Feast days are assigned to saints on the day that they died. While on the official Catholic Church calendar, today is the feast day of Lawrence, Deacon and martyr (he gave new meaning to the word barbecue), I celebrate instead today the feast day of my sister, Mary Ruth.
Mary Ruth as a toddler.
Mary Ruth was 42 years old when she died of Crohn’s disease on this day in 1997. Ruthie and I our daughters, Meg and Beth, my mom and my dad, and Mary’s great friend, Dr Bob Conlin were present when she died very early in the morning at St Joseph’s Hospital in St Paul, MN. She suffered for many years from Crohn’s, probably had 20+ surgeries over the 20-25 years she had the illness. She almost died any number of times from it. Yet, she continued to travel, continued to work as an OT, until her illness forced her to retire, and was working on a doctorate at the time of her death. She had drive. She had moxie, and she inherited the tenaciousness and stubborness from her Polish ancestry (in my opinion). She knew more about Crohn’s than her internist.
My favorite photograph of Dad and Mary Ruth.
Dad was devoted to her care, preparing her bag of nutrients every day for hyperalimentation (the only way she could receive nutrients intravenously). After her death, he felt great loss … not only because he lost his daughter, but from the moment of his retirement, his life was focused on caring for her (Mary and Dad had a great bond of love for one another).
Mary (aka Aunt Dee) with her nephew, Andy, and her niece, Meg.
In 2005, about a year after Dad died, Mom related a dream she had about Mary that eased her mind greatly. She said that in the dream, she found herself at the door of a house. A very beautiful woman opened the door and welcomed her and invited her into the house. My Mom asked if she could see Mary, and the beautiful woman told her she could, but to wait where she was. When the woman returned she led mom to a room that had a window upon which my Mom could see Mary. Mom said Mary looked so healthy, so happy as she played with little children on the floor of the room. Mom said there was a young bearded man standing in the room, smiling as he observed Mary. The beautiful woman led mom back to room she had been, when Mary came, hugged my Mom, and said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I am so happy!” Mom told me that then the dream ended, and she felt completely at peace. She said that the dream was so real that all her senses were engaged. She concluded by saying, “I think that the beautiful woman was the Blessed Mother, and the young bearded man was Jesus.” I affirmed Mom’s experience.
Mary Ruth loved Christmas. If Dad had his way, the only Christmas decoration he would have put up would be the Christmas Creche. But he would go out of his way to put up all sorts of Christmas decorations for Mary.
A dying nun, who had befriended Mary during her illness, once expressed to my sister, several years, earlier, “Mary, when my body dies, the cancer also dies. But, I will continue to live.” How true! When our bodies die, we do NOT die, but continue to live more fully than ever before. As a near-death survivor once expressed to me, “Our bodies are like space suits in which we are able to interact and live in this world. Like space suits, and all things, they wear out. However, we do not die but move on to a whole new existence.”
A new born Mary Ruth, home for the first time. Dad was so happy!
Mary Ruth has never left me, nor has my Mom or my Dad, my brother, Bill, Ruthie’s mom, Rose, her Uncle Harold and Aunt Ev, and so many others whom I have loved. They are here with me, all the time. This is was marvelously attributed to by my own sister two days before she died. Mom and I were with her in hospice when Mary suddenly began to greet many of our dead relatives in the room. She turned to mom and I and said, “They are playing my song. I’m not ready to hear it.” She was right. She still had two more days before she joined in the song.
Mary Ruth and her dog, Nickie (Nickodemus).
SONGS FOR MARY
Over the years, I composed three songs for my sister, Mary Ruth. The first two were gifts to Mary Ruth on her birthday.
Song One
This song was composed for Mary in the mid to late 70’s. I had just begun to compose in earnest, and was still exploring my skills as a composer.
Psalm Offering 5 Opus 1 (for Mary Ruth Wagner) (c) 1974 by Robert C Wagner. All rights reserved.
This second song was composed as a birthday present for Mary Ruth in the early 90’s. I taped a rudimentary recording of it for her, and gave her the original music I scribbled on music manuscript paper. I made a photocopy and put it in a file. In 2016, I had wanted to publish it and could only find the first page and the final page. I still had a copy of the cassette tape. So I played it over and over again, and painstakingly recreated all the music on paper to get the complete song. I then, re-recorded it for the album.
Psalm Offering 3, Opus 4 (for Mary Ruth Wagner) (c) 1990 by Robert C Wagner, All rights reserved.
The third and final song was composed as a memorial to my sister, Mary Ruth, following her death. It had begun as a setting of a Psalm used on Good Friday, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” I had dedicated the original choral anthem to my sister. In 2018, I decided to recompose it as a piano song in her memory around this time of the year.
Psalm Offering 2, Opus 9 (In memory of Mary Ruth Wagner) (c) 2018 by Robert C. Wagner, All rights reserved.Mary Ruth, about three years before her death.
Rahab, leading the Israelite spies to safety. (woodcut by Schnoor von Carolsfeld)
God so often chooses the most unlikely of people to play major roles in Salvation History. God chose Rahab, a Canaanite woman and prostitute in Jericho, to not only save the two Israelite spies seeking to find the weaknesses in that city state, but she would be one of many women who would give birth to children in a line of ancestry that will stretch from David to Jesus.
