Huff, Puff, and Blow

It is not a new ruse to adapt easy-to-sing melodies for congregational singing in churches. One of the oldest and most familiar examples of this practice is the Christmas carol “What Child is This?” sung to the tune of “Greensleeves,” the carolers blissfully unaware that the older title refers to a prostitute. At a funeral in a Catholic church in Honduras recently I heard them first sing a well-known hymn to a slowed-down version of “The Sound of Silence” a Paul Simon song about depression, of all things. This was followed a few minutes later by another I had heard previously, to the tune of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” a protest song from Bob Dylan. But minutes later I could barely contain my laughter; I came perilously close to committing a major social blunder as I watched those beatific faces innocently and solemnly intoning a hymn of praise to Peter, Paul, and Mary’s (appropriate names, no?) “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Now I will laugh: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HAHAHA!!! Whew, that felt good.

Indulge me while I point out the obvious. Songwriters are constantly raving about self-expression, and even the greatest among them strive to use musical language to enhance, embellish, or outrightly parallel the content of their lyrics (I refer you to Franz Schubert’s “Erlkönig” or Richard Strauss’ tone poems for some of the most successful examples of this), but the fact is that musical language by itself is too abstract to paint specific pictures or narrate specific events in the mind of the listener. Try, for example to make a musical rendition of “Casey at the Bat” without words or a title, and the listener is as likely to imagine Shrek or a visit to the supermarket as they would the baseball legend that is intended. Beethoven loathed poetic subtitles to his music, partly because they limited the audience’s imagination. “Moonlight Sonata” was not his appellation, but was added later, and virtually all modern listeners associate this sublime music with moonlight, unintended by the composer. If the first movement of his Fifth Symphony was telling a story, what story would it be? No two answers to this question would be the same.

It is this “association” that is the key. Throughout the musical history of the Christian church, even though its music inevitably evolved and changed, a constant feature of it was a style that was reserved for worship, so that the very sound of it elicited reverence and spirituality. There is no mistaking what Händel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” is about, and it could never be used properly as a graduation march or deodorant commercial. This phenomenon of melding holy or devotional words with popular music styles is a very recent one, and reveals more than anything the desperation of churches over dwindling congregations. The popularity of “Christian” music, however, has not swelled the pews.

During his own lifetime, the Guardian discouraged artists and musicians to try too consciously to develop distinctly Bahá’í music, but rather produce their finest work, which would presumably eventually become identifiably Bahá’í by the stamp the light of faith that would transform their souls and their art. Therefore it behooves Bahá’í musicians to develop a musical style that is commensurate with the loftiness, majesty, and sublimity of the words or sentiments. In the matter of translating the Bahá’í writings into English, for instance, the Guardian chose the style of King James Version of the Bible in order that any English-speaking person of Christian background would immediately identify these words as holy scripture. He was pressured to simplify them but maintained that we should rise to its level, and not drag it down to ours.

The guidance so far from the Universal House of Justice is to observe dignity; we can certainly argue endlessly as to what that entails, but if we are honest with ourselves, we will often find that our arguments are constructed to justify our own musical tastes. Since the Bahá’í Faith is global, it can be speculated that there may not emerge a single dominant style of musical worship, perhaps rather a canon of work to which many cultures will contribute. But in any case the striving for excellence and refinement will necessarily be the hallmarks of the Bahá’í art that will be worthy of the name.

Irony to the World

To date and to the best of my knowledge, the best Bahá’í music has come from non- Bahá’í sources. This must inevitably change, but it is the present state of affairs. I’ve often thought, for instance, that Joy to the World (the Christmas carol, not the Three Dog Night song) is as soul-stirring a Bahá’í song as it gets when you view the lyrics from a Bahá’í perspective.

It turns out I couldn’t be more wrong, though quite from the opposite direction. Joy to the World is a Bahá’í song, plain and simple, and not even a Christmas carol at all. It is the brainchild of Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the “father of English hymnody.” His own father was a Non-Conformist, so he came by creative thoughts honestly. Here’s the scoop on what actually happened and what the song actually is.

