Saint Martha

I had a lot on my mind this Thanksgiving, since the previous Tuesday Martha Helder had passed away at the age of 92. Many people in Lynden, Washington, where I grew up, probably didn't know "Mrs. Helder," and that's partly due to her unassuming, quiet nature. But she touched the lives of literally hundreds of people by helping them to experience and appreciate the joy of great music as a piano teacher for 52 years. She just never called much attention to herself, preferring instead to shift the conversation towards her students.

As a former student of Mrs. Helder's, I'm grateful to have experienced her demanding standards, although I know that I was less appreciative at the time. I was thrilled if I left my lesson with "vg" (very good) initialed beside my previous assignment. As a freshman music major in college, I was astonished to find that not everyone had been taught to do harmonic analysis of hymns, and that not everyone had been taught hear the difference between major, minor, augmented, and diminished triads. I assumed this was normal for anyone taking piano lessons, but it wasn't. Her teaching went far beyond mere technical training, though; her love for great music and for expressive performance was evident at every lesson.

In 1999, when I received my doctorate degree in music, she wrote me a congratulatory letter in which she said the following: "What a joy and privilege it is to work with young people and help them to realize and experience the beauty and meaning of music!" Although she was speaking of my work at Dordt College, she could just as well have been writing of her own work of many years. She then went on to talk of her current students and how much they meant to her, concluding, "My students are a real blessing to me. I'm thankful for them and the opportunity to share the beauty of music with them." I hope she was aware of what a blessing she was to them, too.

I once heard a sermon in which the pastor, gesturing toward the beautiful stained glass windows, pointed out the various scenes and said that there are everyday saints here with us today, too, as those "through whom we see the light of Christ." So, this Thanksgiving I've been grateful for having been blessed with the privilege of studying with "Saint Martha."

Des Moines 2008

Finishing the Des Moines Marathon, 19 October 2008. I'm the yellow shirt crossing at 4:17:14. Official time, 4:15:09.

Hail Mary?

One of my students has posted on his blog a thoughtful concern about a decision I've made to alter the text of the Biebl Ave Maria, replacing the "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death" with the Latin text of the Gloria Patri (I stole the idea from Charles Smith, former director of the Calvin College Alumni Choir, who probably struggled with this then as I do now). The Biebl is one of the most gorgeous pieces of music ever written, and I understand the student's point. In fact, I recall feeling the same pangs of righteous indignation when we had to remove all the "gosh's" and "golly's" and especially the "darn's" from our high school theatre productions. Art is art, after all, and should be allowed to stand on its own, right?

Well, yes, but ... a few thoughts:

First, doing art in community, at least (perhaps especially) in a Christian community, changes things. I do believe that I have an obligation to be "my brother's keeper" in how I do my art. In this case, some will already have a problem with us doing an "Ave Maria" at all, since I've done them before and gotten flak for it before. I need to balance the aesthetic "needs" of the community in which I work with what they're able to digest. That isn't to say that art can't be challenging (or "prophetic"), but when it comes to a doctrine that would be significantly different from that held by the community in which I work, the potential for damage here outweighs the benefits. In Music Through the Eyes of Faith, Harold Best says it better than I could: "When a Christian musician goes about making music, the concept of community/body should drive every note and every moment in which every note is heard. And the only object for every Christian musician is to build the body up into the stature and fullness of its head, Jesus Christ."

Second, these are my students and I'm responsible for them, at least so long as they sit in my rehearsal room or sing what I've asked them to in concerts. I'm putting words into their mouths, and, unlike in a public school setting, I'm actually asking (hoping, praying) that they do believe what I'm asking them to sing. We are a Reformed college, not a Catholic college, and our belief is that we don't need Mary or anyone else to pray for us; the priesthood of all believers is such that, though Christ's atoning work, we now need no intermediary -- the curtain in the Temple has been torn and we have direct access, in Christ's name, to the Father. That's scripturally sound; in fact, the only reference that I can think of in which someone else prays on our behalf is when we don't know how/what to pray, and "the Spirit intercedes for us, in sighs (groans) too deep for words."

Having said this, I must acknowledge that I think that we Protestants have given Mary short shrift. In our desire to steer clear of Marianism, we've relegated Mary to a second-class character in the biblical narrative, when she should be right up there with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the others through whom God's redemptive work has been accomplished.

An interesting side note is that the rise in Marianism is concurrent with the notion of "Courtly Love." In the Middle Ages, when a Lord would leave his manor (probably to fight the battles of some Duke, Earl, or Prince) he left the place in his Lady's keeping, but guarded by a knight who often pined for her in pure unrequited, unattainable love. Thus were a pile of poems composed, all extolling the beauty and purity of the Lady, whose unattainability lent even more to her appeal. And who could be more unattainable, more pure than Mary, chosen of God to bear His Son? Thank you, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Finally, if my choice comes down to doing the piece with the text slightly altered or not doing it at all, I'm OK with the alteration. The music is too good, too rich, too powerful to leave only for Catholics or those who don't care if they do or don't believe what they sing to experience.

But one more thing: the student points out that we Reformed folk have done a lousy job writing prayers of beauty and I agree. Usually our corporate prayers are something along the lines of a Christmas wish list, delivered up to the lap of our Santa-like God; otherwise, public prayers too often take the form of the "just wanna" prayer ("We just wanna" this, "I just wanna" that, etc.). We can and should do better.

How odd

First, let's get this straight: I really hate the word "blog." It's just an ugly word, like "frump," "splotch," or "fart." Not things one wants to say, let alone read. I'll try to come up with something else to call this.

Second, I'm not even sure what "this" is. The whole idea of putting my thoughts out into the public ether seems incredibly vain to me -- who cares what I would have to say? and why would I think it's worth anyone else's time?

For now, this exists simply so that I can occasionally comment on other peoples' ... "web thingies."