COMMENTARY
In my research for both the music and poem, I consulted a resource written by Phyllis Bird, entitled,”The Harlot as Heroine: Narrative Art and Social Presuppositions in Three Old Testament Texts.” The title of this article illustrates clearly that the scandal which we often assign to people because of their past actions, their culture, their place in society, or the work that they do, is not scandalous to God. God is always inclusive, and never exclusive. Christians, of all people, should be aware of the inclusiveness of Jesus, who welcomed into his intimate community of friends and followers, tax collectors, prostitutes, armed revolutionaries, along with those plying many trades. Jesus’ own religious leaders were scandalized by those who kept Jesus company. It should also be noted that it was the one who was the most prominent among his company who would ultimately plan in collusion the death of Jesus and betray him.
THE STORY
Rahab, a Canaanite woman and a prostitute (according to Hebraic Biblical sources), invites into her home two Israelite spies. She knows well the path of destruction that this army of nomadic people had caused throughout Canaan, city after city, king after king, destroyed and occupied by the Israelites. With the Israelites outside his city wall, the king of Jericho is greatly alarmed and orders the death of the Israelite spies. Rahab, hides the spies and tells the king’s soldiers that she does not know where they might be hiding. She negotiates with the spies that she will lead them to safety if they will spare her and her family when they take the city. They agree and tell her that she must gather all who are important to her within her house. From the mantle of her door, she must hang a red thread. Israelite soldiers seeing the thread would pass by her house and not cause her and any within harm. She lets them out the window of her home, which is part of the wall of the city. The red thread hanging from her mantle, spares Rahab and her family from death and destruction, just as the Angel of Death passed by all Israelite homes whose mantle was painted with the blood of the paschal lamb. The genealogy of Matthew mentions Rahab as one of the great women in the ancestry of David and Jesus.
THE MUSIC
Canticle for Rahab, (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
Composed in three part form (ABA), there are two distinct melodies. The melody and tempo of the first part invoke a sense of peace and tranquility. This is Rahab’s theme, representing the peace and safety that Rahab and her home provided all people. The middle section of the song, changes from a major key to a minor key and the tempo increases greatly. The melody represents the fear, chaos, and violence that exist outside the door of Rahab, prior and during the battle for Jericho. Rahab’s theme is repeated in the third section of the song, again representing the mantle of peace and safetly that Rahab extends to those in her company.
THE POEM
CANTICLE FOR RAHAB
A proud Canaanite woman, you are a professional. A member of the ancient trade, your home, your place of work, the intimacy of your bed and body providing needed comfort to men, weary from travel, seeking solace and peace in your arms.
Unlike the bawdy houses of yore, your home is a safe haven from the chaos that exists within the human heart and outside of its walls. In the quiet that follows passion, whispered stories, of a nomadic army of former slaves from a foreign land, invading, leveling, and occupying cities in Canaan.
Two men not your normal clientele, their language and customs, their clothing and manner foreign to you appear at your door. As with so many of your clients, you invite them into your home. The secrets of body and soul shared, they seek, more perilously, to explore the secrets of your city. Their army lay outside the city, a wild fire of fear and alarm spreads like a plague in the streets outside your home.
A woman of business, hiding them from the King’s police, you negotiate a price for your silence, safety for yourself and your family. Like the mantles painted red with the blood of the paschal lamb, protected their people from the Angel of Death, a mere red thread hanging from the mantle of your door protects you and all within the home from the scourge that will reign in the streets of the city.
Your home, the peace within a stark contrast to the violence outside. Who could have foreseen that a woman of your profession, a Canaanite woman, at that, from the safe, peaceful haven of your womb would be born the ancestor of not only David, but the ancestor of the Messiah?
(c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Me, on my dad’s lap, my dad, and my brother, Bill.
My dad is the greatest man I have ever known. Understanding, loving, patient, a man of great faith, and the wisdom figure of my family. I remember when my dad died, as mom was out of the hospital room making arrangements with the funeral home, I sat by my dad’s side. I felt humbled and alarmed when I realized that I was now suppose to be the wisdom figure of the family. I thought, “Boy, everyone is going to be SOL (shit out of luck). What I have realized since then, is that though dad’s body may have died in 2004, he is still very much alive and present to me. Whenever I feel in need of his wisdom, all I do is call on him and he never fails to continue to inspire me.
Below is the first song I composed for my dad when I was a freshman in college majoring in music. It is heavily influenced by the Chopin Preludes I was practicing at the time.
Psalm Offering 1, Opus 1 (for my Dad) (c) 1970 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
This song and poem is the seventh in the song cycle devoted to women of the Hebrew Scriptures. Tamar, compared to so many other heroic women of the Hebrew Scriptures, is an unlikely heroine. Given the circumstances in which she lived, however, she is ingenious in using the means available to her to not only assure security for herself, but an important place in Salvation History.
THE STORY OF TAMAR (Genesis 38)
Judah had three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. Judah provided a wife for his first born son, Er. Her name was Tamar. All we know of Er, is that he was wicked in the eyes of God, and God killed him. As was the custom, to assure Tamar a place in the family, she was given to Onan, who was to act as a Levir, or surrogate for his dead brother, Er. However, because if he fathered a son with Tamar, Onan would not his receive the full share of his inheritance, when he has sexual relations with Tamar, he spills his semen on the ground. This act displeased God so greatly, that God kills Onan. Because Judah feared that Tamar was cursed and anyone marrying her was doomed to die, he did not want his youngest son to marry her. Judah ordered her to return to her father and remain chaste and a widow, never to ever remarry.
