Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-2-16

The great composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived between 1685 and 1750, universally is regarded as one of the great music-makers of the human race; certainly on almost every critic’s list of the great composers of all time.

Bach received additional plaudits when in 1977 the Voyager spacecraft was sent to nowhere in particular except up, with the hope that, hurtling beyond the solar system and maybe the galaxy, it might some day intersect some civilization in a remote part of the universe. Perhaps, it was hoped, aliens would discover and understand something of mankind from the spacecraft’s unique payload – a copper and gold alloy disk with images and music, estimated by its designers “to last a billion years.”

Among the playlist of global music, Bach was the only composer represented thrice: the Second Brandenburg Concerto, first movement, performed by Karl Richter and the Munich Bach Orchestra; the Gavotte from the Violin Partita No. 3; and the Prelude and Fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 were chosen to represent humankind’s creative profile.

At the time, biologist Lewis Thomas was asked what he would have nominated for this message to unknown civilizations about humankind. “The complete works of J.S. Bach,” he suggested. “But that would be boasting.”

Such are the sorts of tributes due to Old Bach, among countless heartfelt tributes when trained musicians and common laymen and everyone in between have their hearts melt and their souls stirred by his music.

Bach himself saw his music – and his entire life – as a tribute, instead, in all humility and with his priorities straight, to God Almighty. He was aware, but not vain, about his music-making gifts, gifts from God. Therefore his talents deserved to be raised up to God. In his life, he was first a Christian; second a family man; third, a man who made music. He made music, wrote music, composed music, taught music, was an innovator of music, breathed music, as did his family tree of 40-odd Bachs before, during, and after his own lifetime.

More than half of his approximately 1800 compositions (1200 of which survive) were of Christian focus: cantatas and chorales, motets and masses, Passions and Oratorios.

Yet for all his mighty “secular” works of keyboard and organ pieces, suites and concerti, songs and fugues (whew!)… he viewed all of them, too, to be written as unto the Lord. He knew the Source of his inspiration, and the One to whom credit was due.

Bach began virtually every composition, even his secular music, with a blank paper on which he wrote, Jesu, juva (“Jesus, help me”) on the upper left corner of the first page; and Soli Deo Gloria (“To God alone the glory”) on the bottom right corner of the finished ending.

His was a personal relationship with the Savior, not a professional duty even when he was employed by churches.

Such “bookends” were as anointing oil over all of Bach’s creative work. So did he begin and end his days – and his life – with such petition and praise: “Jesus, help me” and “To God alone be all the glory.” With or without the mode of music, such dedication speaks to us through the years.

The “S.D.G.” (his occasional abbreviation) should have a special meaning to us today. Most people of the 21st century, understand “God,” and understand “glory.” But it is hard for us, in contemporary times, to understand how a man like Johann Sebastian Bach could say, and mean, “alone” in that Credo. Can we?

Emerging cultures and emerging churches have compartmentalized every aspect of life, including God, and arguments are made that God would have it that way. Not so! “Personal fulfillment” is the artist’s goal in today’s world. But to Bach’s worldview, such an idea was an offense.

God “alone” is the source, the content, and the goal of artistic expression. Alone.

These prayers, and the prioritization of “ALONE” when we thank God, is how we should live, and how we should pray. Not (virtually) “thanks for helping me in this way or that way, God”; but “Thank you for being my inspiration, my helper, my right hand, my goal… my all in all.”

When we are too busy to pray, we are… too busy. We all know this, yet it happens. But if – at least – we start every day with the brief “Jesus, help me” as Bach began his compositions; and if we ended every day with “To God alone be the glory,” we will be in appropriate frames of mind.

We will start dwelling on the profound and proper life-truths of those simple prayers. We will not escape from their gentle but deep implications. We will expand on them in our active thoughts, and in our subconscious moments. We will hide those words and their implications in our hearts.

The truths spoken to our lives will become like… tunes we cannot get out of our minds. Like many of Bach’s themes. Musical and spiritual.

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The second movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite:

Click: Bach’s “Air”

9-16-13

Either God exists, or He doesn’t.

The question this statement poses, among uncountable other speculative, philosophical, ontological, and even religious questions, is THE most basic and most important that can be asked of human beings, or any beings.

As someone who is secure in the answer, I was confronted by the question this week in a way that never escapes anyone’s imaginings. The Voyager I spacecraft, NASA announced, has left the friendly confines of our solar system. Not the universe, of course, for that ends… well, we are not quite sure where. But Voyager has crossed the border of our Sun’s “bubble” of “plasma” – charged electrons in “empty” space whose density changed, though differently than expected, when Voyager passed over the line into interstellar “space.”

The inherent limitations of conceptualizing scientific facts, no less than imperfectly understanding scientific theories, has us turn to inverted commas and air-quotes. I will save electrons, myself, by dropping all these quotation marks. But we should keep them at the ready, because they represent the intellectual crutches we often need when discussing such things. We – humans – know more and more every day; by one estimate, every eight months we discover and learn more things than in all of mankind’s previous history. Yet even with Voyager the assumptions about the density of outer-space electrons, in these otherwise empty-seeming neighborhoods of the universe, have been revised. Interstellar plasma is acting differently than scientists predicted. And brand-new questions about magnetic forces in space, not just as carried by solar wind inside the solar system, have presented themselves.

