This week has seen the
return of singer Kate Bush to the public eye as, after a break of more
than a quarter of a century, she took to the stage in London. Reviews have been
ecstatic – both from the media and the general public. “Awesome”,
““Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Unbelievable” “The cultural event of the year”
were just a few of the comments in the press. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kate
Bush – I always have - but when I read that at the opening night of her series
of shows “[the] audience spent the the show clapping everything; no gesture is too insignificant to warrant
applause” I began to feel a bit uncomfortable. This all seemed a bit over
the top. We are, I felt, losing all sense of perspective. Was Kate really “awesome” or simply just a damn good
entertainer?
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| Kate Bush in concert - entertaining, memorable, enjoyable maybe .......but not awesome or unbelievable |
As a person who grew
to adulthood through the turmoil and change of the swinging sixties, through
Beatlemania, the Rolling Stones and the rest I’ve always liked to think that in
my own small way I have been fairly open minded, happy to accept change, be
understanding of differing viewpoints on life and in the words of Timothy Leary
“Turned on, tuned in and dropped out”!!!!!!!!. But as I get older I find myself increasingly
looking at the world with a different perspective and feeling that as a society
we are losing something. That just
maybe, as we find more and more things “awesome” and “the events of the year” – be they a cup of coffee in Starbucks or
the return of a singer who had a few hits over 30 years ago, we are in danger
of losing our sense of proportion and, more importantly, something indefinable
that goes to the very core of our humanity. I have oft argued that the words that we use are critical; it is through words that we express ideas, emotions, ideals, our innermost world. It is by words that we inspire or terrify. it is by words that we understand and are understood - words are what separate us from the animal kingdom. When we become sloppy in our use of words then our ideas and values become sloppy too - and to use words like "awesome", "fantastic" or "unbelievable" to describe the ordinary and prosaic puts us in danger of marginalising and trivialising humanity.
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| York Minster does indeed make one feel very small - awesome |
These misgivings of mine might have many facets but in
particular I have increasingly felt that society is both trivialising and at
the same time losing its sense of awe and wonder. In the hard-nosed, in your
face world that we now inhabit we know the price of everything and the value of
nothing. Our computer games, TV and cinema screens are often filled with gratuitous violence making us largely insensitive and insentient to what one might call "finer feelings". And at the same time everything, it increasingly seems, is
viewed on a superficial level. We
wear our hearts on our sleeves and the stiff upper lip of yesteryear seems long
gone (and maybe a good thing too) but this has merely translated into the banal and the superficial: we live in a world where soft fluffy toys fill the hearts and minds, we weep and leave flowers when someone quite unknown
to us dies (Princess Diana?), we use words like “amazing”, “incredible”, “fantastic” and the rest about very
ordinary things. And then we move on and forget as quickly as we have been
moved – our emotions waiting for the next “awesome”
lift or the next celebrity death to mawkishly weep over. As someone once said
to me, "Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper" – very true. Will the
wonderful Kate Bush judged so “awesomely”
this week be similarly judged a few years down
the line? I read today that on the strength of her concert reviews she now has eight records in the top twenty - something never achieved by a woman before and bettered only by Elvis Presley and the Beatles. I'm delighted for her, it justifies my purchasing Wuthering Heights all those years ago - but where were all these fans before? By its very nature the top twenty is transient with new "records" being broken all the time. For me this merely proves my point we cannot distinguish between the truly awesome and great and the simply good and enjoyable.Will those who snapped up the tickets and “applauded her every movement and gesture” or as a result of the hype and the media frenzy went out and bought a record still be playing that record six months down the line or be quite so impressed
and overcome in the cold light of another day? Maybe, maybe not. But in my view truly awesome and wonderful
things are not transient but stand the test of time – they are part of human existence
and can be recognised as such. They are not simply things to be enjoyed or
impressed – indeed, in some cases they might not be to one’s liking or approval
- but they have qualities that will separate them from the merely good or excellent or even inspiring.
