Meditations
About the only music I've listened to in the last three weeks is music I'm singing. Much of that is Bernstein's Mass. I grow fonder of this piece by the day.
It is a doubter's Credo. It is the story of the journey from blind belief to true faith. The middle of that journey can be ... messy ... to say the least.
The Street Chorus has been given a lot of liberty in finding our own characters, and I think that most of us are playing ourselves. I know I am. How can I express anyone else's journey through the dark night of the soul? I can only express what I know. However, I have my solo in "Confessions" as a jumping-off point:
I don't know where to start. There's so much I could show if I opened my heart.
But how far, Lord, but how far can I go? I don't know.
The thought of really talking about my faith and doubts seemed impossible for a long time, so instead, I thought about what kind of person I should have been, rather than the kind of person I was. I think I've gone beyond that kind of thinking, but that's not to say it doesn't work its way in now and then.
---
The Gospel-Sermon is still relatively optimistic. In fact, it reminds me of my own college-era perspective on the power of faith to overcome all odds. At one point, the Celebrant states "So we wait in silent treason until reason is restored and we wait for the season of the Word of the Lord." So often, we wait silently for God to overcome. Consequently, we give too much of our power away: "God will take care of it in good time." Now, I have moved beyond that kind of thinking. God helps us, but He can't do everything! We have to act.
---
The Credo should really be called "The Doubter's Credo." It is a section of several highly acerbic solos interspersed with the Latin text of the Credo. The first speaks for itself:
Et homo factus est. And was made man...
And you became a man.
You, God, chose to become a man to pay the earth a small social call.
I tell you, sir, you never were a man at all.
Why? You had the choice when to live when to die and then become a god again.
And then a plaster god like you has the gall to tell me what to do to become a man.
Oh just play it dumb play it blind but when I go then will I become a god again?
Yes, probably no
Give me a choice. I never had a choice
Or I would have been a simple tree, a barnacle in a silent sea, anything but what I must be:
A man, a man, a man!
You knew what you had to do.
You knew why you had to die.
You chose to die, and then revive again.
You chose, you rose alive again,
But I, I don't know why I should live if only to die.
Well, I'm not gonna buy it!
I'll never say credo. How can anybody say credo? I want to say cr...
The second solo asks when God will come again, and I'm amused by the line, "You said you'd come again. When? When things got really rough... Well, things are tough enough." I couldn't have put it better myself.
The third soloist is in tears by the end of her solo every night, and I think I would be, too, if I thought this way: "No one to anything at all"
Whispers of living, echoes of warning
Phantoms of laughter on the edges of morning
World without end spins endlessly on
Only the men who lived here are gone
Gone on a permanent vacation
Gone to await the next creation
World without end at the end of the world
Lord, don't you know it's the end of the world?
Lord, don't you care if it all ends today?
Sometimes I'd swear that you planned it this way...
Dark are the cities, dead is the ocean
Silent and sickly are the remnants of motion
World without end turns mindlessly round
Never a sentry, never a sound
No one to prophesy disaster
No one to help it happen faster
No one to expedite the fall
No one to soil the breeze
No one to oil the seas
No one to anything
No one to anything
No one to anything at all...
---
Most people of faith make some sort of peace with their doubt, and the Celebrant's "I go on" expresses that so well:
When the thunder rumbles
Now the Age of Gold is dead
And the dreams we've clung
to dying to stay young
Have left us parched and old instead...
When my courage crumbles
When I feel confused and frail
When my spirit falters on decaying altars
And my illusions fail,
I go on right then.
I go on again.
I go on to say
I will celebrate another day...
I go on...
If tomorrow tumbles
And everything I love is gone
I will face regret all my days,
And yet I will still go on...on...
---
There are so many more gems, but these are the ones that I really have wrestled with. It makes the final chorale all the sweeter:
Almighty Father, incline thine ear:
Bless us and all those who have gathered here -
Thine angel send us -
Who shall defend us all,
And fill with grace
All who dwell in this place. Amen.
