Faure' Requiem - Vancouver Chamber Choir

My soprano friend Anna introduced me to Handel’s Messiah years ago.  I was so impressed I have returned year after year. Now I’ve heard Faure Requiem for the first time and it’s the same exhilaration.  I look forward to returning to this exciting experience of glorious music again and again. The Vancouver Chamber Choir was incredible in the opening works by Schutz and Carissimi. Steven Belanger’s baritone voice was a pure joy to hear. Siri Oleson’s divine soprano made the Faure Requiem for me.   All the alto, tenor, soprano, and bass were  wonderful but as yet I cannot put names to the exquisite voices.  Laura and I loved every moment.
The Vancouver Chamber Orchestra was an utter delight.  It seemed every single instrument could be heard separately and together.  I can’t recall a time I’ve been so enchanted by the sounds of instruments placing halos on saintly voices.  The Faure Requiem conclusion included the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Pacifica Singers with director Kevin Zakresky and Vancouver Youth Choir with director Carrie Tenant.  John Washburn’s overall directing and personal appeal brought all this genius and talent together.  I loved the harp and horns.  Leaving the old ornate Orpheum we stepped outside to the sight of a  full moon. I could swear the old man was smiling.    

Easter Thoughts 2012

Easter is the time that Christ died on the cross and was resurrected into heaven after appearing to his friends and disciples on earth. He is said to have rejoined God.  He said he was the son of God.

According to reincarnation thoughts an individual can aspire in time to return to God but Jesus apparently didn't do this journey of his own desire but rather was sent by God.  Some say as a sacrifice. That's certainly the way St. Paul saw it.  It was a basic tenet of the Christian faith too. That Jesus died for our sins. That the death of Jesus corrected the sin of Adam.

I say God came to check out his creation and the authorities whacked him .  His death though didn't stop him.  The idea of him was like good radiation. It spread through creation at all levels.  The authorities brand was 'fear' and the Jesus brand was 'love' and 'hope'.

E=MC2 tells me that matter is slow energy.  I am made in the image or imagination of God.  I'm a spiritual being in a spiritual existence.  I am more than Darwinian Evolution. I am more miraculous than anything I can imagine. I am a sacred being in a wondrous sacred dream.

And I have a friend. I have talked to Jesus as a friend since I was a child. My mother introduced me to Jesus kneeling beside my bed as a child.  My mother said that there was an unseen friend in the darkness.

Sailing solo through storms in the north Pacific I loved listening in the long lonely nights to the Christian rock band Third Day's song ,'there's a light at the end of the tunnel.'  Dr. Moody, the psychiatrist who studied people who had near death experiences, said they described meeting a being of shining light at the end of a long tunnel.

Prior to Jesus Gods had been like the warriors who mastered the world and ruled the world.  In contrast Jesus was a 'servant king'. He washed the feet of his disciples.  He preceded the Magna Carta by about 1200 years.  To hear the politicians talk they're always original.  Jesus made democracy possible though.  Some might say the world is unfolding as it should and Jesus' death on the cross was what set in motion the emacipation of the individual.

When I have been locked up I have prayed to Jesus.  I have been comforted by the thought that there is good and that God is good and that God with his infinite power can have a direct connection to every aspect of creation even me when I have been most down.  Indeed at such times Christ has come to me and I have been lifted 'as on Eagle's wings'.

The authorities from my perspective often get things wrong. Like killing God.  This was done by the leader of  Roman Empire, the priests and scribes.  When the people were given a choice they chose Barnabbus over Jesus. I've often made mistakes like that in my life. This is the inexact sinful muddling nature of existence.

So Easter I cry.  There's a song that says 'were you there when they crucifided my lord.'  When I was younger I thought of myself in Christs shoes, getting beat up by the Judges, Lawyers, Authorities, Administrators, Principals, Police, Priests, parents and anyone who was a bully or had the power to be.  Then decades back I realized that I was the one killing Jesus with my worry. Everytime I was afraid and worried I was disobeying Jesus' command "Do Not Be Afraid".  In not trusting in Jesus or the Lord I thought I knew better. I second guessed Jesus and daily was in a way rejecting him and his teachings, turning my back on him as Petter did till the cock crowed.

