We like to think that we live in an era in which religion no longer has unlimited power to oppress people. This is not true. In this entry, I consider the example of the Catholic Church. In the next, I examine the nation of Israel. I will not at this time consider Protestant examples, for the simple reason that there are so many of them that they will, indeed, fill numerous other entries in this blog. Catholics and Jews will be lightly criticized in comparison.
I always thought it would be cool to be a Catholic. Literally. I guess I first got this idea when I was a child and a very devout Catholic friend of mine took me into the sanctuary, mid-week when no one else was there, and taught me to approach the altar, genuflect, and cross myself. I never did it again, but I always had the impression that a Catholic sanctuary was a place where people could be peaceful and quiet, in contrast to some Protestant churches where the preacher yells and sweats while waving a Bible in the air. In my childhood, air conditioning was rare, and in a California summer, the coolness of a Catholic sanctuary was palpable. The image fit perfectly with that of a church that has monasteries in which monks and nuns spend their time secluded from the strife of the world.
But the image does not fit the reality. For years, the Catholic Church has been rocked by scandals of sexual abuse by priests against children. Recently, the pope (formerly Cardinal Ratzinger) issued a backhanded apology to victims of priestly abuse in Ireland. But he claimed that the abuse was the result of secularization. And he just assumed that everyone would believe this. The abuses for which he issued the apology, however, had occurred between 1920 and 1960, before Vatican II and the secularization that Ratzinger so despises. He certainly must have known this, and therefore it was a lie. The pope just assumes that, as God’s Special Person Upon The Face Of The Earth, he can lie and it will become truth. This is blasphemous arrogance. Of course, not being a Catholic, I don’t give a ratz ass about it. But the lives of hundreds of millions of people are powerfully controlled by the statements and actions of this mere human being.
This is nothing new. Popes have frequently been corrupt. In fact, Pope John XII (ruled 955-964 CE) died of wounds he received when he was attacked by the husband of a woman with whom he was at that moment having sex. Popes like John XII make Ratzinger look pretty good.
The Catholic church has a chance to be a force for good in the world, but can do so only if it leaves its theological arrogance behind and instead acts a little more like some of its best members, such as Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to help the poor, or Daniel Berrigan, the priest who committed dramatic acts of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War and against nuclear armaments.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Okay, so I'm a coward
Nobody has called me a coward (as a matter of fact, nobody says much of anything in the comments of this blog; where are you people! Go ahead and say something) but I am one.
When Jesus saw oppression, he did something about it. The most memorable example was when he overturned the moneychangers’ tables. Only Israelite currency was allowed for offerings within the Temple, but the people had only Roman currency, so they had to exchange their money before entering. The moneychangers charged a hefty fee for this service. Jesus saw these men using religion as a tool for making money. He told them, loudly enough for the crowd to hear, that they had turned the Temple into a den of thieves.
And then he turned their tables over and spilled their coins. What a scene this must have been! I recommend watching this scene in the Martin Scorsese movie The Last Temptation of Christ. In this scene of the movie, gold coins flew up against a blue sky, then plopped down into a stream of blood that drained from the sacrificial altars into the gutters.
You all know perfectly well that if Jesus had done anything like that today, the conservatives would have called perhaps for his blood to be shed but at least for him to be imprisoned as a terrorist. In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the material witness law as an excuse to detain American citizens of Arabic descent without charge indefinitely. He is currently being sued for this. The people who were imprisoned by the direct will of Ashcroft had done much less (as far as I have heard, nothing at all) than what Jesus did. Certainly an American Jesus would have fallen under Ashcroft’s policy.
