the Valley of Virginia

Wednesday, July 6

Again, multiple paths beckoned. After a while, I ended up on U.S. 460, headed up the New River Valley through Giles County, Virginia, and on to Blacksburg, Roanoke, and I-81, a road I once knew well.

The interstate parallels U.S. 11, one of the oldest roads in America. It was the route followed by settlers down the great Valley of Virginia toward the west, meeting up with the Wilderness Road of Daniel Boone across the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. By the 1860’s, it was the Valley Pike, a well-maintained road that became the focus of Jackson’s Valley Campaign. The Blue Ridge Mountains lie to the east; the Allegheny Mountains to the west. The Valley was the breadbasket of the Confederacy until Phil Sheridan and his Federal soldiers burned it in the latter stages of the War, under orders from General Grant, leaving not a farmstead untouched.

Those days still seem close in this part of Virginia, and nowhere closer than the town of Lexington. I stopped there to pay my respects to that great Episcopalian, R. E. Lee, and his friend, the Presbyterian deacon Thomas Jackson, both of them buried there. Jackson taught at the Virginia Military Institute, by all accounts not much of a teacher. But when the war came, he mustered a regiment from the town and its environs. He recruited and trained four other regiments, all from the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains to the west. Under his leadership at the Battle of Manassas, they earned a name etched in the heart of every son of the South: the Stonewall Brigade. At the Lee Chapel on the campus of what is now Washington & Lee University, one can view the memorial book from the Brigade. A majority of the men perished in the war, their great Commander among them.

Later, I visited his grave, a few blocks west of the campus in the old cemetery. I had nothing for Jackson beyond my respect, but others had left small Confederate flags -- and lemons. He loved them, and could often be found sitting on a rail fence in his battered cast-off VMI cadet's hat and ill-fitting ragged clothing, thoughtfully sucking on a lemon as he pondered some problem of strategy or battle.

I love Jackson, that uncouth genius of the hill country, with his stern Calvinistic vision of Divine Providence. But I wish I were more like Lee, the Episcopal gentleman from the banks of the Potomac. He bore the Light of Christ through the defeat at Gettysburg, the slow death of his army in the winter of 1864-5, the day at Appomattox, and beyond.

In the museum under the Chapel, I read General Order #9 in his handwriting, one of the great documents of American history. Lee was not a man of words, but in these few sentences he gave hope and honor to his defeated nation. I followed the tour through the Chapel, with its portraits of Washington and Lee, the two greatest Virginians; I saw the front-row pew where Lee sat erect for daily chapel before going downstairs to his office and his duty. I went across the green to his church where he was Senior Warden, seeking to lead church as well as college and a generation of students through the dark aftermath of war.

During this trip, I have also stood by the river where Ulysses Grant spent his boyhood. Grant is harder to admire than Mr. Lee; troubled by depression and drink, he was a failure at most everything he tried, including the Presidency. But he was stubborn. Others would have retreated from Vicksburg, or after the Wilderness, or Spotsylvania Court House, or Cold Harbor. Not Grant.

Lee respected him and so do I, most of all for his graciousness at Appomattox, a spirit that began to heal the nation, as Lincoln had hoped:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding....

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

An errand to the East

Monday, July 4: Independence Day

There are innovations for this trip East, one I have made a score of times. I departed in leisurely manner on Monday instead of rushing off on Sunday afternoon. Quiet and productive Sunday afternoons are precious, and rare during the academic year; I treasure them. I completed my packing on Monday morning instead of Saturday afternoon; I ate a solid Monday breakfast at home, sufficient for me to nibble bread and fruit as I drove the rest of the day; I visited with my wife instead of rushing off without conversation.

I took the Basic Route that I have most often used: I-74. This would give me a good sleeping place at the Indiana rest area at milepost 150, between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. It was an easy and comfortable drive through the agricultural heart of America. I arrived at the rest area in time to finish Evensong before dark.

A large sign proclaimed “No overnight parking or camping,” causing me some unease. But no one awakened me; I had a restful night's sleep and was ready to roll by 4 am local time.

Tuesday, July 5

The early start allowed me to sail around the Cincinnati Beltway before dawn, eating a chunk of bread as I drove. The first light of day and the onset of heavier traffic arrived about the time I stopped for fuel at New Richmond, on U.S. 52 upriver from the city. I drove a few more miles to Point Pleasant and the rest area by the Ohio River, across the highway from the birthplace of Ulysses S Grant. I watched the morning light come to the river, and took an hour's nap to let the morning fog clear.

It lifted, a little. But the sun did not break through until well into the day. I drove most of the way southeast to Portsmouth with the river a mist-shrouded presence on my right.

There is an old-fashioned highway rest stop near Portsmouth at Sandy Point, about a hundred miles upriver from Cincinnati. I sang Matins there, with slow progress through the Sefer Tehillim making the Office extend beyond an hour.

Always before on my drives Eastward, there was haste; Mother was waiting, begrudging the hours I lingered on the way. My principal purpose in this trip is unchanged: a visit to my parents. But this time, they are in no hurry.