These matters were,
in a small way, brought home to me last week when Pat and I visited a much
loved place, York. We wandered into the mighty York Minster – and immediately
my eyes went up to the ceiling high above us. I am not an overly religious
person but immediately sensed a very tangible feeling of awe – that this mighty
place has stood for so many hundreds of years and so many have invested their
life and work and religious beliefs in it. As we walked around we visited a
wonderful exhibition in the crypt of the Minster’s history and some of its many
treasures. At one point along the walls there were inscribed various quotations
made by different people over the ages and relating to the Minster, one said
exactly how I felt. It was, I think, written by someone who worked at the
Minster in some capacity and said that this person loved to stand in the silent
Minster, perhaps in the evening, and look at its mighty vastness and soak in
its atmosphere and history – it reminded him or her of how very small he/she
was in the great scheme of things. That is awe and wonder – and I could relate
exactly to what was written. As I stood in the half darkness of the crypt and
read this I was reminded of my great friend and mentor David Towne who died
almost exactly two years ago (http://arbeale.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/a-good-teacher-is-like-candle-it.html
). I know that when David and his wife visited the Grand Canyon some years ago
he shed a silent tear that he should be there and be overwhelmed by its
magnificence and his smallness in the great scheme of things. To feel that is,
I believe, to be human and sadly, in this harsh, driven, superficial world is
something that I believe we are losing as we look for the next transient “thrill”
or “challenge” or “awesome experience”.
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| Joachim & Anna |
Of course, what moves people and inspires a sense of awe and
wonder will vary from person to person. But in my view there will be certain
common characteristics. For example, it will not be superficial or transient –
I have visited York Minster and similar such places many times – and each time
can be equally uplifted or reminded of my smallness in time space. It is not
about high or low culture – I can be equally moved by certain pieces of popular
music as I can with some of the great classics. It is, I believe, a personal,
intimate response and not driven by the crowd.
It cannot be switched on and off, nor can it be prevented – in other
words, you have no control over it. And finally, it will go to the very core of
your humanity and remind you what it is to be human.
This last point was illustrated well when last year Pat and
I visited the wonderful city of Amsterdam for a few days. A major reason for
going was to visit the newly re-opened Rijksmuseum. Like thousands of others we
were intent on seeing works of the great Dutch masters such as Rembrandt and
Vermeer. We saw all those and marvelled at this wonderful building – truly one
of the great institutions of the modern world. But in fact it was one small unexpected
thing that made our visit truly
memorable. At the start of our visit, before we reached the galleries of the
great Dutch masters we entered a small room filled with items from the late
middle ages and the first thing we saw as we entered the room was a small,
carved wooden statue made in about 1470. The carver was unknown but as Pat
looked at it she quietly cried. It was a statue of Joachim and Anna. Pat did
not know who they were – I did, I had told their story many times in school
assemblies over the ears.
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| Pat with Henry Moor at Compton Verney |
Joachim and Anna were, it is written, the Grandparents of
Jesus – the mother and father of Mary. Joachim and Anna had been married for
fifty years, and were barren. They lived devoutly and quietly, using only a
third of their income for themselves and giving a third to the poor and a third
to the Temple. Joachim had done this since he was 15-years-old, and God
multiplied his flocks, so the couple were well provided for. They longed for a
child but remained childless into their old age. When they were in Jerusalem to
offer sacrifice to God, the High Priest upbraided Joachim, "You are not worthy to offer sacrifice with those childless
hands." Others who had children jostled Joachim, thrusting him back as
unworthy. In despair, he consulted the records of the tribes of Israel and
discovered every righteous man in the nation had been blessed with children,
except him. This caused Joachim great grief, and he and his wife left with heavy
hearts. Joachim took his flocks and went
to a high mountain, refusing to return home in shame. Meanwhile, Anna prayed in
her garden. God sent the Archangel Gabriel to each of them, who gave
them tidings of the birth of "a
daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed,
and through whom will come the salvation of the world." Each promised
to have their child raised in the Temple as a holy vessel of God. The archangel
told Joachim to return home, where he would find his wife waiting for him in
the city gate. Anna he told to wait at the gate. When they saw one another,
they embraced.
