Tag: Culture

REVELS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I first heard of them while living in Baltimore, the Christmas Revels that friends participated in down in Washington.

But it wasn’t until I moved to New Hampshire that the event came into focus, first through live broadcast previews of that year’s Boston production and then through actually attendance at Sanders Theatre at Harvard.

Revels, you ask?

I initially thought of something along the lines of a glee club, but what I discovered was much more elaborate – gorgeously costumed stagings blending solo, instrumental, and children’s and adult choral music, dance, comedy, a mummers play (skit, actually), audience singing, and a story narrative. The closest event to it I knew of was the annual madrigal dinners back in college, but rather than repeating an Elizabethan theme each year, the Revels create a lively story around a particular culture in time and place. One year focused on Leonardo da Vinci’s Italy; another, Armenia and neighboring Georgia; and then Appalachian, Scottish, Irish, French-Canadian, and colonial Spanish themes also come to mind.

The events were the brainchild of folklorist John Langstaff, who launched the first public performance in 1971 in Greater Boston to draw people into a community-wide celebration of the season. It’s a great way to introduce children to live concert and theater without the second-class status of “children’s” attached. And they’re always joyful and fun.

This past winter, spring, and fall I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in the bass section of the Revels Singers, a community chorus that rehearses and performs music from the previous four decades of shows– not just the Christmas productions but other events throughout the year, ranging from the Middle Ages till now and including 15 or so languages at last count. The chorus for the Christmas shows, I must point add, is top-notch, by audition only. Having some of its members among us at our weekly sessions has been illuminating. And some of them wondered why I’d commute up to four hours for a two-hour rehearsal? OK, I try to make an outing of it. Still, it’s magical time when we’re together.

Meanwhile, how often do you get to watch a first-rate conductor and arranger like George Emlen behind the scenes? We soon recognized that within his light-hearted approach were some very high standards and matching expectations, and we’ve felt ourselves rising more and more toward them.

This year’s Christmas show is The Road to Compostela, focusing on the Galician region of Spain and its famed pilgrimage. If you can’t get tickets to any of the 16 performances, there’s always the CD. And, yes, we’re going right after Christmas Day itself.

MADRIGAL DINNERS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

When I was in college, one of the unique Christmas events was a series of madrigal feasts replete with Renaissance music, troubadours, jesters, and, of course, a meal that included the procession of the roast boar – in actuality, a large Indiana hog. Effective all the same.

The event originated in 1947 in what we now call the Early Music movement, and soon evolved into its Elizabethan splendor, drawing (as I recall) 550 people to each sitting over a two- or three-week period. And it was quite colorfully memorable.

Alas, by the beginning of the 21st century, the dinners had become history – in part, I assume, because of the academic pressures of a reconfigured semester that now ended before Christmas, rather than two weeks later. (A change I applaud, all the same – having finals hanging over you during your so-called vacation was tortuous, as was returning for two weeks, leaving, and coming right back to register.)

Still, it has me thinking of the many holiday events that now sustain American arts organizations – the Nutcracker ballet at the top of the list, of course, and the staged Christmas Carol or Holiday Pops concerts. As well as the big collapse most people seem to suffer for two or three weeks after.

ADVENT AND MORE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This is the time of year when many people work themselves up into a frenzy of festivity, inevitably followed by a letdown. For whatever reasons, it has me reflecting on the contrasts between many of the expectations and realities in our surrounding culture. For instance, Christmas is supposed to be a holy occasion, but the fact is that one can eliminate all mention of religion and still engage fully in its revelry and spending. Family gatherings, too, are emphasized, although at the office, what we’ve noticed, listening to the police radio scanner, is how family structure is drifting: “live-in boyfriend or girlfriend,” becomes “fiance or fiancee” after their second child together. Maybe that’s a reflection of a widespread fear of commitment in America today – as if having a child isn’t a commitment. Those calls, too, typically arise in domestic abuse or breakdown, in turn arising in other fears. Think, too, of the troops overseas, and their families at home. We might ask, then, what is the real Christmas message.