From the West Virginia line, my path was in doubt: the quicker way through Charleston and Beckley on the interstates, or the more enjoyable way down State Route 10 through Logan and the coalfields of Wyoming County, along the Guyandotte River? It seemed a choice of little import, but it did no harm to ask: “Lord, which should I take?” As soon as a sense came to take the quicker way, a rebellious voice urged me to indulge myself with the scenic route. It was a surprisingly intense struggle over such a little thing.

I arrived at my destination in the mid-afternoon, hungry, tired from the traffic-choked highway, low on fuel. A perplexing two hours followed, in which my options for sleeping in the car evaporated – not the truck stop, which was defunct; not the Wal-Mart parking lot, which was posted; no campgrounds closer than a state park a half-hour's drive away. I got back on the road and drove there, just missing the 4:00 closing of the campground office. There were a few sites available and I could claim one, as the sign on the office door indicated. But I could not leave until I checked out and paid the next morning at an undisclosed hour.

I returned to town. Now I was facing the prospect of the florist closing for the day. I went there, bought a bouquet of daisies with five minutes to spare, took it to the cemetery, and found myself too agitated for a proper visitation. I left the flowers with water in the bronze vase, and headed for the funeral home. Eight months have passed, and there was no placard on the headstone with Mother's date of death.

It was obvious that the secretary of the funeral home did not want to see me, this unshaven old hillbilly in T-shirt and jeans, not with dressed-up people arriving for a wake and staring at me. The secretary told me that the placard was the family's responsibility, not theirs. I clearly remembered otherwise, and said so. She called Mr. S., the proprietor. He said that he would take care of it and send us a bill, and got me out the door as quickly and quietly as possible.

I still had no place to park my car. I drove across town and registered at an old motel that had been there since my childhood. I balked at the price: $60.61. But it proved to be a fine clean room where I slept well, did Pilates in the morning, showered and shaved, and ate breakfast in a plastic chair outside my door, watching the end of a morning rain shower.

The lady at the desk was young, blonde, and pretty, with “West Virginia teeth” as I have described elsewhere – crooked, two of them missing, the others tobacco-stained. She and her husband (who came over to introduce himself as I ate breakfast) bought the motel and are trying to make a go of this old landmark, now surrounded by big chain motels. May God bless them in this endeavor, in its way a battle against the Principalities and Powers.

Finally, I could slow down. After registering at the motel, I fueled the Honda, considering how the “little” decision of which route to drive through West Virginia had proven to be not so little. Had I taken the other road, I would have arrived too late to deal with the funeral home, too late to buy flowers that day.

I wish I were more attentive to the “still, small voice.” And I wish that I would do what it says when it comes. The Collect for next Sunday applies:

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

After some thought, I drove to a local cafeteria where Mother and I enjoyed many luncheons until the final years when it became too hard for her to go out. I had a splendid dinner of vegetables and their fine Soft Rolls and Cornbread, finishing with a $10 tab, a stack of nine vegetable dishes and two bread plates.

At last, I made it to the graveside, the daisies blowing prettily in the evening breeze.

What does one do after driving a thousand miles to visit a grave? More is needed than flowers and a quick prayer. I sang Evensong, followed by the Burial Office (Rite One), with three readings, Psalms, prayers, and the Committal service. Yes, they have already been committed to the earth and to God's care. It nonetheless felt right to do it again, for I continue to commit these my parents into the Hand of God.

[To Be Continued]

Acoustics, chamber music, and congregational song

Our parish recently hosted a chamber music festival, as mentioned in the previous essay. The church was filled to overflowing for three concerts of music. The first night was centered on the Quartet for the End of Time; the second featured the music of Webern and Schoenberg (“Verklärte Nacht”); the third consisted of an evocative Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov and Schubert's quartet “Death and the Maiden.” The musicians praised us as a venue for chamber music, especially in terms of acoustics. Most musicians find it rewarding to play or sing in the room, as do I.

Why?

Arthur H. Benade, in “Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics” (1976: Dover reprint 1990), comments: “Singers and instrumentalists enjoy performing in a reverberant environment.... Their confidence is heightened by such surroundings and so, as a matter of fact, is their accuracy in achieving the desired pitch relationships...” (p. 286). When the room has a sufficient reverberation time, the sound from a first note lingers long enough to overlap with a succeeding note. A musician unconsciously uses this overlap to gauge the intonation of the second note in relation to the first; it is as if the two notes were being played together rather than successively. The overlap need only be in the neighborhood of a half-second, though the longer the overlap, the better in terms of intonation.

On the other hand, in a really “large” acoustic with many seconds of reverberation, “there is an upper limit to the rapidity with which tones can follow one another and still show a relationship. This is because in rapid playing the remnants of several earlier tones may ... confuse the auditory picture.” It is not a problem for vocal polyphony of the Renaissance, which is thoroughly at home in such an acoustic. Nor is it a problem for a large part of the organ repertoire. The music of Franck and his successors in the French nineteenth and twentieth (and twenty-first) centuries is at its finest in such surroundings. Bach, Buxtehude, and Distler, on the other hand, are often less successful.