If I were to really be a follower of Jesus, I would go straight into the offices of religious organizations who manipulate their followers to give them money, and start pulling computer cords out of the wall, or something, a twenty-first-century equivalent of overturning their tables. The perfect place is right here in Tulsa, the headquarters of Oral Roberts ministries. Oral Roberts helped make religion into a den of thieves. But I won’t. I’m a coward. I’ll just write blog entries, website entries, and books. And I have to advise all of you that you should not do it, because it is illegal. I just use this as an example that nobody is really a faithful follower of Jesus. We are all cowards. Of course, being heroic would do no good; it would just get us in prison and slow down religious moneymaking for maybe an hour or so. Being a hero is not necessarily the best way to get things done. It is perhaps more effective for us to continue adding our voices to changing society so that it is, ever less and less, victimized by religious manipulation.
When Jesus saw oppression, he did something about it. The most memorable example was when he overturned the moneychangers’ tables. Only Israelite currency was allowed for offerings within the Temple, but the people had only Roman currency, so they had to exchange their money before entering. The moneychangers charged a hefty fee for this service. Jesus saw these men using religion as a tool for making money. He told them, loudly enough for the crowd to hear, that they had turned the Temple into a den of thieves.
And then he turned their tables over and spilled their coins. What a scene this must have been! I recommend watching this scene in the Martin Scorsese movie The Last Temptation of Christ. In this scene of the movie, gold coins flew up against a blue sky, then plopped down into a stream of blood that drained from the sacrificial altars into the gutters.
You all know perfectly well that if Jesus had done anything like that today, the conservatives would have called perhaps for his blood to be shed but at least for him to be imprisoned as a terrorist. In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the material witness law as an excuse to detain American citizens of Arabic descent without charge indefinitely. He is currently being sued for this. The people who were imprisoned by the direct will of Ashcroft had done much less (as far as I have heard, nothing at all) than what Jesus did. Certainly an American Jesus would have fallen under Ashcroft’s policy.
If I were to really be a follower of Jesus, I would go straight into the offices of religious organizations who manipulate their followers to give them money, and start pulling computer cords out of the wall, or something, a twenty-first-century equivalent of overturning their tables. The perfect place is right here in Tulsa, the headquarters of Oral Roberts ministries. Oral Roberts helped make religion into a den of thieves. But I won’t. I’m a coward. I’ll just write blog entries, website entries, and books. And I have to advise all of you that you should not do it, because it is illegal. I just use this as an example that nobody is really a faithful follower of Jesus. We are all cowards. Of course, being heroic would do no good; it would just get us in prison and slow down religious moneymaking for maybe an hour or so. Being a hero is not necessarily the best way to get things done. It is perhaps more effective for us to continue adding our voices to changing society so that it is, ever less and less, victimized by religious manipulation.
Friday, March 19, 2010
The Good Samaritan's Dilemma
We all know the story of the Good Samaritan. It is one of the stories in the Bible that even the staunchest atheists can admire Jesus for telling. Of course, Christian agnostics like me admire it greatly. Here is too brief a summary. A man was traveling down the highway, on foot. Thieves attacked him, took his money, and beat him almost to death. A priest walked by and deliberately ignored him. A Pharisee religious scholar walked by and deliberately ignored him. But a Samaritan saw the man and rescued him. Samaritans were a minority group that the mainstream Jews (Jesus’ own ethnic group) despised even more than Southern whites despised blacks in the twentieth century (and as some still do today).
So, according to Jesus, if we are really doing God’s will, we should not ignore someone who needs our help. We cannot pretend that our religious practices can compensate for not helping our neighbor. (Who is our neighbor? That was the question that Jesus answered by telling this story in the first place.)
Well, it’s not quite so simple today. Consider two examples I have recently expeienced.
The first one. It was Sunday night about 10:00 and I had just finished writing a book chapter about altruism. There was a knock at my door. It was a mentally impaired woman who said she was cold and needed to get home. She wanted to use my phone, which I allowed her to do outside. There was no answer, and she did not know what to do next. I wished her well and closed my door. Was I being like the priest or the Pharisee?
Here is why I gently closed the door. If I had let her in my house, or been alone with her in my car, someone in her family might later have brought charges against me that I was taking sexual advantage of her. Or, when my car arrived at her house, I could have gotten robbed, even if the woman herself had no plan to manipulate me into such a circumstance. Now it is true that in Jesus’ day the Samaritan would have been taking a risk of helping the victim—the victim could himself have been planted as a decoy by thieves—but would not have run the risk of being sued. We are now caught in a legal cobweb that makes almost any altruistic act a danger to ourselves.