The little statue is a depiction of their embrace. As we
looked at it, not as a great work of art, but a simple depiction of a very
intimate moment that spoke volumes of the story behind the couple it seemed to
go the very essence of what it is to be human. It was pure and simple awe and
wonder. When we left the museum we clutched in our hands a souvenir – an exact
replica of the little statue which now sits on our lounge table and which each
time I look at it still quietly overwhelms me.
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| The Burghers of Calais by Rodin |
The written word can also not only move us but get to the
very core of our humanity. For me, I only have to read the words of Lincoln’s
great Gettysburg Address to feel that tingle. I know most of the words, I know
that the speech was carefully but hurriedly concocted by Lincoln and is not
long. It was delivered whilst he himself was very unwell, but to the people of
the time and through the intervening years it speaks to millions irrespective of
their nationality or age. Its language is simple, its ideas uncomplicated but
it gets to the very heart of what it meant to a nation to be embroiled in a
terrible struggle and how and why the fallen should be honoured and remembered.
It spoke to every individual American and to the young nation as a whole. It is
not alone: Martin Luther King’s “I have a
dream speech” still has the capacity
to move and inspire, the simple words appealing for democracy of Colonel Thomas
Rainsborough in the Putney debates of 1647:
...I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the
greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that
is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself
under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not
bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put
himself under....”. And so the list goes on – all inspiring, ageless and
timeless, appealing to man’s basic humanity, truly full of full of “awe and
wonder”
And finally, music. Some years ago, on one of our visits to
the wonderful city of Leipzig to attend a Bach concert we went to the
Thomaskirche in the afternoon. We were due to attend the concert– Bach’s
glorious B Minor Mass - there in the evening. We thought we would walk around
the church and, once again, as thousands do every day and we had done before, pay homage at Bach’s
tomb. I opened the church door and was hit by the most glorious sound – the choir
practising for the concert – the wonderful “Dona Nobis Pacem" from the Mass, one of the world’s very great works (see video, recorded in the Thomaskirche, above). It stopped
me in my tracks, I have played the piece thousands of times but each time it
still overpowers me and makes me feel very small. As I sit writing this blog it plays in the
background and is just as inspiring and full of awe and wonder as the first
time I heard it. It is the same with other works that speak to us: Beethoven’s
great finale to the Ninth Symphony or at a completely different level one of
the world’s most beautiful pieces of music with words that I defy anyone not to
respond to Henry Purcell’s “Fairest Isle,
All Isles Excelling” for his opera “King
Arthur”. This piece is my alarm on my mobile phone – it reminds me when I have to take my medication
each day - and no matter how many times I hear it, the hairs on my neck tingle,
I am filled with “awe and wonder” at the sheer beauty of the music and words - see video below.
My list here is personal, others may be moved in different
ways and with different things. But it is part of the human condition that we
can respond to those basic aspects of humanity and existence to remind
ourselves of what and who we are - as the unknown writer in York Minster
commented, to remind us of how very small we are in the great scheme of things.
This is awe and wonder and it is something that in our transient, hardnosed and
superficial world we are in great danger of losing. Our age is filled with violent computer images, gratuitous films and TV, sloppy use of language and a society that considers an unmade bed thrown together by an alleged artist, Tracey Emin, to be worthwhile and good. Given that back drop we are becoming desensitised, increasingly unable to discriminate what is worthy and what truly is awesome and wonderful. By very definition “awe and
wonder” is personal, but it will be felt to the core of one’s being. As a
society I believe that we are increasingly losing the ability to feel deep
rooted, core feelings of compassion, beauty, empathy, place and value – and
substituting instead transient, banal hype so that we “applaud every movement and gesture” and describe cups of coffee or pop concerts as
“awesome”. And that is worrying for us all.
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