Reverberation time is traditionally related to room volume: large room, large acoustic. When architecture is honest, this relationship holds. But dishonesty is possible. The Chapel at Duke University is a fine neo-Gothic edifice, seating well over a thousand. It looks like a European cathedral. But for decades, it sounded more like a suburban living room. It felt dishonest as soon as one walked in the door; there were no echoing footsteps, no acoustical clues that this was a large space. The ceiling was covered with “Akoustolith,” a material that was used to mimic stonework and dry up the acoustic for the benefit of the clergy. The story is that Dirk Flentrop, a noted Dutch organbuilder who was contracted to build a new instrument for the Chapel, arrived from Europe in 1968, walked in the door, clapped his hands once, listened, said “This will not do,” walked out, and flew back to the Netherlands. (This essay glosses over the incident, which may be apocryphal, but describes the issues involved.) Flentrop would not build an organ unless the acoustics were improved. So, for almost a year, scaffolding worked its way through the Chapel as workers sprayed sealant over the “Akoustolith,” making it more reflective. I heard the room before and after, and the difference was remarkable; the reverberation time was increased from about three seconds to eight seconds. Once the acoustic matched the size of the room, Flentrop returned, built a fine instrument, and the Duke Chapel stands as one of the finest venues for music on a grand scale in the Southeast. Something like the “Resurrection” Symphony of Mahler or the Verdi Requiem would be magnificent in that room.

But it would not be a good place for a string quartet. In those days, the resident quartet played in the East Duke Music Room (now the Nelson Music Room), a fine old high-ceilinged room that seated about three hundred. Its reverberation time was around one or one-and-a-half seconds.

That happens to be about the same as our parish church. When empty, the reverberation time is around one second, and probably about two-thirds of that when full. For chamber music, this is ideal. There is sufficient reverberation for accurate pitch relationships, and the musicians can play or sing rapidly without fear of “outrunning” the room.

Congregational song is a form of “chamber music.” When we sing, we are a group of people who must listen to one another, and tune our voices to one another based on what we hear in a manner akin to a string quartet. In a large acoustic such as the Duke Chapel or the Basilica of Saint Louis, congregational singing is less successful than it is in a room such as our parish church. Even at the pace of a congregational hymn, the notes “outrun” the room, and it becomes difficult to maintain a rhythmic ensemble among people spread across the space. As a singer out in the nave, one hears plenty of sound, but it lacks coherence. “Drying up” the acoustics, as was done at Duke, does not help, for the people are still spread across a large space. In fact, it does not even help the clergy. Listening to a sermon in a large “dry” room is akin to listening to the radio. The sound is obviously artificial, disconnected from anything human. Even in the most resonant of rooms, a sound system which takes account for the precedence effect, first described by the physicist Joseph Henry in 1856 and which Benade outlines on pages 202-205, allows the preacher to be clearly understood and still perceived as a human being. But the preacher must speak speak slowly and distinctly – like the musicians, she must avoid “outrunning the room.”

A very large acoustic is less than ideal for congregational song. It is nonetheless better than the opposite extreme, often found in American churches: the dry room, swathed in carpet and padded pews – or nowadays, padded stadium seats with cupholders. In a dry acoustic, singers lose confidence. They cannot properly hear one another, or even their own voice. Churches with such an acoustic often compensate by having songleaders, equipped with microphones and backed by a “praise band.” The congregation can then sing along with the amplified music, each individual in relative aural isolation and subjugated to those “up front.” That is quite different from the community built by listening to one another as a congregation. The latter is more challenging, but more indicative of our standing in the Body of Christ. A room of appropriate size for chamber music proves to be a space which encourages such singing.

An abridged version of this essay appears in the August edition of our parish newsletter. For further study, I highly recommend Benade's book, alongside the classic text in the field of acoustics, “On the Sensations of Tone” by Hermann Helmholz (1877: Dover reprint 1954). Benade gives more attention to room acoustics and the construction of musical instruments, especially wind instruments; Helmholz more to the production and sensation of musical tone, especially the human voice and the physiology of hearing. His book is a primary source; in much of the book, he is writing of his own experiments and discoveries. In a footnote on page 273, Benade described Helmholz as one “whose name is as famous in acoustics as it is in optics, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics.” He was a pioneer in all of these areas, one of the great physicists of the nineteenth century.

Preaching, and the "Quartet for the End of Time"

Our church has hosted a Chamber Music Festival this weekend: three days, three concerts. I wish I could write at length about them, but (for once) I am speechless.

The best I can do is one tangential thought, stemming from their performance of the Quartet for the End of Time (O. Messiaen). It is based on a passage from the Revelation of St. John the Divine:

And I saw another mighty angel, come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was at it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heave, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer... (10:1-6)

The Quartet is about an hour's music on this vision, with movement titles such as “Liturgy of crystal,” and “Abyss of birds,” and “Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets,” and “Praise to the immortality of Jesus.”