Christianity is a trinitarian religion with three gods in one and the mystery of how this is.  God the creator, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirt are one, each an aspect of the whole. Jesus is my advocate, my personal savior, the great physician.

I have been a healer like Jesus. I have followed in his life and wondered all along at my failing to raise the dead yet refused to believe the dead were raised as miracles when they were.

I am at my best when I remember I have only this day and that I must live in the present. Practicing the presence of the lord.  I am at my best too when I think this is just a chapter in a book of life in which I don't know the ending but it goes on long after death.
I am at my best when I'm reading the Bible and studying scripture.  I am at my best when I'm studying the teachings of holy men and women and great physicians and healers.  I am at my best when I am listening for the wee small voice for guidance. I don't do enough of this.  It takes Easter to wake me up to the basics of existence. Too often I'm caught up in the business of life and not focussing my attention on what is utterly important, my relationship with God, my relationships with his son Jesus.

I think about Jesus more in the days of Easter week reading the Bible more, meditating more and praying that this time this year I'll get it right and be right with the Lord.  I want to be serving my Lord Jesus.  I want to be walking in a righteous path rather than scurrying to catch up or lagging behind. There's a special place where I'm right with the Lord and I've been there often and want to be there always.

I've actually tried to give up God but it was like giving up breathing.  I lived without reading my Bible much and life wasn't as good. I spent time with people who were utterly materialistic and life became minimalist like talking kitchen English or speaking to demented people.  There was just so much more one couldn't talk to because it's too disturbing to them.  I don't talk about Jesus as much as  I want to becuase some people don't like to hear about my thoughts on that.  Also I don't have to talk about Jesus when I'm asking someone to pass the butter. There's a time and place for everything.

Most people just want to get something from me. I like my generosity. But they don't know that that's St. Francis. He asked that he be made a channel and I feel all power comes from God so knowledge, money, energy, strength and healing all come from God and I am just a conduit for that so God wants me to give as the sun gives daily and freely.  I take naturally. I find that I am replenished however by God and when I remember that I'm like C.S. Lewis says, talking to the architect rather than talking to the wall.

Jesus gave his life for mankind. It's no big deal for me to give some money at church. Just for the pageant that's a weekly event with the theatre and the song and the Ted's Talks and the participation ritual for an hour or an hour and a half I"d pay $50 to a few hundred dollars if it was just 'theatre'.  If we use the 'entertainment' analogy, Christianity is great entertainment and so I don't mind paying.  What I like is that I've been welcomed into the church when I had no money too.  So the money isn't about what makes the whole thing go round. Yet it's important for people to understand that money is spiritual energy and charity is something the church does. My church does a lot of charity. I give money to my church knowing that my church gives to the poor what the poor need most in turns of material and spiritual gifts. I'm surprised to learn that some people who have been to some obscure likely to be forgot play or concert have never been in a church at easter. These same people will fly to other countries to watch bull runs or religious parades or ethnic celebrations but have never taken the time to participate in the Christian Easter Pageant.  Then on the other hand I regret this if I don't get to church early because there are so many tourists or Christmas and Easter Christians out at Easter and it's sometimes hard to get a seat.  My evangelica nature is often at loggerheads with my self centredness. I Martha and Mary daily.

The secular are forever taking credit for everything. To hear aetheists speak they are God but mostly our civilization as I know it was developed by theists and God loving people.  I believe that God loving people are more human than those who don't know God.  I call my "higher power" Jesus but accept that others use different names. Ultimately  Jesus Christ means 'god within, god will come again.'  It's an exclusive brand though everyone is welcome.

Easter is the time God died on the cross in utter despair. This is the way I feel when I am sick or am being cursed by the authorities and judged by the scribes. I am rarely 'blameless' like Jesus but I share the feelings. When I'm persecuted I relate to Jesus.  I cry out "MY God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.'  That's what Jesus said too.

It's like night coming down. The world went black from noon till three in the afternoon during the crucifixion when Jesus then cried out and died on the cross. It was a cosmic event.

The resurrection is like morning after the darkness. Jesus is resurrectied, and ascends into heaven.  A marvellous metaphor.  In the 24 our cycle of life where I realize that yesterday is but a memory and tomorrow still a dream I am faced with life as Jesus did. And Jesus prayed and talked with his father and obeyed his father.