The second one. My wife and I were in Taco Bell. A burly man was there who looked like he was the product of the kind of genetic engineering that Dr. Moreau would have used had he lived today. He was a Moreauvian mixture of the worst aspects of both black and white races. He started yelling into his cell phone. It was something to the effect of Fuck you bitch I’m coming over and am going to slap the shit out of you.
So what were we to do? I watched his car drive away, and I was about to memorize his license plate number. But I let the moment slip. Here is why. Suppose I had called the police. First, they would have done nothing. They cannot do anything preventive. All they can do is go to the crime scene afterward. Besides, in Tulsa, the new Republican leadership is so afraid of raising taxes that they instead have cut back on public safety, and the police (as a matter of policy) no longer intervene in domestic disputes or go to accident scenes unless an injury is involved. The Republican mayor’s constituency probably doesn’t mind, since they all have guns and can take the law into their own hands. Second, my bit of contributed information would be a matter of public record and the man, or his family or friends, could come by my house and do something to either me or my wife or my daughter, should she be visiting. And the police would do nothing to prevent it, just make a record of it afterward. I have good reason to worry. The house next door was firebombed a few years ago. Vandals frequently go through our neighborhood—a solidly middle class mixed neighborhood—and destroy property. I don’t think Jesus’ Samaritan had to worry about this.
So my wife and I did nothing about it. We could only hope that the woman, who obviously had a phone, would call for help, or would flee, since she obviously had warning that her favorite monster was on his way. We had to leave it in the hands of God, who has never helped anyone in need. God has worked only through humans, but when humans have done all they can, God just leaves the mess untouched. We went home and ate our Taco Bell stuff. We rarely eat out, even fast food. It was the first time I had been in a Taco Bell for years. I was surprised that their food items have evolved into mostly layers of carbohydrate with thin smatterings of scarcely identifiable fillings.
So what is a Good Sam to do? And is it only progressives like me who worry about it? A conservative would say, if the woman gets hurt it is her fault because she ought to have her own gun, so don’t worry about it.
It would be a little easier to answer the Good Sam dilemma if we humans, just once in a while, got a little help from God. In this way as in many others, the world matches an agnostic viewpoint.
So, according to Jesus, if we are really doing God’s will, we should not ignore someone who needs our help. We cannot pretend that our religious practices can compensate for not helping our neighbor. (Who is our neighbor? That was the question that Jesus answered by telling this story in the first place.)
Well, it’s not quite so simple today. Consider two examples I have recently expeienced.
The first one. It was Sunday night about 10:00 and I had just finished writing a book chapter about altruism. There was a knock at my door. It was a mentally impaired woman who said she was cold and needed to get home. She wanted to use my phone, which I allowed her to do outside. There was no answer, and she did not know what to do next. I wished her well and closed my door. Was I being like the priest or the Pharisee?
Here is why I gently closed the door. If I had let her in my house, or been alone with her in my car, someone in her family might later have brought charges against me that I was taking sexual advantage of her. Or, when my car arrived at her house, I could have gotten robbed, even if the woman herself had no plan to manipulate me into such a circumstance. Now it is true that in Jesus’ day the Samaritan would have been taking a risk of helping the victim—the victim could himself have been planted as a decoy by thieves—but would not have run the risk of being sued. We are now caught in a legal cobweb that makes almost any altruistic act a danger to ourselves.
The second one. My wife and I were in Taco Bell. A burly man was there who looked like he was the product of the kind of genetic engineering that Dr. Moreau would have used had he lived today. He was a Moreauvian mixture of the worst aspects of both black and white races. He started yelling into his cell phone. It was something to the effect of Fuck you bitch I’m coming over and am going to slap the shit out of you.