Those who preach tend to avoid the Revelation of St. John. Many in the liberal denominations such as my own seem embarrassed by it. At best, they dismiss it, as one liberal preacher did in my hearing, as a text that used the medium of apocalypse to give hope to communities oppressed by persecution, with the subtext that it has no meaning whatsoever for us, two thousand years later. The judgmental aspects are, of course, to be ignored, for “God is love” and would never pour out his wrath on the world in the manner described at length in the book.

Preaching fails with this book because it is, at its heart, mystical vision. Words, other than the direct and plain words of the text itself, fail to convey what is of significance. It may be that Music is the best form for exegesis of this great and wonderful document. Three examples come to mind, beginning with the Messiaen Quartet:

-- The final choruses of Messiah, from “Worthy is the Lamb” through the Amen (G. F. Handel: Revelation 5:12-14)
-- Quartet for the End of Time (Revelation 10:1-6)
-- “And I saw a new heaven” (Edgar Bainton: Revelation 21:1-4)

What better exegesis of these passages could there be?

The Day of Pentecost, and some language lessons

In recent weeks, I have renewed my attention to Hebrew. My goal has always been to read the Psalms in their proper tongue, so I decided to jump into the river, ready or not. Through Biblio.com, I purchased a parallel-language Sefer Tehillim (Book of Psalms), and when at home, I have been reading the appointed Psalms for the Daily Office out of it.

Psalm 78 on the fifteenth of the month took me around three hours.

I read a half-verse, compare it with the fairly literal English on the facing page and do my best to match up the words so that I have a good sense of how the Hebrew is going – but I avoid looking at the Lexicon or making any serious effort to parse out the verb tenses and forms. And I move on to the next half-verse.

I have nearly completed one cycle through the month, and I hope that the second and subsequent cycles will be easier.

This has proven to be a good complement to more detailed work with individual psalms. I have been working through the Psalms of Degrees (120 through 134) for about a year, and had gotten thoroughly bogged down, finding little time for the task since December, though I recite one of them each day in the Midday Office (that is, on the days when I pray this office, which is only about half of my days). This work of careful study followed by more-or-less regular recitation seems to have laid the foundation for what I am doing now. Should I live long enough, I would like to work through the entire Psalter in detail. I am not optimistic about getting around to it.

And next time the holy Torah comes around in the readings for the Office (January 2012), I would like to read it in the proper tongue, at the “surface” level of working with a parallel English/Hebrew text as I am doing with the Psalms. I am not optimistic about that, either.

But this raises a dilemma: I cannot imagine reading the Pentateuch in anything other than the Authorized Version (KJV). It is too beautiful to give up, even for the original tongue.

I should not wish to lose the glories of our various languages. Hebrew is unutterably beautiful, as I am learning. So is German, which I dearly love, the language of Luther and Gerhardt. And Latin, the holy and venerable language of the Western Church. And Spanish. And, not least, English, the language of the Authorized Version, the Book of Common Prayer, Shakespeare, Watts, and Wesley.

I once thought that all of our words in this life would one day come to an end, inadequate for the glory that is to be revealed, and that may indeed be so. But now I think that the Day of Pentecost gives the clue – indeed, Acts 2 revels in it, with its listing of “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites” and all the rest. In it, “the Curse of Babel is undone.” Rather than giving up our languages, we retain them all, and through the grace of the Spirit, understand them all, every language of this “great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues.” (Rev. 7:9)

It seems to me that none of these tongues will be lost, but rather transformed, even as our physical bodies will be sown in corruption and raised in incorruption (I Cor. 15:42).

It seems to me also that our songs will undergo a like transformation. As any choral musician knows, the song is inseparable from its text, in its proper language. We will, it is promised, “sing a new song to the LORD.” But in some manner, we will continue to sing Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, and Gloria in excelsis Deo, and “My Shepherd will supply my need: Jehovah is his name” -- and Ashirah l'Adonai b'chaiyaiv: Azam'rah leilohai b'odi (Psalm 104:33 – I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being.)

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (I Cor. 2:9)

JRRT, Part Three

I love this book.

For generations, many people of English-speaking lands lived with two books: the Holy Bible, and the Pilgrim’s Progess. This excellent book of John Bunyan’s has fallen out of favor, though it continues to be filled with treasures for those who find it. I submit that for my generation, Tolkien has served the function that Bunyan did for his time. Other books come and go; this one bears with repeated readings through a lifetime.

My older sister opened this door to me by giving me her copy of The Hobbit when I was in my early teens; looking at it as I write, I see her name inscribed on the cover, almost faded into obscurity. It, and the three volumes of LOTR which I soon purchased (95 cents apiece), are all in the old Ballantine paperback edition with the 1960’s psychedelic cover art. Through high school and college, I had on my wall a large poster which combined the three covers (which, together, make a sort of mural). Somewhere in graduate school and marriage, it disappeared; I am sorry to have lost it, though I cannot imagine what I would do with it now. But I still have the books; I have resisted purchasing better copies because these volumes are old friends, now beginning to fall to pieces. In these forty years, I suppose I have read them a dozen times or more.