John Calvin had previously initiated the practice of creating verse translations of the Psalms for congregational singing, but Watts took this a step further by introducing Psalm-inspired lyrics for songs. He also thought the Psalms should be updated, because though King David (author of many of the Psalms) was divinely-inspired, his religious understanding could not possibly have fully apprehended the truths later revealed by Jesus Christ. Therefore the Psalms, in Watts’ thinking, should be “renovated” to imitate the language of the New Testament rather than the Biblical Hebrew.

Joy to the World is based on Psalm 98 which begins, in the King James version, “O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things,” and includes the famous line “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Lines such as “Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together” are easily seen to inspire this hymn. The music was then adapted and arranged by Lowell Mason from an older melody which was believed to have originated from Händel because of obvious similarites to snatches of phrases from The Messiah.

All fine and good, but here’s the clincher – are you ready for this? Even if today “Joy to the World” is commonly thought of as a Christmas song, its lyrics were originally written by Isaac Watts as a hymn glorifying Christ's triumphant return at the end of the age! Ha!

For those of us who have to pull out our carol sheets every Christmas, here follows the complete lyrics to Joy to the World. Bahá’ís are invited to sing this silently or out loud with Isaac Watts’ intention in mind.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Saviour reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Ave Maria

Recently my only flute student here in Honduras was forbidden from performing Schubert ‘s “Ave Maria” at a church Christmas presentation on the grounds that it is “Catholic” and therfore not allowed in that Evangelical hall. This is reminiscent of an experience of mine a couple of dcecades back. I was playing the flute at a wedding in Mississauga, Ontario with a harpist, and because of unclear directions, we uncharacteristically arrived only minutes before the ceremony was about to begin. As we were hurriedly setting up, the minister came over and enquired about the music we were planning to play, and I gave him a quick run-down. When I mentioned the Schubert “Ave Maria,” he stated flatly that I couldn’t play that.

“Why not?”
“It’s Catholic.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Well, you can’t play it.”
“The bride and groom have requested it.”
“I don’t care. You’re not going to play that in my church.”
“I believe this is the Lord’s church.”

He went off in a huff; I wasn’t trying to be insolent, it was that everybody was ready and waiting for the wedding march to begin and I it wasn’t the time or place to get into an argument.

A few readers may know what he was talking about, but most, I venture, are baffled or see this as a silly sectarian view, akin to the Communist Chinese government banning the music of Beethoven because he was “bourgeois.” The crux of the matter is that in churches, the Latin words that are usually sung are the prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace . . .” The Catholics have a cult of the worship of the Virgin Mary not shared by most Protestant sects. To inflict this doctrinal squabble on a defenseless little musical masterpiece, even when it is played instrumentally, without the words, is a tiny example of the myriad walls religion has erected in the seamless Faith of God, the removal of which is the avowed thousand-year mission of the Bahá’ís.

The original lyric that Franz Schubert (pictured above) selected for his song was a German translation (made by one Adam Storck) of an excerpt from Canto XXIX of Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem Lady of the Lake. The heroine, Ellen Douglas, is on the run, and prays to the Virgin Mary. It begins thus:

Ave Maria! maiden mild!

Listen to a maiden's prayer!

Thou canst hear though from the wild,

Thou canst save amid despair.

Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,

Though banished, outcast, and reviled--

Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;

Mother, hear a suppliant child!

Ave Maria!

Schubert set this to music around 1825, at age 28. He wrote over 600 songs, and introduced them to his circle at musical parties which came to be known as Schubertiads. He wrote to his parents about this song, mentioning that the listeners were surprised at the piety in the song, which was not something he was known for. His own title for this song was “Ellen’s Third Song.” It occurred to an unknown person at a later date that the Latin prayer to Mary could be moulded to Schubert’s sublime melody, and I wonder whether the soul of that meddler in is a place arrived at via a road paved with good intentions.