So what were we to do? I watched his car drive away, and I was about to memorize his license plate number. But I let the moment slip. Here is why. Suppose I had called the police. First, they would have done nothing. They cannot do anything preventive. All they can do is go to the crime scene afterward. Besides, in Tulsa, the new Republican leadership is so afraid of raising taxes that they instead have cut back on public safety, and the police (as a matter of policy) no longer intervene in domestic disputes or go to accident scenes unless an injury is involved. The Republican mayor’s constituency probably doesn’t mind, since they all have guns and can take the law into their own hands. Second, my bit of contributed information would be a matter of public record and the man, or his family or friends, could come by my house and do something to either me or my wife or my daughter, should she be visiting. And the police would do nothing to prevent it, just make a record of it afterward. I have good reason to worry. The house next door was firebombed a few years ago. Vandals frequently go through our neighborhood—a solidly middle class mixed neighborhood—and destroy property. I don’t think Jesus’ Samaritan had to worry about this.
So my wife and I did nothing about it. We could only hope that the woman, who obviously had a phone, would call for help, or would flee, since she obviously had warning that her favorite monster was on his way. We had to leave it in the hands of God, who has never helped anyone in need. God has worked only through humans, but when humans have done all they can, God just leaves the mess untouched. We went home and ate our Taco Bell stuff. We rarely eat out, even fast food. It was the first time I had been in a Taco Bell for years. I was surprised that their food items have evolved into mostly layers of carbohydrate with thin smatterings of scarcely identifiable fillings.
So what is a Good Sam to do? And is it only progressives like me who worry about it? A conservative would say, if the woman gets hurt it is her fault because she ought to have her own gun, so don’t worry about it.
It would be a little easier to answer the Good Sam dilemma if we humans, just once in a while, got a little help from God. In this way as in many others, the world matches an agnostic viewpoint.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
An Agnostic in Church
I will soon return to the Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi series. But I will take a moment to tell you that I went to church today. What business does an agnostic have going to church?
Well, as I indicated in the first entry (now buried deeply on this page below), I am a Christian agnostic. I have no hesitation joining with a group of people who are listening to and revering the words of Jesus of Nazareth. However much I am skeptical of Christian theology and doctrine, I never tire of experiencing the wisdom that comes from engaging my mind with stories about Jesus.
A second reason is that religion is a natural part of our species. I do not believe that there is necessarily a biological basis for religion; but it has clearly been, for at least 30,000 years, a major component of our self-created social environment. (I deal with this subject in a chapter of my forthcoming book, Life of Earth.) There are lots of other things in which I participate but regarding which I am not convinced of every detail. A trivial example is that I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, even though I do not believe the story about the snakes, unless the snakes were drinking Guinness.
A third reason is the actual church itself. It is a congregation that focuses less on theology and more on living the kind of life that makes the world better. Of course, it is not necessary for people to have the trappings of theology in order to do good and constructive things: altruism is natural to our species as a whole, not just to its religious or Christian members (a subject with which I also deal in my upcoming book). But this congregation is a particularly good group of altruists. Like all churches in Tulsa, it has a lot of Republicans, but when Republicans come to this church, they have to stop and think about what is really important in life; about helping others rather than exercising political power over them; about helping the poor as Jesus said, rather than empowering the rich, as the leaders of the Republican party say. This church slows down Republicans (and Democrats) and makes them think. I have had a very small number of reasonable discussions with Republicans, all of them at this church. In contrast, many of the megachurches, led by preachers whose admiration for the Republican Party is unbounded and very public, sway the people into even more political zeal. I have no problem attending a church (once in a while) that gets people to stop and think rather than just reinforcing them in their political prejudices.
And finally, I was still a conventional believer when I joined this church. Leaving this church would require an open act of rejection, to which I am not inclined.
Let me know of your experiences, ambivalent or otherwise, with religious practice.
Well, as I indicated in the first entry (now buried deeply on this page below), I am a Christian agnostic. I have no hesitation joining with a group of people who are listening to and revering the words of Jesus of Nazareth. However much I am skeptical of Christian theology and doctrine, I never tire of experiencing the wisdom that comes from engaging my mind with stories about Jesus.