At differing stages of life, I have found different connections with this tale. My first reading was nonstop, staying up all night for about a week and sleepwalking through my days at school and other responsibilities. I was caught up in the sheer adventure of it, and when I reached the end, I started right over for a second reading.

In subsequent readings, I have become increasingly aware of the author’s craft. In an essay, the author C.J. Cherryh analyzed one chapter, “Fog on the Barrow-Downs” (FOTR I.8), in terms of pacing, the alternation of light and dark, sentence structure, and much more; all are handled with consummate skill, and the entire trilogy would reward analysis of this sort. These details are part of what makes the book impossible to put down. Tolkien is, as Cherryh says elsewhere, “the grandfather of us all” in his craftsmanship.

Songs are scattered through the book, with their own two-page Index buried in the Appendices. They range from the silly songs beloved of hobbits to bits of ancient Tales from the Eldar Days and the fell songs of the Rohirrim, full of blood and ruin. It took me many readings and at least a score of years before I began to love them; many of them are now among my favorite parts of the Tale. They often say much that could not be expressed in prose and in every case are characteristic of those who sing them. I suspect that the Author labored long on them.

The greatest glory of all is the world behind the story, Middle-Earth. Perhaps no one but Tolkien could have made such a place, the fruit of a lifetime of imaginative “sub-creation.” Much of it flows directly from the real World of trees and rivers and mountains and living creatures, described with loving respect. Much is drawn from the “Cauldron of Story” of northern European folklore, and especially the ancient Languages which Tolkien loved, which are behind the Languages of Middle-Earth, and thus the names of people and places therein. The songs, the maps, the appendices -- all add to the sense that “long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green” (The Hobbit, chapter 1), there was such a place as the Forest of Fangorn or the City of Gondor with its white tower. One might easily imagine that we are in a distant continuation of that Story. I have never encountered another work of fiction with this level of verisimilitude, even among those writings which are acknowledged as the great classics of literature.

Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: ‘inner consistency of reality,’ it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the ‘joy’ in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a ‘consolation’ for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, ‘Is it true?’ ... But in the ‘eucatastrophe’ [or “happy ending”] we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater -- it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. (from the Epilogue to the essay “On Fairy-Stories”)

It is for this “far-off gleam or echo of evangelium” that I now read the books. I hear this echo in the merry chatter of Tom Bombadil, in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, in the Golden Wood, in the long slow songs of the Ents, in the blowing of the horns of Rohan “like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains” (ROTK I.5), in the quiet voice of Samwise Gamgee holding his master’s bleeding hand amid the ruin of Orodruin, and at the last the “sound of singing that came over the water” from the “far green country under a swift sunrise.”

Appendices:

The Lord of the Rings, with The Hobbit, are not all that there is of Middle-Earth. I love The Silmarillion with almost equal intensity, and “Leaf by Niggle.”
This little story is generally paired with the essay “On Fairy-Stories” as “Tree and Leaf.” It is my favorite depiction of the process of artistic creation, and Purgatory. I will say no more: read the essay and the story, if you haven’t. A more systematic discussion of the concept of “subcreation” can be found in Dorothy L. Sayers' excellent book The Mind of the Maker.

And there are the contributions of others, not least the movies shepherded into creation by Peter Jackson. I have never been a fan of Peter Jackson, and I cringe at some of the choices he made in adapting the books into movies. He deserves credit, nonetheless, for tirelessly pursuing this task, negotiating the quicksands of finance, conflicting personalities, impossible schedules and all else involved in making a motion picture, and evoking fine work from hundreds of others. I think that most of the strength of the movies came from this last, the people who brought their skills to the project. I will mention only two examples:

- the soundtrack to LOTR, by Howard Shore. When I do not have time to properly re-visit Middle-Earth by reading the books, often I will play some of this music. It is an achievement of Wagnerian scope, and much of it is as ingrained in me as any of the classical works of music that I love.

- the work of Alan Lee, as conceptual designer, set decorator, and art director for the movies. One of my prized books is “The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook” (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Like the Howard Shore music, these drawings and paintings can transport me into Middle-Earth in an instant. It is peculiar to me that Lee’s pencil sketches and drawings seem more effective than his more finished paintings, several of which are reproduced in the book. But the pencil sketches seem to be his strength as an artist. An example of them in the movies comes in the closing credits to ROTK: Lee sketched pencil portraits of all of the leading characters, strongly evocative portraits. A couple of them are reproduced in the book; I wish more of them were there.

The Road goes ever on and on...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it begun,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet,
And whither then? I cannot say. (FOTR I.1)

I will never be heroic. Nor will I undertake a Quest upon which the world depends. For these things I am grateful.