I am thinking about Easter. I am looking forward to being part of the celebration of life that occurs in church. I am thankful to have been a participant in Palm Sunday.  I look forward to Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Thank you Jesus for another Easter week.  Watch over my loved ones,  my minister, his family, the clergy,  and the church this time this year.

Good Friday

Good Friday is the day that Jesus was crucified. This is the day of Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of Christ. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/. This is a national holiday in Canada. http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/canada/good-friday Hot Cross buns are a popular Canadian Easter food celebrating the crucifixion. In Christianity the two most key elements of the faith are first that Jesus was born, ie God became man, which is what the Christmas or Christ Mass celebration is about, and second that Jesus, as man died on the cross. The final 'trilogy' of the Trinitarian religion of Christianity is that Christ Resurrected. It is common parlance in Mass to say, "Christ was born. Christ died. Christ will come again." This is the central subatomic Christian understanding of Creation as imminently and eminently playing and replaying the cycle of birth death and resurrection. Like the cycle of the Sun or stars through birth and death and the resurrection of a new day. The Gospel or Good Word taught that this was true for man and has shown us this in the life and death and resurrection of Christ. God was born man, died and was resurrected to return to God and we God's children, the adopted ones, 'brothers and sisters' of Jesus can have faith that we too have come from God and will with death return to God because life as we know it (St Paul said, " now we see through a glass darkly") is such a minuscule 'take' on reality which is so much more than we 'can ask or imagine'.

That said, the actual story of Jesus' death is a profound commentary on individual life and community. Each person in the Christian faith is asked to see themselves not just as the 'heroic' Jesus but also as Judas and Peter and Mary and Caiaphas. A profoundly moving Christian spiritual is "Were you there when they crucified my Lord….Sometimes I wonder."

Developmentally the child is central in their life and so often with their personal wishes thwarted by externals such as parents or gravity or the neighbour's kid feels themselves the outside,the genius Jesus, misunderstood, the good guy, coming into Jerusalem with all the friends real and imaginary, the fool of the Tarot deck, the carefree young man, the donkey rider. Then the bad world bites our ass and we are Jesus the Crucified , full of self pity and revenge, confused , angry and ultimately with no where to turn making a virtue of necessity, taking the high road, saying "forgive them for they know not what they do." (the bastards).

Identification with the aggressor means literally that since you can't beat them you join them even when they are ultimately against you. So here's Jesus, son of God, the 'chosen', the 'annointed' and while Buddha has had countless babes and Mohamed has had harems and Abraham has had wives, Jesus has had a monogamous probably celebate relationship with his friend Mary and a pseudo homosexual adolescent boys hanging out time with the bozo disciples who can't understand what he's saying because it's that original. Not nearly as exciting a life as a Roman Emperor. Certainly not Caligula by any means. Rather suburban and tame. An ordinary man except for the odd miracle here and there.

We get it but they don't get it. It is is this new news. It is that new. Like disco when everyone danced it like Elaine danced on Seinfeld till one day we could actually look like Travolta. Like hola hooping and computers. What Jesus taught was that new. Since then we've had 2000 years of Christian thinking, Bahai, mystics, eastern religions, C.S. Lewis, Popes galore, televangelists and Kennedy. We've even survived Bush and Clinton and Diefenbaker, Chretien, Mulroney and Harper. We're surrounded by Christians. The Passion is about the day the disciples got it. It's the day when this world, the physical reality, the concrete of Piagian pre abstract children, the money men of swords and missile wars, took a backward step as the day stood still and time changed. All creation in fact was altered as all creation is altered by every birth and death in the unfolding story of God.

The servant king washing the feet of his disciples the night before becomes the human sacrifice of the day and it appears this Friday that the High Court of the land, the Sanhedrin, the laws of men, the up tight House of Shammai, the might of the Roman Empire will reign. It's Darwin, and genetics and 'survival of the fittess' the rulers like Roman Pontius Pilate and his appointed lacky dog Annas , its old money families, the G8 and G to infinities of earthly power, they rule this day. They win the first round. They must have had a great drunken party after to, a little orgy of delight, chopped off a head of a forgotten St. John sort just for the sake of it, slept with little boys and girls, a good crucifixition. That's the day Christ died. There was surely celebration in the high earthly places well below the realms of heaven.

