An Advent hymn for Christmas Eve

Learning to play Handel's "Messiah"

White Space in a Busy Season

As we look out upon glazed roads and white-brushed landscapes, the natural white space has an important lesson in what sometimes seems to be the busiest time of the year.

That’s because it provides natural white space. And in the world of design and art, the concept of white space is central.

In music, for instance, white space can be pauses, quiet sections or longer notes in music. If a piece is all quick notes with no respite, it tends to have less shape and direction than music with notes of different lengths, and variety with volume is also important.

In newspaper, magazine or book design, no one wants to read something with no margins or spaces between the words, or separation of some sort between paragraphs. That’s why the invention of spaces between words, for instance, was so revolutionary.

There is a reason the first page of a chapter tends to be pleasing to the eye — there is a lot of white space both to provide separation between sections and introduction to new ideas.

In drawings and paintings, if every square centimeter is filled with lines and texture and detail, it can be overwhelming. There needs to be some “plain” section — background, solid colors, something to set off the subject of the piece.

It’s why portrait artists rarely draw a complex background; the person’s face is the main point of the work. And even a face isn’t always full of details; the eyes are the focal point and are full of details like shadows, lines, eyelashes, eyebrows and colors — yet they are surrounded with areas of less detail like the cheeks, forehead and nose, which draw the light.

The beauty of art, though, is that there are lessons to be drawn even about our own lives. It’s not just limited to a paint-daubed canvas or ephemeral music: the concepts we explore artistically are just concrete ways of exploring what sometimes look just like abstract concepts in our lives.

This is particularly important to remember in a season full of white space and overwhelming business — winter, and especially the Christmas season.

I hate the cold, but almost everyone I know loves how snow looks — including me. It provides that white space that allows us to focus on other details, like the bowed-down, bristling branches of the evergreen tree, or the delicate tinkling icicles hanging from the lip of every home’s roof.

The same applies to the temperature. Again, I am no fan of the cold, especially of subzero temperatures like we have had recently. (I clearly live in the wrong state for that.) But what’s interesting about cold is that it is the absence of heat. Motion generates heat; cold, by its nature, tries to freeze us into immobility.

Immobility is the key. Cold temperatures slow and eventually stop water’s motion, causing ice. Snow and ice can lead to road closure (we all know this by the Sisters). Closer to home, extreme cold can cause frostbite, meaning it slows and eventually stops your body’s workings, starting with the most exposed skin such as your nose and fingers. But if you are ever in a life-threatening situation, what’s your body’s priority? To protect the core — your extremities are important, but it’s more important to keep your heart, your lungs, your brain and all your other vital organs functioning. 

In order to survive in the cold, especially extreme cold, you have to keep moving. But you also have to prioritize; you want to move, but you generally need to move toward something, especially somewhere warm. It does no one much good to be doing jumping jacks to stave off hypothermia when you’re only 15 feet from a warm building.

In a season of frantic busyness — with a flurry of holidays, shopping, end-of-year events, school concerts, family visits, travels, final exams and more — snow, the quintessential white space, holds a special reminder for us, as does nearly everything else associated with snow and cold.

As we work to get through one of the busiest holidays of the year, this is a good time to remember that there is a reason for the season. Your holiday doesn’t have to be perfect, and likely won’t be. (After all, very little, if anything, ever is perfect.) But the white spaces around us are a reminder to allow background things to stay where they belong — in the background. And at the same time, we can’t freeze in place and wait for life to pass us by.

It’s easy to let things like presents, food, events and the need for perfection take center stage, but in reality, most of those are background — not white space, but more like white noise that can distract from what’s most important.

Especially in a season where anxiety and depression are rampant, it’s vital to take at least a few minutes whenever needed to refocus on what’s really important, and a good way to do that is to step back and ask why the holiday was set aside in the first place. Christmas songs like “Silent Night” are a good reminder of that. “Silent Night” is a very simple hymn and is in fact like a lullaby, arguably one of the simplest types of music there is. But that doesn’t mean it is silent or that its meaning is unimportant, just that distractions have generally been cleared away, or at least sent to the background.