In For a New Experience

In Chicago one of the many Bahá’í hats I wore was “Pioneer Resource Person,” a representative of the Office of International Pioneering at the community level, making presentations at Feasts and encouraging those who could and especially those who believed they couldn’t to forsake their homes and go to distant lands to serve the Faith. But not for a moment during this time did I think I would actually go myself. After all, I was serving here. I was needed here. But, like a traffic accident which happens suddenly without warning, events in a plodding existence took a precipitous turn, and my thoughts turned to pioneering, and also to learning a new language. Where would I go? Hungary is in dire need of pioneers who can speak the native language; this was brought home to me by the royal treatment I received on a travel-teaching trip in 2003. What language would I learn? Why, Arabic, of course. And then the call came to go to Honduras, and I answered without question, for I perceived it as the call of the very voice I could not ignore. At a gathering on the night before I left, a friend quipped that I must have been mumbling my prayers, and God heard “Honduras” instead of “Hungary.” And the new language must needs be Spanish.

But there was no turning back. Who should I meet in the waiting lounge at Pearson Airport in Toronto reading a Bahá’í prayer book but a Canadian on her way to Honduras to serve as an Auxiliary Board Member? She had been there many years and gave me much advice on the flight. Yet as someone who had lived for half a century in sophisticated metropolises in the privileged part of the world, on the mango- and poverty-lined road up the mountains which Christopher Columbus had called “the depths,” I was in for more jolts and jabs than Mike Tyson could have inflicted upon me.

On the very day I arrived, I overheard a telephone conversation which included the following sentence: “Bring the machetes to the devotional gathering.” I knew I was in for a new experience. The machetes were used to cut the grass, prune the trees, and clear the weeds at the local Bahá’í Centre that had fallen into neglect over the summer, and fixed in my memory is the image of elderly Doña Julia in her formal black dress and high-heeled shoes stooped down and wielding the machete like the blades of a helicopter over the screaming weeds. Lesson #1 in Honduran culture.

I’ve heard of mobile book units before, but where else is the Bahá’í library located under the seat of a motorcycle, wending its way up gnarled rocky mountain roads? That is where Joycelyn Jolly, a striking black American woman who was an accomplished cellist and Suzuki teacher who adopted an orphaned girl in Brazil kept the books as she provided this service amidst her struggle to be a single mother and obedient servant of the Five Year Plan. Her struggles were causing her to look elsewhere, and she suddenly got a marriage proposal from a musical colleague stretching back over a quarter of century who began scouring the planet for her after he had lost his wife. Since she left for Baltimore, I have been performing this function, keeping all the books under lock and key, and bringing them out for display carefully and gently at every Feast.

There are many other singular events, but probably the most astonishing was watching a one-legged man during prayers at a Feast methodically chase down a spider on a wall, leaning to the point where surely he was going to topple over first this way and then that, reaching and contorting, until finally at an angle Olympic gymnasts the world over must envy, whacked the spider -- with a Bahá’í prayer book! -- all while the prayer continued unabated and unconcerned. I admit at the time what I felt was shame, but now I regard as one of the more bizarre scenes in a community that spearheads an “A Cluster” (designated as being at an advanced stage of organization) but is still in the infant stages of love and reverence for Bahá’u’lláh.

My experiences in Honduras are posted as a series of updates on a separate blog, siguahon.blogspot.com.

On the Ninth Day of Ridván, My True Love . . .

The Festival of Ridván, the “King of Festivals” is celebrated by the Bahá’ís from April 21 to May 2. It was during those twelve days in 1863 that Bahá’u’lláh received visitors in the Najibiyyih Garden outside Baghdad, and made the stupendous announcement to at least four of His closest followers that He was in fact the Promised One prophesied and awaited by all the major religious traditions and scriptures.