And we're asked to see ourselves as Pontius Pilate in the drama, as Mary, as Peter, as Judas Iscariot, as Caiaphas and Annas, even one of the outcast of the Hillel family of the day, ascendant today, probably as much thanks to Jesus's sacrifice and proof as any intrinsic philosophical discussion. We are asked to see ourselves as those who bind and those who loose. We are both the killer and the killed, the predator and the prey. It is on Good Friday that duality is lost in grief. In the Trinity we become One. The great drama of Jesus with the Three crosses and all the hints of mystery are unfolding today in millions of churches around the world as some billion or more Christians consider crucifixion, the crossroads of time, the day the world as we know it today began.

The charge against Jesus is "BLASPHEMY" . This is the charge of "IRREVERENCE". "You didn't take the earthly authorities seriously." You're an adolescent. You don't respect your parents. You don't kow tow to the police. You don't obey the law. You're a trouble maker. Brush your teeth. Do as you're told. Wear three piece suits. Your skirt is too short. We all are right and you're wrong. Obey. Obey. Don't question authority. Don't rock the boat. You've been questioning our teachings. You're hurting us where the money is. You're made fun of us in debate. You've called us hypocrites. Laws are made by us for you and we are above the law. We can have sex with whoever we please on company time. We can steal and do our own work on company pay. We can profit from wars we create. We can lie and falsely accuse . We can scream rape when we are ignored. We can deny, deny, deny. We can have sex with children. We can kill women and children. We can be racist, sexist and re write history because we are the winners. We can do whatever we please because we have power and you must respect our power or we'll kill you. And if you stir up trouble others might follow you and we'd better nip this in the bud because we've got a good thing going with the Romans. We're the capos of Auschitz. We're the 'appointed' Jews. You say you're a Jew but just because you were born of the line of kings we bow to the real emperor. The real emperor is in Rome. As Marx said, Our God is money. Whoever has the most money can buy us and we'll enjoy the droppings of his table. We like lording it over those who aren't "appointed'. We're the primal 'beaurocrats' . We're the "lawyers". We're the 'government'. We don't work for the people. We say we do and we really do worry about them but we're serving the Romans. We're serving whoever has the money and you're messing with the way things are. We fought hard to get to this gravy train. We're Ottawa and Washington, Paris and London, Moscow and Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and New Delhi. We are Jerusalem but mostly we are Rome.

And Jesus says he's not of this world. He says that there's this other world, the spiritual world, and that he's not interested in messing with the physical world. Indeed asked about a coin he says whose face is on it. Answered, Caesar. He says "give unto Caesar what is Caesars". The concrete unidimensional world is not the real world. Jesus was tried for Blasphemy. The English word for blame comes from the same root. And you can't 'blame' the government. The government is 'divinely inspired'. Only this century the pope was claiming that he was always right. So there's Jesus in the principal's office and he's being told by the Sheriff that the Mob isn't happy and the Hell's Angels are going to do their thing to him. This is the World Court. This is Geneva. This is the United Nations. These people are by world terms of the day Nanaimo or Brandon or Moose Jaw. Jerusalem isn't Cairo even. It's not Athens. It's the ultimate backwater boonies. These guys who are trying Jesus are as far out in the boon docks from the centre of the known universe as Saskatchewan is from anywhere. Their self importance is astonishing. Yet they've got an invading army in their hick town. This is the appointed powers in Iraq and the Americans are telling the local leaders to shut up that loud mouth Jesus because he could get more Canadian and British soldiers killed with his talk of another Kingdom. He's today's moderate Taliban if anything good could ever come out of Jerusalem.

