On the Civilised Heart

The civilised mind is full of wisdom and past regard. But what is the civilised heart? A direct answer would be Bach. Why civilisation at all, with barbarity so entertaining?

            I attended a Choral Scholarship Appeal yesterday. The high arts have always needed patrons; benefactors have many calls on their resources. Why is the training of these young singers important? Why are sixteen voices more beneficial than eight? Could every cent given to music, painting, or literature better serve with the poor?

            In seeking the welfare of the city, attention (a form of therapy) must be given to the sense or significance of values. Barbarity in the form of greed heaps up riches while the soul may be required before nightfall. How to understand human fate or come to terms with divine matters?

            Civilisation refers to societies with highly developed arts, sciences, religion and government; not fundamentalism, despotism, denial (whether unscientific or unhistorical), illiteracy of language, arts, or music. It’s a privilege to be a civilised person, to act with civility.

            Where knowledge meets human feeling, the heart is civilised to consider other than self. So yes, it is important. The arts provide a civilised heart.

On Going Slow

Lent is a desert. It partakes of that holy isolation beloved of early church ascetics, in contrast to those who dwell naturally in the desert, who may find it quite a crowded place. For there are invisible cities and rungs of association, even in the most spacious desert.

            It’s called quaresima, ‘forty days’. As if these were the only 40 days there are. In Advent, we look forward, but in Lent we look back. Our whole salvation history lies in Lent. And we have time to repent: slowly, lento, as music wants to reflect on a phrase or develop a theme.

            Thank God, we can stop pretending to be what we are not: invincible, immortal, insatiable. We consume less. Live as Ecclesiastes says, between frugality and feast. We jettison what will not float: I like to start with prejudices (still got many). We exercise the virtue of moderation.

            Why Lent? Why the liturgical year at all? Why liturgy, come to that? The liturgies of antiquity were obligations of the rich to civic benefaction, keeping the city in everything:  aqueducts, baths, libraries, public banquets. A liturgy lasted all year. We could embrace a Lenten liturgy: giving up, and taking up.