My brain starts to hurt too, despite the thrill of such data. Perhaps we will learn more when Voyager reaches its next sun’s neighborhood. Be sure to stock up on provisions, if you plan to wait for that news; that will not happen for another 40,000 years. Such is the vastness of our universe.

By then, Voyager probably still will be hurtling along, but its information-gathering and transmitting facilities expired. Interestingly, the probe, which was launched in 1977, has computers far less complex than of any smartphone today. It records data on… yes, an 8-track cassette. And it sends that data back to earth by a 20-watt signal. By comparison, a radio station near where I live has a thousand-watt transmitter, and can be heard for a range of 25 miles or so. Yet, we launched Voyager, it observes, and we learn: a modern, and more peaceful, turn on Caesar’s “Veni, vidi, vici” – “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

Amidst this week’s tsunami of news of wars, rumors of wars, crises, corruption, killings and beheadings, revolutions, disasters of weather, economies, and human folly, we have this news that takes our minds (and I hope the imaginations of our spirits) to other things. Out of this world. Almost by definition, eternal things. If you didn’t see photos or artist conceptions, or movies of distant solar systems and planets, watch the video whose link is at the end of this essay. We inevitably are in awe.

In awe of what? There is that question again. If God doesn’t exist, the theories of atheists and agnostics and secularists about when the universe was formed, why it was formed, and how it was formed are interesting (or not) only as speculation.

Although theories abound, no one comes close – absent the God Proposition – to advancing any sort of a definitive idea about when the universe began (including the question of what was here previously, wherever here is); how large the universe is (when the question includes “what, then, lies beyond its borders?”); and how, just how, then, did we get here? There are scientific ideas… that often change. And these questions are lights-years from the larger question facing scientists: Why?

The fact that no human has, by oneself, answers for such questions does not automatically prove the existence of God. There is no proof, which is why it is called Faith. But it does suggest a universal prerequisite, humility, when one addresses such questions without what I call the God Proposition.

My explanation of why many “intelligent” (yes, I will resurrect the quotation marks) people reject God is that we all of us have a latent desire to BE God, to be in control of our situations, to have all the answers. Unfortunately, among the primitive, including sophisticated primitives, this leads to superstition. At the other extreme it leads to oppression, destruction, and death; that is, when clever and resourceful men presume to be gods, the eternal temptation consumes. Never has a mortal been able to benignly control others – an oxymoronic concept anyway – when none ever has been able to control his own self, and the “base passions” of our spiritual DNA… absent the God Proposition.

More than the rudimentary computer systems on Voyager was something of greater significance. In the hope that the craft might meet some alien civilization in a remote part of the universe, it carried a unique payload – a copper and gold alloy disk (estimated by its designers “to last a billion years”) with greetings in 115 earth-languages; some images of our species and schematic maps of earth; and music. The first selection was a recording of the Second Brandenburg Concerto, first movement, by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Karl Richter and the Munich Bach Orchestra. Among the playlist of global music, Bach was the only composer represented thrice; the Gavotte from the Violin Partita No. 3, and the Prelude and Fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 were the other pieces chosen to represent humankind’s creative profile.

Biologist Lewis Thomas was asked what he would have nominated for this message to unknown civilizations. “The complete works of J.S. Bach,” he said. “But that would be boasting.” I love the (proper) tribute to mankind’s greatest music-maker, but it is interesting that our greetings, our physical likenesses, and our greatest artistic expressions were sent aboard Voyager, in hopes of telling the Universe about us.

… but, significantly, the designers and programmers chose to skip the crowded narratives of human history that are filled, like this week’s headlines, or any week’s headlines, with war, cruelty, murder, and oppression. A half-truth can be no different than a lie. We wanted to show what earth is like, what humanity has done. We just wanted to sanitize the story.

But in my view, there comes that “God Proposition” once again. The dirty little secret, deep down in all our souls, is that our natures are sinful, and many humans have tended to kick and scratch and resist God… but there is also a part of us that yearns for the God who sees good things, and has created good things, and wants to share good things. Part of us – because God planted such yearnings – seeks the good: sometime, occasionally, we have the same impulses as our God.

We don’t need to understand every little (unknowable) thing about the universe and God; we do need to accept Him. It should not be difficult! We cannot be God, no matter how hard some will try. And though we know Him imperfectly, and even love Him imperfectly, we can rest assured that He knows us, and He loves us, perfectly.

Just look at the stars and the galaxies and the universe, fellow voyager.

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I chose another of Johann Sebastian Bach’s immortal works, the second movement of his Third Orchestral Suite, BWV 1068, commonly known as “Air On the G-String.” Images are from NASA probes, including from the Hubbell Space Telescope. N.B.: the text’s passage about Bach’s music aboard Voyager is adapted from my biography of Bach published by Thomas Nelson, 2011.

Click: Bach’s Air On the G-String