Tamar condemned to this Limbo and not free to marry, decides to take action that would assure her security in the family of Judah. She decides to disguise herself as a prostitute and have sexual relations with Judah. Placing a veil over her face, she sits and waits for him at the city gate. Judah, returning from the sheep-shearing festival, coins in his pocket, drunk and randy is an easy mark for Tamar. He promises her a kid from his flock if she would have sexual relations with him. She agrees if she can have his staff and seal to keep until she receives payment. They have sexual relations, with Judah leaving his staff and seal with her. When he sends his servant back to the city to give her the kid and retrieve his staff and seal, she has vanished.
In the meantime, Tamar’s relations with Judah has resulted in a pregnancy. After three months, people report to Judah that Tamar is 3 months pregnant and has disobeyed his order to remain chaste, a crime that is punishable by death. Judah orders that she be brought to him and be burned at the stake. Tamar appears before him and presents to Judah his staff and seal. Judah recognizes that he is the father of the child she is carrying. He receives Tamar back into his household, assuring her security for the rest of her life. She gives birth to twins, Perez and Zerah. Because Judah has unknowingly honored the obligation of the levirate, he no longer cohabitates with her. From Perez would come the line of David.
COMMENTARY ON THE STORY
As you read the story of Tamar, I am sure you might wonder, “Why, Tamar?” She does not possess the historic importance and courage of Deborah and Jael. She is not a prophet and sister of Moses like Miriam. Her role and position was, for the most part, rather minimal. However, as you read the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of Matthew, she is one of the few women of Hebrew scriptures that Matthew thought it very important to document. She is an important and essential part of the Messianic ancestry of Jesus. Given the low position that women possessed in the Patriarchal Times documented in the Hebrew Scriptures, she took the initiative and means available to her to make sure of some security for herself. Disguising one as a prostitute in order to conceive the child of her father-in-law is not an activity of shame, but rather an activity of desperation to insure survival. It is as heroic as the self-sacrifice of Fantine, in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable, who endured the degradation of prostitution to provide for her daughter, Cosette.
We never know what made Er wicked in the eyes of God. We know why God killed Onan, who disobeyed God’s will by refusing to father a child with Tamar. As I reflected on her story, I thought that God, fully knowing Salvation History, decided that the character of these two men made them unworthy to father a child who would be an integral part in the lineage of the Messiah. Tamar’s sexual relations with Judah, her father-in-law, may seem to be incestuous to us and to the people at the time of Judah. However, Judah was unaware with whom he was having sexual relations (Tamar was veiled), and, in the end, unknowingly performs the function of the Levir of being a surrogate father to a widowed woman in the family to assure her a place in his family. He never had sexual relations with her ever again.
The Holy Spirit is the inspiration behind all that is good, even when that “good” may seem to us a contradiction to the teachings of our religious traditions. It is easy for us to judge and condemn the actions of others without knowing the intent behind their actions. Judah was prepared to execute Tamar for her infidelity by burning her at the stake, insensitive to the hell to which he had condemned her. He had no foreknowledge of the important role that both he and Tamar would play in producing a child who was integral part of the lineage of the Messiah. The idea that it was God’s Spirit who inspired Tamar to take the radical step of disguising herself as a prostitute in order to bear a child of Judah. Did the idea of securing the staff and seal to prove to Judah that he was the father of her child originate solely on the wits of Tamar, or did God’s Spirit inspire her to ask for them. I believe it was the Holy Spirit. And, it was the Holy Spirit that opened the eyes and the mind of Judah to acknowledge that he was the father of Tamar’s child. We often say that “God works in mysterious ways.” As Jesus often reminded us, God’s ways are often not the ways of we who are human. I am thankful that Tamar reminds me of the wonderful, mysterious ways in which God works in our lives.
THE MUSIC
Canticle for Tamar (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
As I approached composing the music for this song, I thought, “How on earth can I begin to express this unusual story musically?” As my father taught me, namely, all good things originate first in the Holy Spirit, I found it rather extraordinary that this song flowed quickly for me. Everything from the key areas, B minor and F# major, to the 6/4 and 6/8 meter of the music just seem to flow.
The song is in three part (ABA) form. The first part, in the key of B minor and in 6/4 meter (six beats to a measure, a quarter note getting one beat) is meant to represent the frustration and desperation of Tamar as she experiences the death of not just one, but two husbands, and the Limbo to which Judah condemns her for the rest of her life. The tempo is very slow and methodical.
The second part, in the key of F# major and in 6/8 meter (six beats to a measure the eighth note getting one beat), is meant to represent the part of Tamar’s story in which she decides to risk disguising herself as a prostitute and entice her father-in-law, Judah, in having sexual relations with her in order to conceive his child and assure her a permanent place in his family. The tempo is fast and in the form of a fugue.
The third part, is a recapitulation of the first part, and is meant to represent a now, very pregnant Tamar, who is brought in shame before her father-in-law. The very decorated melody is representative of Judah’s realization that he is the father of her child, and his vow to assure her and her child (it was unknown that she was carrying twins at this point), a permanent, safe place in his family. The song ends with “all is well” B major chord.
THE POEM
CANTICLE FOR TAMAR
Born into Patriarchal Times, condemned to Patriarchal crimes, when a woman’s security and worth was measured by a fertile womb, and the number of children she birthed.
Humanity’s great blindness is shortsightedness, our plans lasting so longer than the passage of the sun from its rising to its setting; while God peers far into the future, to events yet to happen, and our lifetime’s purpose is not isolated to just our time of life, but a stone upon which many other lives are built.