At the end of the year, in the midst of ice, interstate closures, subzero temperatures, delicate snowflakes and thick blankets of snow, this is a good time to reevaluate priorities and establish enough white space so you can spend time and energy on who and what are most important.

Preparing for Advent

It's the Little Things

Traveling is all about the details.

I’ve traveled overseas three times, all three times to the British Isles: once when I was very small, once when I was just weeks shy of 21 and once this year. All three times, it has not been the majestic sites and sights that I remember most clearly.

People go places to see the big, the impressive, the glorious — but what’s interesting about traveling and memory is it’s not always the biggest and the best that catch your attention.

It is the small things. The little surprises, the unexpected familiarities, the sounds, the smells, the food, the way things are subtly different.

From my first trip, I remember watching “Casper the Ghost” in the rented house, the toast and jelly for breakfast, what felt like miles of gray cobblestones in London, the wind on my face and the rocking floor of the ferry, the gift shops after the castle tours.

And the one thing everyone who went on that first trip talks about is that, in front of Warburg Castle, I and two of my brothers played Ring Around the Rosy around a mud puddle. That’s right. The small puddle in the middle of the dirt path was more fascinating than the monumental castle a short distance away.

It turns out that kids can be impressed, but only momentarily. Then they just get overwhelmed and look for a game.

The same general principle held true when I went to England for a couple of weeks for a study-abroad class. We had a schedule filled with landmarks, with places of historical significance. We visited the carefully preserved homes (or similarly decorated houses) memorializing famous figures such as the Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, even G.F. Handel.

You know what I remember?

Meeting an friend and former classmate at Westminster Abbey while we were on separate study-abroad trips.

Eating lunch at a shockingly high-priced restaurant in Bath with Disney music played by a live pianist.

Getting lost and wandering the hills with a classmate on the way back to the hostel from dinner.

Finding a tree studded with coins while walking the Coffin Path in the Lakes District.

Taking a detour with a classmate and one of her friends to see rooftop gardens and ancient churches.

Eating a dinner entirely of strong goat cheese.

Taking a seven-mile hike over a rust-tinted river, through the heath, past lonely sheep perched on the edge of a cliff and up a winding dirt path to a derelict stone farmhouse.

Musing over the beautiful — and huge — painting of Lady Jane Grey.

Almost none of my strongest memories feature the things I expected to remember most.

You’d think that would change in the last four years as I grew up a little more, but nope. Even now, after recently returning home from Ireland, it’s the littlest things that made the biggest memories.

I remember my little brother climbing on rocks as much as the huge monuments we were standing by at the time. It is easier to imagine the huge Spire of Dublin, which our huge group encircled one drizzling night, than to remember the National Gallery. I enjoyed hearing Lady Dunsany ask about American politics or share her memories of meeting Donald Trump as much as or more than seeing the castle she lived in and the one we were traveling to that day.

Other small things caught the attention as well. For instance, the Irish evidently don’t care for ice water or cold tea (“Oh, you want ice water at McDonald’s? We’ll pour out hot water and put ice in it”) or even the Americanized mild mustard (Irish mustard is very strong and not well-suited to a mild sandwich). Also, having two national languages means every single sign is written in both English and Gaelic, and boundaries are a really big deal, so even the roads are practically crowded out by tall hedges bordering private property.

It was also fun to happen upon a plaque announcing W.B. Yeats lived in a little apartment overlooking the sea at Howth, and it was an even more delightful surprise to see that someone had built a diving board on a rock jutting from the sea there.

The fact that the small things can be the greatest memory-builders, though, does not make traveling any less valuable, but more valuable. We always have more to learn, and travel gives us just a brief taste of how much we don’t know about history, about places, about cultures, about languages, about values and, of course, about people.

At the same time, the small things remind us that we can always see the world in a new way. Through experiences like those in England and Ireland, I’ve learned it can be fascinating to wonder what it would be like to live there — or I can look at home in Evanston and try to see it as a tourist would.