A second reason is that religion is a natural part of our species. I do not believe that there is necessarily a biological basis for religion; but it has clearly been, for at least 30,000 years, a major component of our self-created social environment. (I deal with this subject in a chapter of my forthcoming book, Life of Earth.) There are lots of other things in which I participate but regarding which I am not convinced of every detail. A trivial example is that I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, even though I do not believe the story about the snakes, unless the snakes were drinking Guinness.
A third reason is the actual church itself. It is a congregation that focuses less on theology and more on living the kind of life that makes the world better. Of course, it is not necessary for people to have the trappings of theology in order to do good and constructive things: altruism is natural to our species as a whole, not just to its religious or Christian members (a subject with which I also deal in my upcoming book). But this congregation is a particularly good group of altruists. Like all churches in Tulsa, it has a lot of Republicans, but when Republicans come to this church, they have to stop and think about what is really important in life; about helping others rather than exercising political power over them; about helping the poor as Jesus said, rather than empowering the rich, as the leaders of the Republican party say. This church slows down Republicans (and Democrats) and makes them think. I have had a very small number of reasonable discussions with Republicans, all of them at this church. In contrast, many of the megachurches, led by preachers whose admiration for the Republican Party is unbounded and very public, sway the people into even more political zeal. I have no problem attending a church (once in a while) that gets people to stop and think rather than just reinforcing them in their political prejudices.
And finally, I was still a conventional believer when I joined this church. Leaving this church would require an open act of rejection, to which I am not inclined.
Let me know of your experiences, ambivalent or otherwise, with religious practice.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (5). Yet more agnosticism from the writer of Ecclesiastes
Today’s Bible Reading: Ecclesiastes 2:24 – 3:15.
The writer of Ecclesiastes (whom we have been calling Solomon) then realized something that made him happy—at least for awhile. He decided that he could just stop worrying and be happy. But, but, but, what about all of the injustices of life that he had been worrying about before? Well, just don’t worry about them.
He could have said, what point is there in being born, if you are just going to die? What point is there in planting that which will only be plucked up? What point is there in healing, or helping someone else to heal mentally or physically, if they are just going to be killed? OMG, if Solomon had known about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he would have said, What point is there in building something up, if it is only going to break down?
Instead what he wrote is now some of the most immortal poetry of the ages. It sounds almost like a Taoist insight (yep, in the Old Testament). It also sounds like a popular song from the 1960s.
For everything there is a season, a time for everything in the world.
A time to be born, a time to die;
A time to plant, a time to pluck up;
A time to kill, a time to heal;
A time to break down, a time to build up;
A time to weep, a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, a time to dance;
A time to scatter stones, a time to gather them back up;
A time to hug, a time to stay apart;
A time to seek, a time to lose;
A time to keep, a time to throw away;
A time to tear apart, a time to sew together;
A time to remain silent, a time to speak up;
A time to love, a time to hate;
A time for war, a time for peace.
Good and evil are just part of a vast cycle, perhaps the dance of Shiva, or the battle of light vs. darkness in Zoroastrianism. There is no more point in asking why things happen this way than there is in asking why a circle is round. Yes, we should try to love and not hate; we should work for peace, and prevent war; but shit happens. It’s the circle of life.
The one thing that this approach does not match is the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition. The great monotheistic religions claim that there is a God who wants people to plant, build up, heal, rejoice, and seek; a God whose son was supposed to be the Prince of Peace; a God who actually is love. As a matter of fact, repeatedly in the Bible, we are told that God actually does these things, not just telling us to do them.
So, if you ask, “Why would a God of love allow…” Solomon would, in this passage, tell you, “Don’ worry, be happy.”
And this leads directly to Solomon’s advice, which flatly contradicts everything you hear in church. “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and enjoy his work…I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. It is God’s gift to mankind that they should eat, drink, and enjoy their work.”
