(Painting: Massacre of the Holy Innocents in Bethlehem, artist: Matteo di Giovanni.)
PSALM OFFERING 1 OPUS 7
This music written in long stretches from Friday, July 8 to Sunday night July 10, is in memory of ALL victims of gun violence. It is my supplication to God to change the hearts of stone into hearts of flesh of specifically those who willingly profit in the gun industry, those who choose violence instead of civil discourse, those who worship at the altar of weapons. This is my supplication to God for all who are maimed and murdered by guns every day. This is my supplication to God for all mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends whose hearts have been crushed by the cruel acts of violence against their loved ones. In Isaiah, chapter two, we hear the prophet speak of turning spears into pruning hooks, and swords into plowshares. I believe that the metal and components that make up guns is not even worthy of being turned into agricultural implements. Rather, all materials that make a gun must be melted into a molten mass never to be used for any other purpose than to be buried into the earth.
ABOUT THE MUSIC: The sharp dissonant chords, heavily accented that assail the ears like gunshot, the rapid staccato passages like automatic gun fire, the sostenuto pedal blurring all these sounds into an almost undiscernible noise marks section A of this music. I was thinking of a poem by Denise Levertov, entitled “On A Theme From Julian’s Chapter XX” in which the poet is describing the death of Jesus on the cross.
“One only is ‘King of Grief’.
The onening, she saw, the onening
with the Godhead opened Him utterly
to the pain of all minds, all bodies
- sands of the sea, of the desert –
from first beginning
to last day. The great wonder is
that the human cells of His flesh and bone
didn’t explode
when utmost Imagination rose
in that flood of knowledge. Unique
in agony, infinite strength, Incarnate,
empowered Him to endure
inside of history,
through those hours when He took Himself
the sum total of anguish and drank
even the lees of that cup:” (BREATHING THE WATER, by Denise Levertov, A New Directions Book, © 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987 by Denise Levertov)
The second melody, B, is the lament of those who have been crushed by the death of their loved ones by gun fire. The Italian word Lacrimosa literally means to sob. It is derived from the Feast of Our Lady Of Sorrows, the mother of Jesus, as she watched him die on the cross. The minor key expresses the sorrow, the descending passages of melody are the tears that flow. The scripture passage that ran through my mind as I composed this is the quote we hear from Matthew’s gospel on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Matthew quotes a passage from Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.”
As the lamentation of melody B ends, the violent chords of A return, the two sections battling back and forth in change of meter, change of tempo, as more are killed and more lament until the lament drowns out the deafening sound of the gun fire and predominates to the end of the piece, slowly reducing in sound as sobs gradually slowly soften. The music ends ominously as the final two chords of violence very quietly reenter at the end.
Since the time the laws of our land that regulated the legal ownership of guns were eviscerated by legislators who prostituted themselves to the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers, the deaths by guns has only escalated. It is a horrific litany: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, San Bernadino, Orlando, Tucson, Fort Hood, Binghamton, Dekalb, Omaha, Charleston, Honolulu, St. Paul, Dallas. The number of deaths by gunshot is in equal proportion to the increased sale of guns. It is overwhelming and tears at the heart of our nation. The utter inhumanity, not for some noble purpose, but to make money on death, tears at my heart. This is not what the authors of the Constitution had in mind when they penned the second amendment. This is not what God has in mind for we who have been created in the womb of God.