And Jesus doesn't get a 'Dream Team" of lawyers to defend him. After he's dead he's supposed to be our lawyer in heaven which given his experience with lawyers on earth is a rather odd part of the story. He's a healer and a teacher but later he's an advocate. It's a mystery. God the father is a loose cannon in the minds of men but in his mind there's sanity and he makes the suffering and laws and all that is creation so Jesus is supposed to be a go between. He's like Krishna in this regard. He's the happy face of God after he dies. He's a Ganesh sort. He's the Christian "apologia'. God the father kicked man out of eden and Jesus argues that we should be allowed back in the Garden. The Shack by William Young really makes one think about this stuff in a new way and a very good way. http://theshackbook.com/

But that's getting a way ahead of the story. Friday is a very intense day in the life of Jesus. It's not TGIF. First the lower courts and then the supreme court with no civil rights and jailers that later become Rodney King's police. These are the prototypes of Nazi's and the worst of the Homeland Security sorts. We recently saw their pictures when they stripped all the moslem prisoners naked and piled them up. The American girl soldier whose picture we saw all over the world humiliating Iraqui prisoners was one of the people who spit on Jesus and gave him a crown of shorns, acupuncture torture by any stretch of the imagination. Just the sort of thing to shrink the big head of an arrogant manic psycho.

One of the guards was General Patton beating the mentally ill man. Another was the guy who flogged the dying horse in Doystoevsky's novel. Doystoevsky's Brothers Karamasov is really about the Passion as is so much great literature. The Bible is great literature. It's DVD and internet and musicals and dance and vaudeville all rolled in one.

But Good Friday this man who may well have been trying to explain that he came from another planet, "I'm not of this world", was killed as humans kill strangers or have sex with them like Sodom and Gomorrah. We're really perverted killing cowards if we look deep into ourselves and admit to our humanity. Of course the paranoid position is that I'm a good guy and everyone else is bad, or worse, I'm a good girl and everyone else is bad. Poor me.

And the fear of the Sanhedrin and the Roman Empire is shown in the killing of Jesus. His death was like the death of Sadam Hussein. His death was why a lot of folk don't want the State to have the power of 'execution' because despite what the State and Pope and Emperors and Presidents and Prime Ministers and especially Judges, and most especially Supreme Court Judges say about their "infallibility", there's the other side who think they've made a few mistakes in their day with nooses, guillotine, fire squads and crosses. But if there's one thing that's truly human it's that we're 'slow learners'.

And the Passion asks us to see ourselves as each of these people in this glorious play of heaven and earth and all that is. Carl Jung wrote about the Archetypes and took his collection from the European collection that's similar to the Tarot, the Greek and Roman images of different types of inner self in that European play and Mediteranean play that seems to progress in community and in individual lives.

But the Archetypes of Christianity are found in the actors and actresses of the Passion. They're also found in the psyche of Jesus through the Stations of the Cross. The via dolorosa. They're the journey. They're about suffering after triumphance. They're really about aging. The young man comes of age. He ages and dies in a day. One day at a time. In this last day of life he transforms.

Pontius Pilate, was the prefect of Rome, likely banished by Caligula to the armpit of the universe of the day Israel. His father was said to be an Ambassador to the Caledonians. What a poor lot for a military family, father stuck with Celts and son stuck with Jews. Now there's as much suffering as hemorrhoids by any genetic account. Bad karma. However Pontius Pilate and his family are truly one of the "historical facts" of the Bible cross referenced in Roman annals.

Pilate's primary function was military. To get a comparison of what he was doing at the time, one only has to look at the Canadian military leader in Afghanistan. A recent CBC scandal has the Canadian military giving their prisoners to the Afghanistanians who like the Sanhedrin torture and kill them making the Canadians accomplices. That's the way one Gospel portrays Pontius Pilate and certainly the way the Canadians are trying to get out of their responsibility for maryring the Taliban Jesus types. We don't know if any of the Taliban are like Jesus. They're probably more like Barabbas the criminal who is said to have been chosen by the Jewish people over Jesus when Pontius Pilate is said to have Los Vegas' the crucifixion process giving the sporting sort a chance to bet on who would die, the academic cleric doctor teacher sort or the theiving warrior sociopathic criminal sort. Of course the crowds chose the popular man and there is the great flaw in democracy which of course the Emperors of this world love to manipulate. Beware of stupid people in crowds.