Here I believe we can look to small children for a clue – those who are old enough to sense that something special is about to happen, but not old enough to equate it with receiving particular products. (Hmm, might the latter suggest something about the expectation of prayer many people seem to hold? Well, that’s another topic.) What I’m thinking about is that tingling anticipation that’s full of wonder and discovery and emotional overflow. Everything is new or newly repeated, from last year or maybe two. Full of hope and questioning, as well. Their exuberance and obsession are contagious. And, yes, they crave the stability of a loving family.

That is the energy early Friends had when they were known as Children of the Light. May we, too, be filled with a revived sense of that vitality and urgency –the ecstasy of apocalyptic faith that shakes the world for miles around, and brings change. And brings us together.

AUDIO TAPE LEGACY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

A neighbor showed up after a Saturday morning of hitting yard sales and presented me with three shoeboxes full of classical music audiotapes. It was quite a haul and included some impressive collections – sets of the symphonies of Ives, Shostakovich, and Vaughn Williams, among others. But there was also Ella, along with a few other quirky delights.

Of course, listening to these, often in the loft of the barn, also reminds me of the passing technology, how passe tapes have become, even more than vinyl. But at least I could also play them in the car, especially in those spots in the countryside where public radio does not always come in. Better yet, still can.

SLIDE SHOW MEMORIES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

When I was growing up, my family would sometimes go over to another family’s house for dinner or a low-key party that was soon followed by their getting the projector and screen out, along with a brace of Kodak slides, to show us their summer travels.

In those days, we were somewhat awed. These were our friends who could afford the equipment and film and also manage to travel in some kind of style. In other words, it was an occasion, however boring.

These days, of course, photography is, oh, so much easier, and thanks to digital advances, oh, so much cheaper. And the slide show, as I’ve been finding as I blog, is both easier and, well, more intimate – you can watch it when and where you want. You don’t even have to yell out, “Can we back up two?” or “Who was that in the lower right-hand corner?”

Many families now have to figure out what to do with those increasingly fragile slips of film in their cardboard frames – especially the ones that now smell of mildew. They’re history, of course.

As is, it appears as I look around, the custom of families coming together with others.

RETIRED OR …?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

After officially retiring full-time early this year, I found myself saying I’d changed careers, taking up something that wasn’t yet paying the bills.

Actually, it’s been several things, from a rash of poetry appearances to publication of the novels, especially, on top of intensified Quaker practice.

Lately, though, as my wife returned to the workplace full-time, I’m beginning to sense I’ve retired from retirement to become … a househusband!

I really do need to learn to cook again, especially since the standards in my life have risen so sharply since we’ve been together. And then there’s the vacuuming and sweeping and washing … well, it really is endless, isn’t it!

As for meeting her in my apron, I’ll leave the details to your imagination. I hope she enjoys the cocktail and just kicking back. As if there’s time for that when you’re working.

THE STIGMA OF RELIGION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Intolerance, scorn, and judgmental stereotyping are hard enough to behold in public discourse, but they’re especially painful when they come from my side of the spectrum – people who proclaim themselves to be open-minded and smart. Yet the contempt is there, and nowhere more so than at the mention of religion, as Madeleine L’Engle has already pointedly observed. Even so, the fact remains that we do find individuals for whom belief and wisdom are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, even mutually enhancing. Let me suggest Bill Moyers’ Genesis: A Living Conversation, a Doubleday book based on the PBS series, as a demonstration of intelligence and faith in joint action. (Also available in audio or video, if you prefer.)

Admittedly, much of what we see and hear from the religious front can be superficial thought, convoluted logic, or emotional manipulation – quite simply, bad theology that too often goes unchallenged. (Not that we don’t encounter these in advertising, politics, entertainment, or professional athletics.) Curiously, when I listen to the reasons given by many who turn away from religion altogether, I often hear equally shallow arguments. Those who accuse religion of being the cause of all war, for example, blithely ignore Karl Marx’ insistence that it’s economic injustice instead – even as they invoke his axiom of religion as the opiate of the people. Or the way Sigmund Freud’s atheism is touted, while ignoring the degree to which his two key disciples, Karl Jung and Otto Rank, each turned to unique aspects of religion to advance their depth of human insight. I’m of the camp that contends that good theology is the only cure for bad theology, and is essential for progressing social justice. Rabbi Michael Lerner’s The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right offers a fine line of reasoning in this direction. (As for advertising, politics, entertainment, professional athletics …?)