It matters not what Er, your first, did to displease God so greatly, nor Onan’s great sin of greed which compelled him to spill his seed. As stones, their lives were brittle and broken, unable to support the future ahead. But your life was the one stone upon which the future of salvation was to be established and built.
Judah, the fourth born of Jacob, was ready to condemn you to the infertile life of widowhood, as readily as he abandoned his brother, Joseph, selling him into slavery to the Ishmaelites.
Exhausted from desperation God’s love rested with you, God’s peace and wisdom Comforting you in your discontent. God’s Spirit places the veil over you face as you prepare your body, and sets you at the gates of the city.
You entice Judah, over Inflated with wealth, drink, and lust, to give to you what his sons could not. He complies and lies with you, giving you his seal and staff, for your sexual favors. Your payment is your filled womb promising you and humanity security and hope for salvation.
Humanity’s understanding of honor is as poverty stricken as our sight. As you present your swollen womb, you present to Judah his staff and seal. God’s Spirit opens the mind and vision of dim lit and dimwitted Judah. Within your womb is the foundation upon which will be built the House of David.
The dismantled scaffold upon which you were to be burned, will be the wood upon which will bear humanity’s salvation. Through you, through your womb, our eyes are open by God to peer into the future and gaze upon salvation.
Last night, I completed the seventh of ten musical compositions honoring many of the prominent women of the Hebrew Scriptures. The music and the poem is influenced by the story of Esther (the Book of Esther). The Jewish holiday, Purim, is celebrated remembering the courage of this woman in salvation history.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF ESTHER’S STORY
Esther, an orphan adopted by her Uncle Mordecai, lived in the diaspora during the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people. The king of Persia seeking a new wife gathered all eligible, beautiful virgins of his kingdom into his harem. Esther was one of those virgins in his harem. Not revealing her Jewish heritage, she offers herself to the king, who, apparently pleased with her made her his queen. Within the royal court, there was a power struggle between Esther’s Uncle Mordecai and Haman, a official of the Persian empire. Haman, seeking more and more power, seeks to eliminate Mordecai and all the Jews exiled to Persia. Haman’s plan to begin a war of genocide on the Jewish people is sanctioned by the king. Mordecai warns Esther of Haman’s treachery and plan. To go unsummoned to the king’s bedchamber was a crime punishable by death. Esther is a woman of great courage who places the lives of her people before her own. As she leaves, she says that if she perishes, she perishes, but nothing will deter from pleading her cause before the king. Esther enters the king’s bedchamber uninvited. Instead of having her executed, the king welcomes her and accepts her invitation to two massive banquets to which Esther’s enemies were also invited. Beguiled by her charms during the second banquet, the king listens in earnest as she reveals the intent and the treachery of Haman. Haman and his family end up executed, the Jewish people in exile are saved from genocide, and Mordecai is elevated to a position of power. Esther’s influence grows daily in the Persian Empire as its queen.
While Esther is celebrated as a heroine within the Jewish faith, not all like her story. The overly pietistic/righteous consider her behavior immoral. Esther did not give a second thought about losing her virginity to the king prior to marriage. Also, Esther had no trouble following the rules and lifestyle of women living in a harem. There are Rabbi’s that are upset that the presence of God is implicit rather than explicit in the story. No where within the story is God called by name. Also, the requirement of following Mosaic Law is largely ignored by Esther, who disregards the dietary laws of the Jewish faith. On top of this, Esther enters into marriage with a Gentile.
In spite of all the objections from the religiously rigid segment of the Jewish faith, the story of Esther is celebrated by most of the Jewish faithful. The story is consistent with the Canticles of both Hannah and Mary, in which God lowers to servitude the rich, powerful and mighty, and raises to prominence the poor, the powerless, and the vulnerable. The Catholic Church would call this “God’s preferential option for the poor.” God’s love is always with the most vulnerable, e.g. the widows and orphans. God never abandons those who are devoted to God.
THE MUSIC
Canticle for Esther (dedicated to all vulnerable women) Opus 16 (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
There are three main sections of music in the song. The first section is in C minor. There is a repeating motif (musical theme) representing Esther, the strong melody and chords meant to represent her strength as a woman of action. The second section, modulating to the key of Eb major, and more gentle in sound, represents her vulnerability as a Jewish woman in exile, prepared to sacrifice her life for her people. The third section is a recap of the first, with a Coda (ending).
THE POEM
The function of divine mediation to which we assign our religions, can impede rather than aid our connection to God, obstructing our pathway to holiness. Jewish, exiled, and a woman, in the shadows of Persia, living among the enslaved, the marginalized and powerless. you make your own path to God. Your virginity and beauty, highly regarded, sought after assets in a royal harem, you sacrifice on the royal altar/bed of the king, so that your people’s voices may speak through your voice. You close your ears to the pietistic wagging of tongues, and religious condemnation arising from rigid fundamentalism, and enter the king’s bedchamber.
Ancient and modern politicians in the pursuit of power and wealth feed on fear and persecution of the powerless and vulnerable, breeding massacres of the innocent and mass genocide of peoples. The murderous contempt for your people, the planned destruction of your family planned by political enemies and sanctioned by the king, lead you unsummoned, uninvited to the bedchamber of the king. Your voice, the sole defense of your people, finds you at his door. To enter uninvited is a death sentence. It is far better to perish, your voice stopped forever by the executioner’s axe than to remain silent. Armed only with justice and courage, you enter to confront your fate.