And I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. I was a pilgrim to this Holy City. I walked across the fresh bloody streets where Jews had been killed by Palestinians and the world of the Gospel was daily fresh. I worshiped in the Holy Sepulchre at Golgotha. I received mass there from a Catholic priest with a small circle of devout. I cry now to think of that time. On my knees I prayed to be a better person than I am. It is so easy to see myself as Pontius Pilate, Peter, Judas, Caiaphas, the soldiers or even the poor guy who was forced to carry Jesus' cross when he fell on the Via Dolorosa. But it's hard to even think of myself as the thief who repented on the cross. And it's even harder to think of my self as Jesus. It's much easier to see myself as Seinfeld or one of the Friends.

Jesus Christ means God within and God will come again. We are made in the Image of God. The world Creatures of Creation are all made of the Creator. The Imagination of God. We are God stuff. We are the 'star dust' of Joni Mitchell's song Woodstock. We are divine shit if we are shit at all. And What Would Jesus Do or Say is not likely what I would do or say. When I was younger I thought more highly ofmy actions and words. Even Churchill has to look back on Gallipoli. Gandhi's moment of greatness begat the massacres of Moslems and Hindus. If you don't get wiser with age you stay an idiot. Thankfully when Churchill was challenged for changing his opinion he responded by saying that he had the intelligence to learn in comparison to his detractor who appeared to lack that capacity. Because in learning we must forsake our certainty. The greatest leaders have always been the greatest followers. Those who the most learned are also the ones who were able to take the most correction because as the Glass Bead Game of Herman Hesse teacher life is a series of letting go of old ideas, shedding snake skin after snake skin.
This is a day of reflection. This is a day of dying. This is the day when the aged are the most regarded in the Christian calendar because in the life of Jesus this was when he was an old man, a very old man, moments from his death. This was the time when we'd be known most by last words. This was the day when the tomb inscriptions were being made. This is our last day.

As Christians this is the day we may choose or choose not to believe. As one pastor said, "Either Jesus was everything or nothing." There is no in between.

This is the day when the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Iman, the Swami, the Pope and all the leaders of the governments, the Kings and Queens and Obama and Bush and Harper and Chretien and Tony Blair and whoever is in charge in England today and all those European leaders with their sexy mistresses and plush bank accounts of Eurodollars and the Donald Trumps and Oprahs and Jenifer Anistons, Nicholas Cages, and Paul McCartney and Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Madonna and Sting and all the other leaders of world either Crucified the King or stood by and did nothing. This is the day that Spock came to earth and Captain Kirk didn't greet him but killed him and probably would have eaten him if they didn't have a good crop year then. Sun baked long pig right off the cross.

This is the day that we should wear electric chairs around our necks on gold chains and celebrate the death penalty. This is the day that we know if we live another day we're human and not God. This is the day we consider our mortality. This is the day of immortality.

This is the day that time stood still. This is Good Friday. God's Friday.

And if I was in charge and you treated my son, or even my cat, or one of my tribe like you treated Jesus, like I treated Jesus, then I'd get a 'rocket launcher" like the one Bruce Coburn wanted in his song. And I 'd build a space highway through this part of the earth and wipe out the planet like the Adams' Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy solution for earth.

We're human. We're Gods' that shit. Our minds and our imagination are immortal while our body, the one's we abuse and forget, the brother asses of Saint Francis, are mortal and limited. Maybe this is just a kindergarden where we learn to control our tempers and possibly do as Jesus taught us, Love God and Love our neighbor as ourselves. Maybe Love will trump fear. Or maybe I should get another RRSP, invest in safer stock, buy a gun and lock my door. Maybe I can whack my neighbor and steal his stash. Better still I can get into government or own a bank or rule a country and fix the cash system. I can cheat and steal and call it "business' and I can kill in the "lord's name" too. Hell, I can kill and call it "love" like the Peacemaker Missiles. The mind of man is a ghetto and probably no one should go there alone. Least of all Michael Jackson. We all need adult supervision and the children are rarely safe.

Maybe today I'll get together with other people and consider the cross. Maybe I'll ask myself through out the day who do I remind myself of in the Passion Play. Am I being like Anas or Judas or Jesus. Do I poison with a kiss?

Do I believe? Is love real or is love false? Do I have hope? Do I have faith? This is Good Friday. Anything is possible. But it's a bleak and rainy day outside. Best to walk softly. Good Friday has also been called Sombre Friday. It's not a superficial day. It's a deep day.