Of course, as we will see in future posts, Solomon is not satisfied with this advice.
The writer of Ecclesiastes (whom we have been calling Solomon) then realized something that made him happy—at least for awhile. He decided that he could just stop worrying and be happy. But, but, but, what about all of the injustices of life that he had been worrying about before? Well, just don’t worry about them.
He could have said, what point is there in being born, if you are just going to die? What point is there in planting that which will only be plucked up? What point is there in healing, or helping someone else to heal mentally or physically, if they are just going to be killed? OMG, if Solomon had known about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, he would have said, What point is there in building something up, if it is only going to break down?
Instead what he wrote is now some of the most immortal poetry of the ages. It sounds almost like a Taoist insight (yep, in the Old Testament). It also sounds like a popular song from the 1960s.
For everything there is a season, a time for everything in the world.
A time to be born, a time to die;
A time to plant, a time to pluck up;
A time to kill, a time to heal;
A time to break down, a time to build up;
A time to weep, a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, a time to dance;
A time to scatter stones, a time to gather them back up;
A time to hug, a time to stay apart;
A time to seek, a time to lose;
A time to keep, a time to throw away;
A time to tear apart, a time to sew together;
A time to remain silent, a time to speak up;
A time to love, a time to hate;
A time for war, a time for peace.
Good and evil are just part of a vast cycle, perhaps the dance of Shiva, or the battle of light vs. darkness in Zoroastrianism. There is no more point in asking why things happen this way than there is in asking why a circle is round. Yes, we should try to love and not hate; we should work for peace, and prevent war; but shit happens. It’s the circle of life.
The one thing that this approach does not match is the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition. The great monotheistic religions claim that there is a God who wants people to plant, build up, heal, rejoice, and seek; a God whose son was supposed to be the Prince of Peace; a God who actually is love. As a matter of fact, repeatedly in the Bible, we are told that God actually does these things, not just telling us to do them.
So, if you ask, “Why would a God of love allow…” Solomon would, in this passage, tell you, “Don’ worry, be happy.”
And this leads directly to Solomon’s advice, which flatly contradicts everything you hear in church. “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and enjoy his work…I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. It is God’s gift to mankind that they should eat, drink, and enjoy their work.”
Of course, as we will see in future posts, Solomon is not satisfied with this advice.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (4). The Winter Journey
Before I take you out of the vale or vail or veil of depression, I want to bring you back to Franz Schubert’s Die Winterreise. It is 24 songs, based on poems by the now obscure Wilhelm Müller (Bill Miller in English, just like Giuseppe Verdi is Joe Green in English). The traveler, like Schubert himself, was tormented by love and set out on a winter journey to nowhere in particular looking for meaning in life, but not very hard. He could easily have seen things that might have uplifted him, but he looked only for what was depressing.
You can listen to samples of Die Winterreise at Amazon.
The first song begins in D minor, with a marchlike rhythm. I paraphrase the wanderer: “You maiden, you said you loved me, your Mom even talked about you marrying me. And now? I will set out on a journey through the forest, through moon-shadows and along deer tracks. So why should I stay here? Dogs are growling all around your house!” Then he grew momentarily philosophical: “Love ever loves to wander, from one to another; God has made it so.” But he has not convinced himself. He cannot resist saying, Fein liebchen, Gute nacht! Dear lover, good night! Then Schubert switched to D major. The traveler said, in paraphrase, “I will not disturb you, but upon your doorpost I write, Good night! When you wake up you will see that I was thinking of you.” Without this last stanza in a tender major key (although the song ends in minor), there would have been no journey. Otherwise it would just have been, She doesn’t love me, ah nuts, I’ll just go somewhere else. But because he could not stop loving the unnamed Mädchen, he does not go somewhere else, but wanders aimlessly.
Then he gets really depressed. Song 2: He sees the weathervane over the woman’s house; the wind blows it in all directions, just like her fickle soul. Song 3: Frozen Tears. Song 4: Chill.