Death did not greet you that night. Was it your beauty, your charm, your political intelligence that inspired the king to welcome your presence and your invitation to plead your cause? Was it your eloquent discourse that unmasked the treachery of your enemies? Or, was it God that guided you to the king’s harem, to the bedchamber of the king, placing your body, your virginity, your life at the disposal of the king?
I am thinking of the poem/reflections in this collection of Canticles as a form of the epic poem, essentially telling the story of a person in poetic form. However, these stories also contain a moral or a teaching directly related to the story. In the case of Esther, I find two morals or lessons. 1) There is not just one path only to God, but many paths upon which God guides us to holiness. This requires us at times, to purposely choose differently from what is taught by our particular religion in order to grow into a deeper relationship with God and others. 2) Throughout both Hebrew and Christian scriptures, we find God often works not through the powerful and the mighty but through the most vulnerable, insignificant, and most powerless. Those whom God loves, God will never abandon.
The song is the Canticle of Susanna. It is a Biblical story not known to most Jewish people or Protestants. The story can be found in the Deuterocanonical books of the Catholic and Orthodox scriptures, but is not found either in the Jewish canon nor the Protestant canon of scripture. You can find the story at Daniel 13.
I first learned the story of Susanna singing Carlisle Floyd’s Opera “Susannah”, an American opera based on the story of the rape of Susannah. (I was in the chorus, and had a minor solo role as one of the Southern farmers convinced that Susannah was a shameless hussy). When I was playing and leading the music for many Catholilc school Masses, every other year the story of the Rape of Susanna would be a part of the cycle of readings at the Masses. Teachers were always upset when the priest would insist on the reading be read.
BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE STORY
Susanna is a beautiful woman, beloved by her father, her husband and her children. The word that best describes Susanna is the word faithfulness, faithful to her father, her husband, her children, and most importantly to her God. As the story goes, her community has elected two elders to act as judges. Unbeknownst to Susanna, the judges are voyeuristic leches who lust after her. They stalk her every move, and habitually place themselves in hidden places to watch her. One hot midday, she decides to bathe in her courtyard. She sends her servants away as she bathes herself in the heat of the day. The two judges approach her and sexually assault her. If she doesn’t regularly engage in sex with them, they will tell the community that they caught her in adultery, which will result in Susanna’s execution. She refuses to be coerced and tells them she would prefer to die than willingly violate her religion and her vows to her husband. They subsequently gather the community and publicly condemn her for adultery. At her trial the next day she brought before her family and community, stripped naked, and has to endure the lies that the judges lay upon her. She cries out to the heavens calling on God to defend her, but, of course, no voice from the clouds is heard nor does anyone come to her defense. She is led to her place of execution at which point God begins to speak through a young man, named, Daniel. Daniel isolates the two judges and interrogates them separately. Seeing that their stories do not agree, he announces the deceit and treachery of the two judges who are then executed, and Susanna is freed to return to her family and restored to her community.
AS YOU LISTEN TO THE MUSIC
This music has certain motifs or musical themes to represent Susanna and the events happening in the story (think of the way John Williams weaves musical themes representing Princess Leia, Ewoks, Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker throughout the Star War films). Technically, the song is in Rondo form (think of it as a refrain with different music for each verse). Susanna’s theme is expressed in a waltz melody in a major key, meant to establish how beautiful and blessed a person she is. It seques to a sharp dissonant melody, to represent her rape and subsequent accusation of adultery by the judges at her trial. Susanna’s theme returns only in a minor key as she cries to the heavens her innocence, only to have the second melody with all its harsh dissonances return. This begins to change as Daniel steps to interrogate the evil judges and in a loud flurry of notes in a major key reveals their treachery. Finally, Susanna’s theme returns in full in a major key signifying her vindication by God and once more is beloved by her family and all in her community.
THE SONG
Canticle For Susanna (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
POEM REFLECTION ON THE STORY
CANTICLE FOR SUSANNA
Where to begin this song? Your story just one among so many biblical heroines, lost and hidden in ancient manuscripts. There are those, mostly male, who attest the historicity of your life, and others, mostly male, cite your life as nothing more than a mere allegorical fable. What impact do the opinions of stodgy, old males, bedecked in clerical or academic robes, have on your life’s story? No importance whatsoever.
Beautiful, the adjective most often used to describe you. How is beauty defined? Is it all about the shape of a woman’s body, her skin’s complexion, flowing, long hair, dark brown eyes and pouting lips? Is beauty really just measured upon mere physical superficiality? We all know better. Beauty is defined by the character of one who loves and is loved in return. The true measure of your beauty is in your love for your father, your husband and your children, and most importantly, the love for your God.
Too often we entrust power to those who betray our trust. A horrific weapon is power, especially in the hands of unscrupulous men. How were you to know that those to whom your community entrusted such trust and judgment, elders who sat in power over others, would cover their voyeuristic lechery under a cloak of respectability, and, seemingly, impeccable character? Were you aware their eyes stalking you lustfully following your every move? The way your hands smoothed the drape of the clothes on your body? The way you brushed your hair.
How were you to know, as you bathed yourself in the garden, their eyes eagerly following the drops of water trailing down your body in the heat of the noonday sun? Like animals in heat, nostrils flaring, they leap upon you, their words and lust, an aural sexual assault upon you as you sit before them naked and vulnerable. Their words rip at your dignity, raping your heart, as much raping your body. Their eyes rake and claw your flesh, demanding, coercing your compliance to their rape, or face public shame and execution for adultery. The importance of fidelity and love to God, to husband, to children, far outweighs the shame with which you are threatened, death preferable to unfaithfulness.