It can be an amazing experience to step out of your shoes and into someone else’s just to get a taste both of how people are different — and, more importantly, how people are the same. Because no matter where we are in the world, briefly practicing being an outsider in some way (however we choose to do that, whether at home or abroad) can help us learn better what the truly valuable things in life are.

It’s the little things.

Two recordings for Reformation Day

Two versions of Handel's "How Beautiful are the Feet" (from "Messiah")

I decided to record "How Beautiful Are the Feet" from Handel's "Messiah," but I decided to do two versions. The first one is instrumental only and has lyrics in the video (although you really have to follow along in a book if you want to use this -- comments as to how to improve would be much appreciated, although I think the next time I'll play the vocal line as well). The second is my own vocal recording as well as the instrumental. 

Thinking about baptism and the Trinity

Dreaming of the Sky's Soul

I took a walk Monday evening and chanced to look up from my book to the sky. My attention was immediately arrested by two things: the silhouetted birds flying south and the endless expanse of sky behind them.

And what really struck me is that the birds were in the foreground. As I said, the sky was endless. You could throw something as far as you want, and no matter what kind of force that object has behind it, it will never reach the sky’s end. Eventually, the sky will just turn into space after the object reaches the atmosphere’s end; maybe the object could hit something like a satellite or, if it gets far enough, a planet or star, but the sky will just stretch on and on and on.

Most of the time, I see the sky only as a backdrop. I rarely think of it as something deeper than I can comprehend. It’s easy to look at it as if we are in a giant snow globe with an opaque lid that only lets the light of the sun or stars through.

But that’s easiest to think in the day. Step outside at night, and it’s almost impossible to think of the sky as a flat barrier. Just one glimpse of the stars will put paid to that idea. How do you describe stars adequately? How would you explain them to someone who can’t see? Even the description of tiny diamonds embedded in black velvet doesn’t do it justice because that’s still a flat, close-up image.

For most, I think, the sky is just one more limitation. We often like boxes and walls; they are predictable and easier to deal with than an ocean of hardship and opportunity alike. When you look at the horizon, you might see the next city, windmills, refinery smoke or the mountains. You might even envision what is beyond those peaks — maybe the next state, the coast, the ocean, or a country you can only reach by boat or plane.

But in all those scenarios, how often do we look at the sky?

And do we look at it, or beyond it?

I’m a bit of an artist, so this hits me particularly hard. Every time I look at the sky or mountains or a particularly striking landscape, I wonder what it would be like to paint it — color is hard enough, but trying to capture the depth of something ethereal and immeasurable with nothing more than a flat canvas and solid paint is daunting. It is worth trying but, again, very daunting. However, I can’t really paint very well anyway, so I stick to black-and-white drawings.

What I realized, though, is that such is the nature of art. Art imitates reality, but what it lacks is soul. Artists are incapable of capturing the soul of something. 

I’m not saying something can’t look realistic or even perfect, but the concept of “soul” is more than three-dimensional. Could we see a soul if we could perceive in four dimensions? Five? More?

What would it look like if we could perfectly capture what makes us, well, us?

The best art, of course, captures emotion. Art involving people especially tugs at us because of who we are. As someone who especially likes drawing faces and eyes, I think landscapes are beautiful, but it is only when looking into eyes — which we hear are the windows to the soul — that I really forge a connection with artwork.

Eyes offer us a glimpse into the “sky,” so to speak, of someone’s inner complexity. Everyone has this complexity. Everyone has history, dreams, special gifts, passion, hurt and more. One moment cannot capture it all, but most art can only get that brief moment frozen in time.

But all the same, artists are but tourists. Tourists try to explore the customs and culture of a country in the span of a few days, they cannot truly delve into it without actually living the life.

In the same way, artists can capture some of what is truly meaningful for them, but unless they are living the life they are trying to capture, it is almost impossible, if not truly impossible, to do it perfectly.

It’s hard enough to capture our own lives perfectly in a work of art, much less someone else’s, when we haven’t seen through their eyes. Going back to the tourists, how many tourists truly see the beauty of where they themselves live? Some people who live in Evanston have never explored some of its greatest treasures, even though people from out-of-state may come to visit the Bear River State Park or its many events.

