My ancestors were German Lutherans and the small village in Nova Scotia where I grew up was solidly Lutheran saving one Catholic Family at the very edge of town—so to speak. Lutherans tend not to be emotional about their faith, do not have conversion experiences as a rule—though Luther famously was struck by lightening on October 31, no less, and tend not to do much proselytising—though we do have missionaries—in China, Japan, Africa—Liberia in particular, and Central America. Our missions tend to have a practical bent with conversion a secondary consideration.
Lutherans believe, somehow faith is instilled by osmosis and for most that faith is ingrained whether or not church attendance is regularly practised. Personally I’ve read the Bible cover to cover as well as the book of Mormon, the Koran, the Vedas, and studied comparative religion. I’ve also studied theology but found Church Politics more than I could stomach. I’m a Christian, but although I understand and even enjoy the rigors of liturgy and ritual, I tend to favour inward piety and devotions to corporate worship. I do have a powerful and reasonably good singing voice and were it not for my enjoyment in singing I’d find services tedious. I’ve also studied Pipe Organ and love to hear it live and on record. Most sermons are aimed at a much lower intellectual level and take too long to make their point. I have conducted worship services and tend to limit my sermons to 12 minutes. I’ve even done time on Church Council—three years as council president.
I’m sufficiently deeply rooted in my faith that I can have a sense of humour about it—unlike, say those zealot Moslems. I do not subscribe to fundamentalism, or dogmatics which tends to tell people what they are supposed to believe; though that seems to have gained favour of late. Rather I tend to subscribe to the concept of systematic theology which says that if you take one tenet as your starting point then others tend to flow from it, viz: If you believe that sex is sinful and Jesus Christ was without sin, then you have to come up with the concept of the Virgin Birth to explain how he could have been born without sin. Personally I care more about what he lived and taught than whether Joseph conceived him out of wedlock. I particularly enjoy the story of the first Moravian Missionaries who went to Canada’s High Arctic and did what many missionaries have done in attempting to scare their listeners into Heaven by telling them about the fires of Hell—However in the arctic where temperatures hit -50 the Inuit thought a place that was always warm sounded pretty good to them. When they were told the story of Christ walking on the water the response was; so what, we do that 10 months a year up here. Today global warming has actually made walking on the ice pack an unsafe practice.
I’m not a fan of the Deuteronomic Principle; that God punishes us actively for our sins and rewards us for doing right. Faith does not guarantee success; it does give one a unique way of looking at life and its joys and sorrows. God does not cause illness or cause bad things to happen to good people, neither does he interfere with effects our life choices have upon us; whether we are actively involved in those choices or not. Things are not inherently good or evil, but the uses to which they are put can be. Heroin was created by medical science to fight pain and it does it very effectively—unfortunately it is also instantly addictive; but there are those that argue that its use to fight extreme pain in terminal illness is fully justified. I don’t discount the power of prayer or deny the possibility of miracles, but I don’t subscribe to the concept of faith healing either. To see angels or ghosts you have to believe in the possibility of angels and ghosts. Having grown up behind the village cemetery and walked through it at midnight on All Hallows I can safely report that I’ve never seen any. Guess I’ve made my point.
When I was growing up Lutherans and Catholics, etc. were all taught that those “other people” are headed to Hell. If one subscribes to the concept of Monotheism, then all those various sects are all worshiping the same God, they just have different ways of talking about him/her, and approaching him. I tend to be willing to accept people of faith as believers in God, however they conceive of him/her. Within the last year I was dramatically turned off when, at a High Requiem Mass for a fellow worker attended by 25 Post Office people and 30 of her sons’ fellow police officers the priest felt it his bounden duty to stand there and state categorically that we weren’t welcome at the Lord’s Table unless we were Catholics. It would seem those sentiments still exist.
As a relief letter carrier who got around a great deal I ran into young Mormon Missionaries in white shirts often and beyond saying hello I left them alone and they I. The Seventh Day Adventists, on the other hand were obnoxious in attempting to sell me their War Cries. I’ve delivered mail to all the churches in Oakville and attended services at most denominations. I wish Lutherans participated as well as Fellowship Baptists and Pentecostals, but I can do without Altar Calls and audience participation in sermons. Speaking in Tongues, I fear, leaves me cold—but then that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s read what I’ve already written.