Dragged by your accusers before your family, your community, you face them all, stripped of any defense or witnesses, as surely as the clothes are ripped from your body. False accusations land upon you like the lashes of a whip, wounding you, crushing you under their blows. Head lifted, you cry aloud to the heavens, calling to God to be your defense, to witness to your innocence, yet, God’s response is muted unheard by your ears and the ears of your community.
Resigned, led to the place of execution, you await the end of life. God’s love did not abandon you to loathsome treachery, no. God begins to speak, not from some cloud in the heavens but in the voice of a young man, one possessed of great wisdom and faith, a fearless witness of God who would later stand unscathed amidst a den of lions. His words strip from the elders their cloaks of respectability, their naked deceit and leachery exposed to all the people, whilst revealing your great love and your faithfulness to God and all you love.
Miriam is the big sister of Moses and Aaron. In the Hebrew scriptures, it is Miriam who places her baby brother, Moses, in the basket of reeds and sends the basket floating down the Nile River to save her brother’s life. Miriam is regarded a prophetess, and is most famous for leading her people in a great song (canticle) celebrating God saving the Israelites allowing them to pass through the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptian forces in the Red Sea.
The song is in two parts. The first melody depicts the safe passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptians. The second part is the great canticle of Miriam and she leads the Israelites celebrating God’s victory over the Egyptians and freeing the Israelite people from slavery. Within the second part, the first melody is recapped before the ending of the song.
Canticle for Miriam (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Here is the poem I wrote reflecting on this scriptural story.
CANTICLE FOR MIRIAM
Standing on the banks of the Sea, you gaze upon the bodies of Egyptians washing up on the shore. Your memory sends you back to the shores of the Nile, standing amongst the bulrushes you placed your infant brother in a basket of reeds, and sent him floating upon the waters of the river. You trusted the unnamed God of your people to save the life of your infant brother, just as now, you and your people trust your unnamed God to save your lives. Your infant brother, now a man, with a Divine mandate, armed with a staff of death for oppressors and the freedom for your people, gazes upon the might and the justice of the God who frees those who are enslaved. And, now, the bodies of those who sought to destroy you, float lifeless, bobbing like buoys, upon the surface of the Sea. You turn your back on the floating death, the fish of the Sea, and the animals along the shore will soon disappear the evidence of the holy violence that took place. You lead your people, a song of joy, wild with victory, stirs your heart, and your throat in a dance of great abandon. There are days ahead, over which hangs a veil of mystery, in which joys and great sorrows reside. Your people’s trust in your unnamed God will be tested, you will be greatly tested. However, this night, you know that whatever awaits in the future, you will die a free woman.
I began composing this piano song on Tuesday this week and completed it on Thursday evening. The “Her” to whom I am referring is the Holy Spirit. The inspiration and a brief commentary on the music follows the song.
THE MUSIC
CANTICLE IN PRAISE OF HER (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
This song is autobiographical in that it is based on a deeply spiritual experience I had while spending five days at a hermitage on the shores of Lake Elysian in Southern Minnesota in May of 2004. I present to you a poem I composed describing what I experienced during my stay at the hermitage.
THE POEM
CANTICLE IN PRAISE OF HER
I remember when I first identified your voice, that early May morning in two thousand and four, at the hermitage upon the shores of Lake Elysian. It is not like your voice had been absent to me those fifty-two years prior. No, your voice was always present, whispering in my ear, guiding, teaching, challenging, pushing me along in my life.
What was it? What identified you, whose voice I had been listening to all those years? Was it the sound of the wind blowing through the budding branches of the trees along the shores of the lake? Or, the sound of your voice in the quaking of ducks on the water? Was it in the melodious sound of the Robins, and Wrens, and Cardinals high up in the branches of the trees? Or, was it the combination of all of nature in full song that day along the shores? I found it ironic that after years of theology, in which Divine Mystery was supposedly imparted, it was not in those hallowed, holy halls of seminaries nor in the books resting on the darkened stacks of theological libraries, that I identified your voice. But rather, in the sound that you created along the shores of Lake Elysian.
You have been known to many people by different names: Ruach, Breath of God, in which you breathed upon the void, your breath stirring the dark waters from which all life began to evolve. Or, Sophia, Wisdom of God, the gift given to Solomon, and that dearly sought after by many philosophers and theologians. Were you Lady Poverty, with whom beloved Francis fell in love and sold everything he had in order to court you? The name by which I identified you that day along the lake shore was my Mother, my Divine Mother.
Yes, Divine Mother, for like all Mothers you love unconditionally your children, whether we are stupid, or naughty, obedient and complying. By our side, you are always present, your love and inspiration softly, gently caressing our souls, challenging us to grow, to face our fears, to encounter new experiences and open our eyes to the splendor which you have created. I have come to recognize your voice in the people most important to me, my wife and children, my parents my teachers, the poor, and the homeless, the immigrants, and the suffering, through them you have taught me so well.
