows what it means to have his faith tempered in the fire of suffering. Continue reading
Thou Shalt Not Kill
In my growing-up years, whenever I reflected on the Ten Commandments I used to think one of them unnecessary. Why did the Lord include among the injunctions given to Moses on Mount Sinai the command “Thou Shalt Not Kill?” Was it not obvious that a person should never murder another human being, no matter what the provocation? How could any sane person ever consider committing such a horrendous act?
The Philosopher and the Monk
They sat on opposite sides of the moderator, two men marked by family resemblance but strikingly different in overall appearance: the father’s head almost bald because of age; the son’s shaved cleanly like a pro basketball player; the father dressed in a business suit with shirt and tie; the son wearing a long flowing robe saffron and dark red.
One of these two men, Jean-François Revel (an assumed name), ranks as one of France’s leading philosophers. Now 75 years old, he enjoys a reputation as a hardheaded secular thinker, a rationalist who trusts reason alone to understand reality.
Praying for Peace
What do people of spirit do when feeling oppressed by the suffering of others? Often, they pray. And they pray often. This they do especially when the suffering happens far away and they feel unable to do much else.
Some divinity school students of my acquaintance feel deeply troubled by the war in Yugoslavia. Scenes of wholesale murder in a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” violate their sense of human dignity. So do the heartrending images of refugees driven out of their homes with only the clothes on their backs.
Caretaking and the Spiritual Life
A great many people in American society spend much time caring for elder citizens who are in need. Professionals – – nurses, social workers, home-care aides, doctors, among others – – do so by reason of their jobs.
Family members everywhere – – wives and husbands, adult sons and daughters, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law and countless other relatives – – are also involved in the same task. They respond usually because they feel the force of blood ties and affection.
Passover/Easter
Each year it is an event to which I look forward. Bob, a dear friend of longstanding, invites us to take part in a Seder. We gather, some ten or so in our community, along with Bob’s family members and a few other friends to celebrate the feast of Passover. Most of this community does not come from the Jewish tradition; nonetheless, the event holds deep spiritual meaning for us all.