Then in Song 5 he finds the linden tree (this is the only song in this set that has gained independent fame, and the only one that Schubert’s friends liked) in whose smooth bark he and his lover had carved their initials, I suppose, the previous summer. In E major, the tree lures the wanderer to commit suicide and rest forever in the pleasant shade. But the wanderer loved his depression so much that he kept going. The song begins and ends in E major, with periods of E minor in the middle, as the traveler is tortured by memories of lost love.
The traveler runs as fast as he can, but cannot help looking back (Song 8). He sees mists and thinks they are ghosts (Song 9). He rests in someone’s cabin, and awakens to see intricate leaves carved by frost on the window, and imagines himself in a springtime of life—ha, you laugh at the dreamer who saw flowers in winter? (Song 11) He hears a posthorn, and thinks maybe there is a letter for him, then he remembers that nobody knows where he is (Song 13). He awakens with frost on his head and thinks, Ah! I have gray hair! I’m old and I can die soon! (Song 14) A crow follows him as if he is about to die (Song 15, the most splendid minute of music ever written). He passes a graveyard, and thinks it is a hotel (Song 21). He has a brief moment of courage (Song 22), then sees the sun and two sundogs and thinks about his fate (Song 23).
And then he finds his purpose in life. What is it? It is something that Solomon also discovered in Ecclesiastes. No, not God. I’ll tell you what it is later, unless you want to go find a CD with Die Winterreise on it and find out.
You can listen to samples of Die Winterreise at Amazon.
The first song begins in D minor, with a marchlike rhythm. I paraphrase the wanderer: “You maiden, you said you loved me, your Mom even talked about you marrying me. And now? I will set out on a journey through the forest, through moon-shadows and along deer tracks. So why should I stay here? Dogs are growling all around your house!” Then he grew momentarily philosophical: “Love ever loves to wander, from one to another; God has made it so.” But he has not convinced himself. He cannot resist saying, Fein liebchen, Gute nacht! Dear lover, good night! Then Schubert switched to D major. The traveler said, in paraphrase, “I will not disturb you, but upon your doorpost I write, Good night! When you wake up you will see that I was thinking of you.” Without this last stanza in a tender major key (although the song ends in minor), there would have been no journey. Otherwise it would just have been, She doesn’t love me, ah nuts, I’ll just go somewhere else. But because he could not stop loving the unnamed Mädchen, he does not go somewhere else, but wanders aimlessly.
Then he gets really depressed. Song 2: He sees the weathervane over the woman’s house; the wind blows it in all directions, just like her fickle soul. Song 3: Frozen Tears. Song 4: Chill.
Then in Song 5 he finds the linden tree (this is the only song in this set that has gained independent fame, and the only one that Schubert’s friends liked) in whose smooth bark he and his lover had carved their initials, I suppose, the previous summer. In E major, the tree lures the wanderer to commit suicide and rest forever in the pleasant shade. But the wanderer loved his depression so much that he kept going. The song begins and ends in E major, with periods of E minor in the middle, as the traveler is tortured by memories of lost love.
The traveler runs as fast as he can, but cannot help looking back (Song 8). He sees mists and thinks they are ghosts (Song 9). He rests in someone’s cabin, and awakens to see intricate leaves carved by frost on the window, and imagines himself in a springtime of life—ha, you laugh at the dreamer who saw flowers in winter? (Song 11) He hears a posthorn, and thinks maybe there is a letter for him, then he remembers that nobody knows where he is (Song 13). He awakens with frost on his head and thinks, Ah! I have gray hair! I’m old and I can die soon! (Song 14) A crow follows him as if he is about to die (Song 15, the most splendid minute of music ever written). He passes a graveyard, and thinks it is a hotel (Song 21). He has a brief moment of courage (Song 22), then sees the sun and two sundogs and thinks about his fate (Song 23).
And then he finds his purpose in life. What is it? It is something that Solomon also discovered in Ecclesiastes. No, not God. I’ll tell you what it is later, unless you want to go find a CD with Die Winterreise on it and find out.
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