Furthermore, three of these days have been designated as Holy Days. The first and last are understood easily enough, but what about the ninth? We read so often that His family visited Him on the Ninth Day that we can get the idea that it is because of their arrival that that particular day is celebrated. Except for Naw-Rúz (New Year, March 21), the Bahá’í Holy Days are all associated with the Twin Manifestations, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. We do not know who these family members were or how many (they did not include ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who was there from the First Day); for all we know they may have been future Covenant-breakers, and it would be inconceivable to have a Holy Day associated with covenant-breaking. And it was likely that their arrival would have been earlier had it not been for high rushing waters of the Tigris River (The Najibiyyih Garden was on an island) imperiling any crossing.

We have a direct if rather prosaic explanation from the writings themselves:
“. . . the reason we commemorate the 1st, 9th and 12th days of Ridván as Holidays (Holy Days) is because one is the first day, one is the last day, and the third one is the ninth day, which of course is associated with the number 9. All 12 days could not be holidays, therefore these three were chosen.”
Letter written on behalf of the Guardian, dated June 8, 1952, to an individual believer, in Lights of Guidance, pg. 230
(Compilations, NSA USA - Developing Distinctive Baha'i Communities)

Alas, I do not read either Arabic or Persian, but I have been told by more than one Persian believer that there exists an untranslated Tablet in which Bahá’u’lláh answers questions about the various Holy Days, and in which He purportedly explains that the Ninth Day of Ridván is associated with the Most Great Name (via the abjad system of numerology that was still in use in the nineteenth century). I shall be writing the Research Department about this matter, and may have an update to this post before long.

A note of caution regarding the above photograph of the Ridván Garden. This, and every other photo is of the one outside ‘Akká in the Holy Land, and was called that name by Bahá’u’lláh Himself. It is NOT the one associated with the “King of Festivals.” The Ridván Garden outside of Baghdad is at present a hospital parking lot. May the All-Powerful Lord restore it to the condition in which roses could be piled so high in Bahá’u’lláh’s tent that one could not see over them.

Unity in Diversity

The concept of Unity in Diversity has been described in the Bahá’í writings as the “flowers of one garden”; humanity has also been described as “the leaves of one branch,” “the waves of one ocean,” and with various other images, but perhaps the first one is the most potent, because of the fact that the flowers of one garden are not all the same -- their pleasing effect is largely because they are not the same, but present a harmonious whole. Surely a garden consisting exclusively of red roses would be impressive, but throw in a variety of colours, and the delight is increased tenfold.

But there is another phenomenon that brings the concept of unity in diversity home to me in a robust way: when one attends a concert, be the audience comprised of twenty or twenty thousand souls, every single person in that audience experiences the music in a personal way that is different from every other person. Forty years of performing and teaching music have taught me that this is absolutely true and not just some sentimental statement. How miraculous is this? How can the same piece of music have a different effect on everyone? The answer is not in the music itself, but in the receptacle, the filter of the human mind and heart. Everyone at that concert brings to bear upon their listening the wealth of their own heritage and experience, their tastes, their prejudices, their reactions, their sensitivities. Music is not heard with a single part of the brain but is actually synthesized in various locations of our mysterious grey matter; the intellectual, emotional, psychological, and every other aspect of the brain is engaged. Memory is a powerful factor, which not only helps us understand the language of music, determines our reaction to music heard before, and is even the basis of apprehending what is new to our ears. How often has a song, not heard for years or decades, instantly unlocked a flood of memories and emotions? Even more powerful, perhaps, is the spiritual realm which is invoked and in which we partake, recognizing the true voice of music reaching us from a world beyond.

Not convinced? Can any of us say that our experience of listening to the selfsame recording is ever exactly the same twice? Was any time exactly the same as the first time? Our mood, our environment, our level of concentration or distraction, our age, our company, biorhythm, a myriad other factors all affect the result. How often have we been disappointed when a favourite piece of music does not produce the same wonderful effect we remember and anticipate? All experience is unique and unrepeatable, even the repetition of drudgery, and we cannot press a button to get an exact replica of one, much though we may be led to believe this is possible.