(all texts Copyright Stephen Schwartz & Leonard Bernstein.)
It is a doubter's Credo. It is the story of the journey from blind belief to true faith. The middle of that journey can be ... messy ... to say the least.
The Street Chorus has been given a lot of liberty in finding our own characters, and I think that most of us are playing ourselves. I know I am. How can I express anyone else's journey through the dark night of the soul? I can only express what I know. However, I have my solo in "Confessions" as a jumping-off point:
I don't know where to start. There's so much I could show if I opened my heart.
But how far, Lord, but how far can I go? I don't know.
The thought of really talking about my faith and doubts seemed impossible for a long time, so instead, I thought about what kind of person I should have been, rather than the kind of person I was. I think I've gone beyond that kind of thinking, but that's not to say it doesn't work its way in now and then.
---
The Gospel-Sermon is still relatively optimistic. In fact, it reminds me of my own college-era perspective on the power of faith to overcome all odds. At one point, the Celebrant states "So we wait in silent treason until reason is restored and we wait for the season of the Word of the Lord." So often, we wait silently for God to overcome. Consequently, we give too much of our power away: "God will take care of it in good time." Now, I have moved beyond that kind of thinking. God helps us, but He can't do everything! We have to act.
---
The Credo should really be called "The Doubter's Credo." It is a section of several highly acerbic solos interspersed with the Latin text of the Credo. The first speaks for itself:
Et homo factus est. And was made man...
And you became a man.
You, God, chose to become a man to pay the earth a small social call.
I tell you, sir, you never were a man at all.
Why? You had the choice when to live when to die and then become a god again.
And then a plaster god like you has the gall to tell me what to do to become a man.
Oh just play it dumb play it blind but when I go then will I become a god again?
Yes, probably no
Give me a choice. I never had a choice
Or I would have been a simple tree, a barnacle in a silent sea, anything but what I must be:
A man, a man, a man!
You knew what you had to do.
You knew why you had to die.
You chose to die, and then revive again.
You chose, you rose alive again,
But I, I don't know why I should live if only to die.
Well, I'm not gonna buy it!
I'll never say credo. How can anybody say credo? I want to say cr...
The second solo asks when God will come again, and I'm amused by the line, "You said you'd come again. When? When things got really rough... Well, things are tough enough." I couldn't have put it better myself.
The third soloist is in tears by the end of her solo every night, and I think I would be, too, if I thought this way: "No one to anything at all"
Whispers of living, echoes of warning
Phantoms of laughter on the edges of morning
World without end spins endlessly on
Only the men who lived here are gone
Gone on a permanent vacation
Gone to await the next creation
World without end at the end of the world
Lord, don't you know it's the end of the world?
Lord, don't you care if it all ends today?
Sometimes I'd swear that you planned it this way...
Dark are the cities, dead is the ocean
Silent and sickly are the remnants of motion
World without end turns mindlessly round
Never a sentry, never a sound
No one to prophesy disaster
No one to help it happen faster
No one to expedite the fall
No one to soil the breeze
No one to oil the seas
No one to anything
No one to anything
No one to anything at all...
---
Most people of faith make some sort of peace with their doubt, and the Celebrant's "I go on" expresses that so well:
When the thunder rumbles
Now the Age of Gold is dead
And the dreams we've clung
to dying to stay young
Have left us parched and old instead...
When my courage crumbles
When I feel confused and frail
When my spirit falters on decaying altars
And my illusions fail,
I go on right then.
I go on again.
I go on to say
I will celebrate another day...
I go on...
If tomorrow tumbles
And everything I love is gone
I will face regret all my days,
And yet I will still go on...on...
---
There are so many more gems, but these are the ones that I really have wrestled with. It makes the final chorale all the sweeter:
Almighty Father, incline thine ear:
Bless us and all those who have gathered here -
Thine angel send us -
Who shall defend us all,
And fill with grace
All who dwell in this place. Amen.
(all texts Copyright Stephen Schwartz & Leonard Bernstein.)