And lastly, Divine Mother, I hear you in music. I remember that night, driving home from a theology class, along Mississippi River Boulevard, listening to Copland’s Appalachian Spring. In that chord, that one chord, I heard your beautiful voice that touched my soul so deeply, that I pulled over to the side of the road, and I wept for a period of time. I remember when first I began to compose music in earnest. Like Samuel, I was awakened in the middle of the night, and not in some fog of near sleep, but clearly knew instinctively that you wanted me to compose music. My purpose was not meant to be famous, nor to enrich my life with wealth. The task you gave me was simply to compose music, and nothing more. And, so, I gift this song to you, in thanksgiving for all you have given to me, in love, as a son to his Divine Mother. (c) 2021 by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
A SHORT THEOLOGICAL COMMENTARY
From the first chapter of Genesis, Judeo-Christian religions have chosen to anthropomorphize Divinity. We are told in that first chapter that we, male and female alike, were made in the image of God. Because human society has largely been under the throes of patriarchy for thousands upon thousands of years, it has been presumed that the image of God is primarily male. Of course, it is foolishness to attach a human form to Divinity, a Divinity that is pure Spirit. Yet, the smallness of our minds and the great human need to form relationship with a corporal body (e.g. the love relationship that exist within humanity), we need a God in human form. For Christians, we believe that the greatest translation of Divine Love came in the form of Jesus. Jesus expressed a great bond of love to God as that between a father and the father’s beloved son (see the Last Supper Discourse from the Gospel of John). Artists have portrayed the first person of the Trinity as an old man with a long white beard. Of course, Jesus continues to be portrayed in human form, alas, too often not as a man of color from Palestine, but as a Northern European. We do like to make God in our own image after all.
However, if we explore Hebrew scripture, we find a many faceted portrait of who God is that is far more close to the God of Creation in whose image we all are made, both male and female. If you pay attention to the tense of the words to describe God, you will find God as Spirit expressed by the feminine tense word, Ruach, meaning “Breath of God.” It is Ruach that breathes upon the waters of creation from which all life evolved. In Ezekiel, it is Ruach that breathes upon the dry, broken human bones lying on the floor of the valley and restores them to full life. In the Wisdom literature, God as Wisdom is again expressed in the feminine tense, Chokmah (later translated as Sophia in Greek). It is Chokmah that humanity desires in the book of Proverbs, and Chokmah, who is the bride whom Solomon is courting in the Song of Solomon. The Hebrew scriptures instructs us that God is more than just the image of a human male that looks like Gandalf the Grey from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, or more recently, Dumbledore from the story of Harry Potter.
In the early Church, those baptized on Easter were said to have been born from the womb of the Holy Spirit. The Mystagogia that followed baptism was described as spiritually nursing from the abundant breasts of the Holy Spirit. As the Church became more dominated by males and thus more clericalized (the tragic state of the present day Catholic Church), male church leadership first neutered the Holy Spirit, translating Spirit into the Greek word, Pneuma, and, later, somewhat in a form of transgender spirituality, turned the Holy Spirit into a male, translating the word Spirit, as the male tense word, Spiritus. Since, the Church already had two male figures (the old, white bearded “Father”) and Jesus, the Spirit was reduced to the image of a male white dove, who hopefully does not dispense “Grace” as birds tend to do on our cars).
Within a few circles of Traditionalists and Restorationists within the Catholic Church, they try to compensate for the lack of a Divine symbol of female, but attempting to deify, Mary, Mother of Jesus. Fortunately, the leadership of the Church has thwarted this attempt to strip Mary of her humanity. Hence, I believe there is a great need to restore imagery that has been with us and present to us in the Hebrew scriptures.
FOR THE MUSICAL NERDS AND GEEKS
This piano song is in three part ABA form. The A section is in 7/4 meter (seven beats to a measure, the quarter note getting one beat). The number 7 has sacred significance in the spiritual numerology of both the Hebrew and Christian religions. The creation was accomplished in 7 days. The highest form of heaven is the 7th level (ever hear the expression of being in seventh heaven e.g. the highest form of happiness). Jesus speaks of his disciples forgiving people 7 times 70 times. The Greek name Jesus Christ equals the number 777, while the name, Nero (the Beast) equals 666. Paul writes in his pastoral letters of the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. Hence, I intentionally composed the first section of this song in 7/4 meter. Also, 7/4 meteris something outside the ordinary meter in which we usually hear music (e.g. 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4). As you listen to the song, you know that there is something different about the melody that is not ordinarily heard. For whatever it is worth, the 7/4 meter can be grouped into a subgroup of beat as 123 456 7, with the heavier beats (accents) falling on beats 1, 4, and 7. The first section is in the key of F major.
The middle section is in 2/4 meter (two beats to a measure the quarter note getting one beat). There is really no strong theological reason behind the meter change of the middle section. The only caveat would be that the running sixteenth notes in both hands giving an aural image of the Holy Spirit stirring things up in human life.
Following the middle B section, the A section returns in 7/4 meter, with some additional decoration to conclude the song.
I know that I have not contributed much to my blog over the past several months. I think it a part of a general malaise that has settled over me. Just this past week, there was a psychologist who, noticing a similar malaise exhibited in many people, has called it “languishing.” This languishing is not depression, but a general lack of ambition, a lackluster way of being, that this psychologist says has been brought on by the pandemic. We just don’t feel like doing anything and are compelled to do something only by necessity. In Minnesota, it is somewhat akin to what we might label as “Cabin Fever” which generally sets in during the interminably long month of February (Admittedly, February is the shortest month, but in Winter seems the longest of all months.). What does this general languishing have to do with Celtic Knots, much less the readings of this past weekend?
The unique art of the Celtic Knot is that a Celtic Knot, in whatever form it takes, is one endless line. If you examine the art of the Celtic Knot, it is a line that never has a ending point. It has been used to describe the Christian theology of the Trinity, in which Father, Son, and Spirit are one and the same. It has been used describe love, which never ends. It has been used to describe the relationship between lovers and friends.