But a Task has been entrusted to me, and I must discharge it to the best of my ability, as must we all. That Task involves more than a little “sub-creation,” through the medium of music. Each time that I sit down at the organ or piano, or sing, or lead others in singing, I am thereby creating, or helping others create, little “sub-creations,” each with their own character, for music is an art that exists only when it is played or sung. When all goes well, a Bach Fugue, or a Nunc Dimittis by Stanford or Gibbons, or a congregation singing an unaccompanied hymn stanza can be “a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth” just as fully in their way as LOTR. I have gained encouragement in this task from Niggle the Painter, and from the Author who wrote these things in, as he said, “a period in which I had many duties which I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me” (from the Foreward to the Ballantine edition).

And I have been much encouraged in every aspect of life by Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn, Eowyn of Rohan, Faramir, Legolas and Gimli, and many others in both the LOTR and the Silmarillion. This encouragement is very much akin to what one gains from the Communion of Saints. I do not think that it demeans either the real Saints whom we revere and follow or the imaginative creatures of fiction to say so.

... in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small.... The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the ‘happy ending.’ The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. (from the Epilogue: “On Fairy-Stories”)

The Queen's Birthday

V. O Lord, save the Queen
R. And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.

The Queen's Birthday

For many years, R.B. (a member of our parish) hosted a Tea for the Queen’s Birthday. It would be at a local park, complete with a brass quintet playing “Rule, Britannia” and other appropriate music. Ladies were expected to wear hats and gloves; gentlemen to wear ties and jackets. Expatriate Britons from hundreds of miles around came, along with many of us Yanks. It was always an Event of the first magnitude.

R.B.’s funeral was earlier this spring, so he did not make it to Her Majesty’s eighty-fifth birthday. But I would expect that he might have been looking on from the Upper Gallery seats in heaven, probably bursting with pride at young Prince William in his red uniform and bearskin hat, and the beautiful young Princess Catherine, the new Duchess of Cambridge.

R.B., we miss you.

I am an American. I am proud of our nation. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are among my heroes. But sometimes I wish we had someone like Queen Elizabeth.

My favorite portrayal of her is outside Parliament in Ottawa, a statue which I have admired in person.

Ever a lover of horses, she is astride “Centennial,” who formerly served in the RCMP and was given to her by the people of Canada in honor of their centennial. Here is another photo.

Her role is almost entirely ceremonial; the reins of government are in other hands. But as Prime Ministers come and go, she has been a rock of stability, and, in her way, represents Great Britain to the world.

And she appears to take seriously her role as Fidei defensor, Defender of the Faith. A turning point for me in my appreciation of the monarchy was a day when I was browsing in the library at graduate school, and happened on a program from her coronation in 1953. It was an Anglican ceremony of Holy Communion complete with the Proper Preface for Coronations, a far cry from the manner in which we inaugurate Presidents.

I love the rubric at the beginning of the text that “Care is to be taken that the Ampulla be filled with Oil for the anointing, and together with the Spoon, be laid ready upon the Altar in the Abbey Church.” I can well imagine the Altar Guild at the Abbey seeing to this detail.

Archbishop: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law?

Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?

And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?

Queen: All this I promise to do.

There was much fine choral music, beginning with Parry’s “I was glad” and including the newly-composed settings of “O taste and see” and “All creatures that on earth do dwell” by Vaughan Williams.

We have nothing like this in the United States. I wish we did.

(I can hear Mr. Jefferson off in the distance muttering something about separation of Church and State…)

A prayer for the Queen’s Majesty (from the BCP services of Matins and Evensong)

O Lord, our heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth: Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen ELIZABETH; and so replenish her with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that she may alway incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. Endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant her in health and wealth long to live; strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies; and finally after this life she may attain everlasting joy and felicity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

JRRT, Part Two

As mentioned last time, there are many places in LOTR where one can easily find parallels to the Christian narrative which is the Story in which we live. Here are a few:

The nature of Evil:

The beginning of the Silmarillion, the “Ainulindale,” is the creation myth of Middle-Earth, beginning “There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar...” And the creation begins in Music.

... the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void. Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Iluvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Iluvatar after the end of days.

Melkor, who had “the greatest gifts of power and knowledge” among the Ainur, seeks to defile the Song, filling it with discord. But Iluvatar, the One, responds with a new theme:

... it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds... but it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and profundity. And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time ... and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came.... The other ... was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated ... and it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern. (The Silmarillion, p. 5)

Through the ensuing ages of the world, servants of Melkor continue his work of defilement. It seems inherent to Evil that it hates everything that is alive. It hates the green Earth and all the free creatures that walk in the light. It cannot create; it can only pervert. The Orcs and other servants of the Dark Lord delight in wanton destruction. Saruman, especially, can be seen as a representative of the scientific materialism that is destroying the natural environment.

Then there is Gollum. All of us, I think, have some of Gollum within us. Even he is given an opportunity for redemption. I will speak later of Frodo as a Christ-figure; it is perhaps in his pity on this miserable creature whom he has every reason to hate that Frodo is most like our Lord.