Another humorous anecdote. One of my fellow workers decided his daughter should have the experience of Sunday School and decided to take her to the Pentecostal Church where he delivered mail—they happened to be good tippers at Christmas time and very welcoming. This fellow is a recreational drug user and in my estimation bipolar—manic-depressive. When he took his daughter to church he was invited to stay for service and did so not understanding the meaning of the sign outside that declared this Sunday’s Service to feature “Speaking in Tongues”. Not that is until the ushers started locking the doors and people started getting seized by the Holy Spirit and dropping to the floor in ecstasy. He ran out of there so fast that he was all the way home before he remembered that his daughter was downstairs in Sunday School!
(I’ve been writing dismissively about New Age Music to a friend who may become a church musician/composer.) Part of the problem with the understanding of what I’d call good music is the lack of musical instruction in schools these days. Guess I should confess to being a music major. It seems to be looked at as a frill even though there is good solid proof that children who study music do better in math and science than those who don’t. To enjoy harmony and counterpoint you have to be intellectually engaged in the music to which you are listening. If you understand Wagner then you recognize the debt the likes of John Williams owe him when he writes music for Star Wars or Howard Shore in Lord of the Rings. The use of leitmotivs, recurring themes, and development are straight out of opera. The enjoyment of a Bruchner Symphony is a cerebral happening; during the course of a 20 minute movement nothing much happens—unless you listen for what he is doing with the internal parts. You can’t ignore Mahler, or he’s likely to jolt you right out of your seat—he’s not background music; but you have to have a fairly well developed understanding of musical principles to catch the significance of a forty minute crescendo as happens in the final movement of his second symphony. And, if that music truly engages you when the full 150 piece orchestra, 500 singers, and full organ come in as loud as possible you’ll truly see that pilgrim entering heaven. Just writing about it brings tears to my eyes. But first you have to have a sufficient grounding in music to be able to appreciate a single work that takes 2 hours to perform.
If the sum total of your musical experience is rap or the latest boy band played at ear damaging levels on an iPod, then you might well think that Jon Schmidt—a New Age performer—is good music. Too many CD’s that still get sold, depend on the sexual appeal of the hunky performer on the cover or the sexy pose of the female artist. In the end nothing matches the experience of hearing live, un-amplified music. I don’t understand the subtleties of the difference between the LDS in Salt Lake and the Reformed Church in Independence Missouri but I had a chance to be one of 30 at a Sunday afternoon recital at the 6000 seat Auditorium in Independence and hear God of our Fathers played with fanfares on the en chamade, (horizontal) trumpets at the beginning of each verse and between stanzas. With the hymn played with full organ on pipes up to 80 feet high, one single note on that trumpet stop seared right through full organ and made one think about what the apostle had in mind when he described the last trump in Revelations. Whether or not I actually subscribe to the concept literally is irrelevant. On another occasion I was present at St. James Cathedral, (Anglican), in Toronto as part of a standing room only congregation when their Spanish Horns located in the rear choir loft were used to answer the Great Organ at the front of the church and literally made the seat vibrate under me. It’s not that I object to loud music, but dynamics should have a musical purpose beyond rocking the house.
Unfortunately only a few musicians actually attain fame and fortune and at that only at the price of freedom and privacy. Fame is a fickle thing and not necessarily kind to those who attain it and lose the chance to walk the streets without an armed guard to protect them from adoring fans. You may also be well aware that many famous touring acts actually see very little of the millions their concerts rake in after everyone involved get their cut. It may well be that one is better off with self-promotion in the long run. The number of church musicians who can support themselves solely from their music is very small indeed; most have jobs outside the field of music. If one had the opportunity to have an honest private talk with many full-time professional musicians one might be surprised at how quickly the shine goes off touring, the pressures it places on family life; the lawyers, accountants, impresarios, and managers who all have their hands out; contracts, obligations, licensing, bad accommodations, lost luggage, jet lag, bad meals. It’s the likes of these that led me to exercise my talents entertaining the dogs on my mail route for 33 years. At least I knew what my hours would be, where my next pay cheque was coming from and where I’d sleep that night.