The Celtic Knot is a wonderful symbol of what universal humanity is experiencing in this pandemic. The common bond of “languishing” is mutually being experienced by us all, regardless of where we live in the world. The endless line of the Celtic Knot is a great representation of the interconnectedness that exists among all of humanity that transcends the borders of nations, the multiple languages and customs, and the multiple theologies of all humanity. The Celtic Knot is a beautiful symbol of the interdependency of humanity, especially evident now as one nation comes to the aid of other nations (see how other nations are shipping canisters of oxygen, and vaccines to pandemic ridden India). What this pandemic has demonstrated is how that pandemic in one nation effects all nations. All nations, cultures, languages, ideologies are all a part of the endless line of the Celtic Knot.
I wonder if the Celtic Knot had been known in the Palestinian Judaism of Jesus, whether Jesus would have used the Celtic Knot rather than that of the Vine and the branches. What stood out for me in the Gospel from this weekend is how the lives of all humanity are interconnected through Jesus to the life that exists to the intimate relationship of Trinitarian love. If we are not a part of that vine of life, or, to use the Celtic Knot, part of the unending line of life that is God, we are lifeless. We do not exist. What all three readings from this weekend make very clear (Sadly, the Gospel does not include the fullness context of Chapter 15 from John), is to be part of this living vine, to be part of this living and endless line, is the living out of Jesus’ Great Commandment of love. We MUST love one another as Jesus loved us. We MUST love others unconditionally as Jesus unconditionally loved us. This is what is required of us to be part of the living vine, the endless line of love.
Remarkably, this unconditional commandment to love one another is expressed in the majority of human religions throughout the world. Whether one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or some other religion, the commandment to love is paramount in all these religions. Like the endless line of the Celtic Knot, this commandment to love as God loves, is that which leads us to life in God.
As Jesus concludes (15:9-10), If we wish to remain in his love, we must love as he loves. When we do this we will find joy and our joy will be complete.
This afternoon, Ruthie and I, our son, Luke, and our granddaughter, Sydney, watched the movie, “Field of Dreams”. For those who have never seen this film, it concerns a young man, his wife, and young daughter who own a farm in Iowa. Walking his corn one night, a mysterious voice tells him, “If you build it, he will come.” Eventually, it is revealed to him that what he is being asked to do is to plow under a field of corn and build a full size baseball field, complete with lights. One night, he finds the ghost of the great baseball player, Joe Jackson, who had been thrown out of baseball for accepting money to throw the 1919 World Series, wandering alone out in the field. Over time, Joe brings the ghosts of the other disgraced eight players of his team and they begin to play baseball.
The film is very amusing, interesting, and emotional all wrapped into one film. At the end of the film, the purpose behind the young farmer building this baseball field on his farm is revealed. It is to repair the estranged relationship the young farmer had with his father, who, having played many years in the minor leagues, had never made it to the major leagues. In the end, the great emptiness and regret the young farmer had in never repairing that relationship before his father died is resolved as he plays catch with the young looking ghost of his dad. The love relationship that had been broken earlier by the ignorance and impetuousness of himself as a youth with his dad, was healed.
This movie is very moving for me. As the sole living member of my family, as I watched this film, I found myself mourning the loss of my sister, Mary Ruth. I remember how excited she was to see this film back in 1989. She actually traveled south to Iowa to see the farm and the baseball field that was constructed as part of this film’s set. Mary Ruth died eight years later at the age of 42 years. At the end of the film as the young farmer is playing catch with the ghost of his father, I found myself grieving the death of my own father in 2004. I miss him so much. It is my relationship with my dad and my sister that I miss so greatly. Yes, by faith, I know that that relationship has never been broken, however, not being able to see them, hear them, touch them is a huge loss to me.
What does this have to do with this Second Sunday of Easter? Today we hear the same post resurrection story we hear every Second Sunday of Easter. The disciples are gathered in the upper room, very scared and grieving the great loss of their relationship with Jesus who have been brutally tortured and executed three days earlier. Jesus suddenly appears within their midst and wishes them peace. In the gospel of John, he imparts upon them the Holy Spirit (John’s version of Pentecost). The only one not present is Thomas. When they relate to Thomas excitedly that the one whom they thought was dead and gone forever was resurrected and alive once more, he scoffs at them. As we know so well, seven days later, Jesus visits them again, this time Thomas is present. Jesus confronts Thomas about his disbelief. Thomas is overwhelmed with joy and shame, and simply states to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” The relationship with Jesus that Thomas thought gone forever, had never been broken.
Oh, that we all could experience the same reestablishment of the relationships we have had with those we love who have died, that Thomas and the disciples had with Jesus. The bottom line is this. It is our belief that Jesus rose from the dead that will assure us that the relationship we once had with our deceased loved ones will also be reestablished. In rising from the dead, Jesus promised the same resurrection for those who believe in him. We get a glimpse of this from time to time, often at the death beds of our family and friends. I remember two days prior to mys sister’s death, she suddenly started to greet our dead relatives in the room. She turned to my mother and I and said, “They are playing my song. I am not ready to hear it.” Others have spoken how their loved ones, entering the twilight that exists between our world and that which awaits us, having conversations with deceased family and friends. It is our belief in the resurrection of Jesus that is our doorway to the everlasting relationships we have with our deceased family and friends. More importantly, our belief in the resurrection of Jesus is the doorway through which we pass to enter into the full, loving relationship with God who loved us into life and will welcome us into eternal life.