Through most of the tale, Evil seems to be stronger than that which is Good. And that brings us to:

The operations of Divine Providence: “What some would call chance”

“Behind this there was something also at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the ring,and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.” (Gandalf, speaking to Frodo: FOTR I.2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

The prayer of Grace at meals:

Faramir and his company face west in silence before their meals.

‘So we always do,’ he said, as they sat down: ‘We look toward Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be. Have you no such custom at meat?’ ‘No,’ said Frodo, feeling strangely rustic and untutored. (TTT II.5, “The Window on the West”)

The Sacrament of Holy Communion:

There are many analogies between this and Lembas. I have written on this elsewhere.

Devotion toward Our Lady:

In this matter, Galadriel, the “Lady of the Golden Wood” is a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as is Elbereth.

After leaving Bag End, the three Hobbits are almost discovered by a Black Rider. He slinks away as Elves approach. They sing of Elbereth “in the fair Elven-tongue, of which Frodo knows only a little, and the others know nothing. Yet the sound blending with the melody seemed to shape itself in their thought into words which they only partly understood ... The song ended. ‘These are High-Elves! They spoke the name of Elbereth!’ said Frodo in amazement.” (FOTR I.3, “Three is Company”)

This is the experience that many Catholics and other persons of faith have upon hearing liturgical chant in Latin, the ancient tongue of the Western Church: “the sound blending with the melody seemed to shape itself in their thought into words.” The song which the Elves sang, “A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!” is a close analogue to the chant Ave Maris Stella. JRRT doubtless heard this sung at the close of Compline on many occasions. Even as the name of Elbereth identified the singers as High-Elves, so does the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, uttered in song and prayer, identify a Catholic (or Orthodox) Christian.

When Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas encounter the Riders of Rohan, Eomer speaks ill of the Lady, in a way that JRRT and other Catholics often encountered from Protestants who misunderstand Marian devotion. Gimli answers “‘... let Gimli the Dwarf Gloin’s son warn you against foolish words. You speak evil of that which is fair beyond the reach of your thought, and only little wit can excuse you.’” (TTT I.2, “The Riders of Rohan”)

Later, they appear before Theoden, King of Rohan. Wormtongue speaks of the “Sorceress of the Golden Wood” and her “webs of deceit.” This was enough to push the already-simmering Gandalf into action. But first, he sings:

“In Dwimordene, in Lorien
Seldom have walked the feet of Men,
Few mortal eyes have seen the light
That lives there ever, long and bright.
Galadriel! Galadriel!” (TTT I.6, “The King of the Golden Hall”)

Visions of the Heavenly Places:

One of the treasures of JRRT’s writings is his uncanny skill in place-description, often in only a few words. There are many examples in LOTR of places that, for me, have become visions of the “fair and blessed country” which we seek. Some emphasize one aspect, some another, for we can do no more than this: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard...” (I Corinthians 2:9)

The two most prominent examples are Rivendell and Lorien. The first emphasizes the blessedness of coming Home to “a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or storytelling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all” (FOTR II.1, “Many Meetings). The second emphasizes the natural order, freed at last from bondage to sin and death. “It seemed to them that they did little but eat and drink and rest, and walk among the trees, and it was enough” (FOTR II.7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”).

There are others, from the house of Tom Bombadil to the forest dwellings of Treebeard and Quickbeam, and the city of Minas Tirith, especially as Boromir speaks of it as he dies and Pippin later sees it for the first time, “the Guarded City, with its seven walls of stone so strong and old that it seemed to have been not builded but carven by giants out of the stones of the earth” (ROTK I.1, “Minas Tirith”).

I have spoken somewhat of this elsewhere.

Christ-figures: Frodo, Gandalf, Strider

All three represent various aspects of our Lord Jesus Christ. Frodo is the “suffering Servant” in many respects, especially in the last parts of ROTK as he and Sam make their way across the Plains of Gorgoroth and up the mountain.

Gandalf, in his fall into the depths of Moria struggling with the Balrog, ultimately overcoming it, and (as it were) returning from death as Gandalf the White, is Christ in his defeat of the Enemy, descent into Hell, and Resurrection.

Strider is the true King, hidden from view, returning to his rightful patrimony in a manner akin to the Second Coming of Christ for which we long (e.g., Revelation 19:11-21). “When the King returns” had become a figure of speech in Gondor; few actually expected it. And some would prefer that it never happen.

So it is with our Lord for whom we wait. Mention of his return in majesty to "judge both the quick and the dead" is most often met with derision.

The Life Everlasting:

“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.” (ROTK Appendix A.v, “a part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen”)

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all into silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise. (ROTK II.9, “The Grey Havens”)

The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. . . .”

This is a tale that begins as something akin to a beast-fable such as "The Wind in the Willows." Here we have little creatures with furry feet who live in snug little holes with round doors, and Dwarves who, when one encounters them at the beginning of "The Hobbit," are much like their equivalents in “Snow White” and similar tales: “Dwalin and Balin, and Kili and Fili, and Dori, Nori, Oir, Oin, and Gloin, and “Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and especially Thorin!” (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”). We have a Wizard, who is a slightly comical fellow with bushy eyebrows. And we have Bilbo Baggins, as unlikely a character for High Fantasy as can be imagined.