Yet, yet . . . at a concert there IS a communal experience. We all experience it together, and there is a general consensus about the quality and effect of the performance and presentation. We feel the buildup of excitement together and are transported to bliss together. We feel the climax together and we respond as one. Some concerts even become legendary for creating a special moment in time that all who had attended agree upon. And it is that harmonious whole that is our Unity in Diversity. Imagine if there were no unity, that life and experience were not shared, how unutterable lonely the cosmos would be. And though we do, at times, feel alone, isolated, and misunderstood, our greatest desire at those moments is to return to that blessed unity that brings us peace and love. Uniquely and together.

Anna Schmanna

You heard it here first: Anna’s Presentation is boring! What? Allow me to explain.

What the Bahá’í World has come to know as “Anna’s Presentation” is excerpted from Ruhi Institute Book 6, Unit Two, Sections 6-19, and is the brainchild of Dr. Arbab and perhaps his associates, distilled from the experience of Bahá’ís around the world. It is the idealized, comprehensive unfolding of the Faith through the vehicle of a fictional, remarkable, well-nigh unbelievable seventeen-year old as expounded to her Catholic school friend Emilia. (“Well-nigh,” since the Faith actually does sprout such prodigious youth.) The style of it is reminiscent of Plato’s Republic in that one person is expounding while the other(s) merely give laconic assent to its inexorable flow. From the turn of this Gregorian Millenium this presentation has been increasingly touted as the teaching tool sin qua non in the mounting crescendo of emphasis on direct teaching. We now have full-colour booklets replete with gorgeous photography, flip charts, and power point presentations, and Anna is the rock star of the current Five-Year Plan.

But whoa, just a minute. Occasionally we go overboard in our enthusiasm. In some quarters it is recommended that those going forth to teach memorize it in toto and regurgitate it when we find receptive souls. First of all, we are not selling the Faith like Encyclopaedia Brittanica so we’re not giving a prefabricated spiel that has a proven track record, and secondly, in difficulty it is roughly equivalent to memorizing Act II, Sc. 2 of Hamlet. And most importantly, giving it in its published form is like listening to deadpan comedian Steve Wright recite The Tell-Tale Heart – boring! The Institutions of the Faith have lately recognized this, and are encouraging the believers to animate their renditions with their own personal zeal for the Faith.

So why do we use it and what is its value? It really answers the question, “How do I teach the Faith -- what do I say?” Most of us in introducing the Bahá’í Faith to a person unfamiliar with it choose certain aspects of it we are comfortable with, the principles or the history or the community, for example. Or else we say things that are perhaps meaningful for us, but give little glimpse of the big picture, such as, “For me it is about hope.” Or perhaps even more commonly, “I finally found a religion that teaches what I have always believed.” Over the years I have been time and again taken aback by the things that have come out of Bahá’ís mouths, having no context or connection to the virgin listener, such as the Infallibility of the Manifestations, stories of the martyrs, personal reminiscences of meeting a Hand of the Cause, their own struggles with a particular Bahá’í law, or some other matter that requires considerable groundwork. Few of us give a comprehensive view, the skeleton of the entire colossal edifice, which would in the course of a few or even a single meeting, give a seeker a sufficient overview to decide whether his own soul has connected with it. How many of us have encountered the same seekers at firesides month after month, year after year, who still have little grasp of the “fundamental verities” that lie at the heart of this glorious path to God? And this is the genius of Anna’s Presentation, that it gives a panoramic view of this vaaaaaaaaaaaast ocean.

So yes, we ought to internalize this guide, and then be prepared to talk about the Central Figures with the love we have for Them, the Administration with all the reverence and obedience we have for its Institutions, the laws, the worldwide community, the core activities that prepare souls to usher in a new age of humanity, the mighty socially transformative principles, the Covenant, Progressive Revelation, the beautiful prayers and majestic words of the writings, and our central passion for teaching in our quest for the holy grail of uniting all of mankind.