And, yes, the best reply to hypocrisy comes from the discipline of faith itself. Whatever happened to corrective rebuke and redirection, within the faithful group? (What old Quakers used to call “close labor.”)

Oh, my, and here I’d started out to reflect on the unfortunate state of religious fiction and poetry in our time, especially from Christian writers. With little support from my side of the spectrum, what appears is typically constrained by an orthodoxy that inhibits candor and rigorous exploration, and what emerges sounds saccharine, hollow, or even a false note altogether. That’s before we get to that matter of being preachy.

Still, I can point to the growing popularity of Rumi, a Sufi mystic of the 13th century, or to Zen-influenced Americans or Jewish novelists and a few obliquely Christian poets as signs of hope.

Care to add to the list?

TRUE HOSPITALITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The New Hampshire economy – like the rest of New England, actually – relies heavily on tourism. But to put a smiling face on the cash cow, businesses and public officials alike call it the hospitality industry.

Dictionaries, however, say nothing about making a profit on hospitality. In fact, one calls it “behaving in a kind and generous manner toward guests; fond of entertaining; affording or expressing generosity toward guests.” Generosity extended by the host, we should note, and not the guest.

But looking at the word afresh, I’m also seeing another industry arising: the hospital. As in hospitalization. Oh, my.

THE INSPIRATION OF PICASSO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

There it was on a public television broadcast, a curator proclaiming that no other artist had made as many bad lithographs (and maybe other kinds of prints) as Picasso. But, came the rejoinder, no other artist had made so many of genius, either. The freedom of one was necessary to open the other.

I took the message to heart. Genius, of course, is another matter.

RETHINKING FUNERALS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

A few Saturdays ago, I attended an all-day workshop at the meetinghouse that addressed alternatives to America’s modern funeral industry. Yes, we Friends advocate simplicity and equality and environmental sustainability, among other things, but this was quite an eye-opener.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably assumed that much of the practice is simply not up for discussion – that you have to go through a funeral director, have a corpse embalmed, use a casket and vault, for instance. Not so, at least here in New England, as we learned.

For starters, my big shock came at looking at the price-tag on funeral services – and even though the Federal Trade Commission requires establishments to hand out a general price list to all who ask, two of the largest funeral homes in our area refused to provide that information. So much for comparison shopping on a major expenditure. Even so, we could see that the billing starts at a “basic fee” of about $2,000 or more … and then every activity or product gets added on. As I sat there, I calculated that even without embalming, dressing, casketing, hearse and limo, or a funeral home ceremony, simple cremation could run over five grand. Huh?

You can imagine what a full funeral begins to run. Me, I’d rather leave my heirs a new car.

This was before we even considered the heavy pollution arising from either embalming and burial or cremation or other negative social costs.

Compounding all this, of course, is the fact that few people are willing to look directly at the inevitability of death, especially their own. (Otto Rank, one of Freud’s two major disciples, saw the fear of death as the central psychological problem, rather than sex.) To consider these issues calmly and clearly, then, becomes a spiritual or religious act that embraces the totality of life itself.

What we found in the workshop was that rather than morbidity, we were celebrating life as an entire cycle.

There were two separate parts under consideration, and each could be done independently of the other.

  • Home funeral: This is the option of keeping the deceased’s body in the home before burial or cremation, and of arranging ceremonies or observations that fit the family’s desires. This includes cleansing and preparation of the body, as desired.
  • Green burial: This is chemical-free, without a vault, and allows the body to decompose naturally. The coffin may be made locally, or one may prefer to use a shroud alone.

As we “walked through” the preparation of a body (a volunteer from our circle), we began to feel how loving and caring the activity could be, especially as part of a community. We were especially moved by the simple beauty of a shroud and its outer wrapping as an alternative to a coffin. (I’d long been intrigued by the Amish use of a shroud, and now I’m sold – it’s elegant and far more natural than a traditional casket.)

We have much to think about and examine. Among them is what steps we need to take to assure we can do this in our own burial ground – is the soil proper, are there any zoning restrictions, do we want to let one section revert to forest after burials?

But at least we’re thinking.

If this strikes a chord with you, feel free to check out National Home Funeral Alliance for contacts and directions.