One of the marvels of this tale is the manner in which it moves from the comfortable environs of Bag End and Hobbiton to the world of Men and Elves and the great affairs of the wise and strong, of good and evil. As late as the “Sign of the Prancing Pony” (The Fellowship of the Ring: Part I, Chapter 9, or for brevity here and elsewhere: FOTR I.9) the whole tale could be taken as a children’s story: a pleasant diversion, but nothing of import.

The gradual change into a grown-up tale, which I consider worthy to stand alongside the likes of the Odyssey and Iliad of Homer, is foreshadowed in “The Shadow of the Past” (FOTR I.2), and comes irrevocably with Strider (FOTR I.10):

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost. . . .”

Then again -- another marvel of this tale -- the homely atmosphere of a children’s fable never quite leaves the story, for these little hobbits are at the center of it. They are neither strong nor valiant, and the Powers of the world consider them to be of no import, not even as potential slaves. But, as it proves, they alone can save the world. And in so doing, “these hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and remoter cousins to the ninth degree” (TTT I.8, “The Road to Isengard”).

This is not an Allegory.

The Shire of the Hobbits, lovely though it is, is only a small corner of the wide world. Its people are inconsequential. Are they not like the Children of Israel, in their small homeland on the edge of empires? For, through much of the Tale in which we are part, the Story centers in the Kingdom of Judah, an unlikely and backwards little place, by the time of Hezekiah and the last Kings perhaps forty by ninety miles in extent, hardly larger than the county in which I reside (and smaller than the Shire). But it is through this nation, from beginning to end a strange and unlikely people, most often the object of scorn and derision, and always on the edge of extinction by one Final Solution or another, that salvation has come to the world.

Tolkien insisted, repeatedly, that LOTR was not an Allegory. Neither is it an overtly Christian tale in the manner of the "Chronicles of Narnia" or "Perelandra" Many Tolkien fans are positively anti-Christian, and enjoy the books without any thought of connections with Christianity. But the tale is suffused with it, and that is one of its greatest strengths.

I could easily multiply examples for many pages; a few must suffice. And those few must wait for another time.

[Part Two; Part Three]

Rogation Days

Attemper fair with gentle air
the sunshine and the rain,
that kindly earth with timely birth
may yield her fruits again:
(from a Rogation hymn by Edward White Benson – number 292 in the Hymnal 1982)

The weather has lately been unkind in our part of the world and elsewhere. Strange weather it is, intensifying the old patterns of storm and tempest, the extremes of heat and cold. Long-settled patterns of rainfall and temperature are shifting.

We can, and must, seek the blessing of God for this growing season, this summer of 2011 when there are many people around the world for whom the inflation in food prices causes hardship. Rogation Days, which are the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, are the Church's traditional time for such prayer. But we must petition our Lord God with full awareness that we are reaping what we have sown. Climate change is in part our own doing, and that of our ancestors. The atmosphere can be described as a large heat engine. Through global warming, we have added energy to the engine, and we are seeing the results.

Simultaneously, we have neglected the land and those who live and work in agricultural communities here and around the world. Instead of farming, we have “agribusiness,” which consumes topsoil, ground water, and fossil fuels as “inputs” without regard for the future. Instead of nurturing strong rural communities, agribusiness destroys them, both here in the U.S. and around the world, where many have been driven by poverty from the land into urban slums while the fields are devoted to luxury export crops for the developed world.

We humbly beseech thee, O Father, mercifully to look upon our infirmities; and, for the glory of thy Name, turn from us all those evils that we most justly have deserved; and grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in thy mercy, and evermore serve thee in holiness and pureness of living, to thy honor and glory; through our only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 155, at the end of the Supplication)

Some repentance and amendment of life would be in order. But even were we all to immediately downscale our lives, respect the environment, and return to sustainable ways of life, we would still reap what we and recent generations have sown; the feedback loops are slow and much damage has been done.

Our one hope is in the LORD, “who gives food to all creatures, for his mercy endures for ever.” (Psalm 136:25)

“Mercy” could here be translated as “love” (NEB), or “steadfast love” (NRSV); it could also be “goodness” (as in Luther's Bible: “Güte”), or “lovingkindness.” It is Chesed, which is one of the Words of the Hebrew language – like Kippur, or Qodesh, or Shalom, or the Names of God – large Words which carry more meaning than any single English equivalent. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon has almost a full page (pp. 338-9) on this root word and its derivatives, which I commend to those who wish to delve further into it. Psalm 136, that great psalm of praise, gives this phrase twenty-six times as a response to the mighty acts of God: “for his mercy endures for ever.” Chesed is at the very heart of God, the Sacred Heart of our Lord.

Though he loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3), God is not going to bail us out, no more than he bailed out Israel and Judah when their sins brought captivity and destruction upon them. But, as he was with them, so will he be with us, no matter how dark it may be.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18)