The trick with art is to try to find a moment with as much “essence” as possible, or at least hints of as many things as possible, so we can more effectively understand the subject or subjects. That’s where the best paintings, drawings, music, photography, sculpture, film and more come from. The best art always has something more to discover and to think about. It is inspiring.

Art is not and never can be the real thing, because how can you capture a lifetime of memories, experiences, thoughts, emotions and dreams in a single piece of art? You can’t, but in its very creation, you can learn more about the beauty and sorrow of life here on earth. You can start to explore that horizon just a little bit.

You may never reach deep space, but if you can go through some of the atmosphere, you’ll be more than you were before. 

Explore the World -- In and Out of School

Every morning for the past week or so, I have awakened to crisp autumn air that makes me think of leaves crackling underfoot, of a sugar-dusting of frost on my car as winter begins, of sweaters and soft warm socks replacing T-shirts and flip-flops, of spiders and mice making their annual migration indoors — and school starting.

In the store, shelves and racks of school supplies are on display for all to see. Although I don’t usually love autumn (it’s too close to winter for my liking), I think there’s a special charm in this part of the year — in being able to flip through fresh blue-lined pages of a college-ruled notebook, lining up my “new” textbooks on the shelf or picking out highlighters, pencils, pens, markers, crayons and colored pencils.

So even as I feel winter snickering at me behind every rustling leaf, this time of year also heralds the opportunity to learn something new and meet new people.

Oh, school is frustrating and even excruciatingly painful at times. There are difficult subjects, overwhelming responsibilities, too little time, boring or frustrating assignments and homework — and who can forget about timed tests?

But as much as the thought of those things can make my heart (and motivation) sink straight down to my toes, I still hold that there is something exciting about learning. And I intend to pursue that joy as long as I can, and to see it as a joy and not always a burden. Because therein lies the fun.

One year ago was the first autumn I could remember not attending classes, and I was actually somewhat relieved about that. But I still had plans to resume school within the next year or so and even took the GRE to explore my options.

This year, that dream seems to lie ever further away, and that makes me a little wistful. I miss shopping for textbooks and school supplies, arranging my calendar and preparing to meet my professors and classmates.

But although that dream is deferred to some distant day in the future, with the onset of the school year comes other opportunities — opportunities to learn new things, to create art, to teach and even to travel.

It is for this reason that I am adopting a challenge this fall.

We often do New Year’s resolutions starting on Jan. 1 because that’s a good place to stop and reevaluate and start anew. But I think the beginning of the school year is another excellent opportunity.

For me, as an English major, I love literature. I love reading and writing about what I read and talking about what I read. But for the last year or so, I haven’t always read the best-quality literature — certainly not to the standard of some of what I read for my favorite classes.

So my goal this autumn is to create my own syllabus of sorts. It’s not going to be as rigorous as an actual class, and that’s OK. But I have a reading list I want to start chipping through, including a lot of classics.

I also intend to learn more about music, starting by transcribing and arranging some of my favorite pieces so I can play and record them, and I would also like to learn more about history in the British Isles, art, writing and much more.

Maybe I’ll even polish up my poor Spanish ability with Duolingo, or learn the basics of some other language like Welsh or German, or if I’m feeling really crazy, maybe I’ll do something with math again — maybe geometry!

Lifelong learning isn’t confined to the walls of a school or the limitations of even online classes designed by others. It’s something everyone can pursue in one way or another.

If you are already in school, find something every day to get excited about learning, even if you have to find it yourself. But really, there is something interesting in nearly every class; you just have to find something you actually care about instead of seeing it as something a teacher or parent cares about.

If you’re not in school, consider pursuing a hobby where you make something or learn something or give to someone else.

And not all learning has to be expensive; the library, for instance, holds whole worlds within the covers of its books, movies and audiobooks. You can find how-to books or whodunit books and movies, literature from ancient Babylon or from the current year, textbooks, study guides for things like the ACT, movies, music of all types, maps, magazines, games and so much more.

Do you want to learn a new language? Get a free Duolingo account. A new instrument? You can find teachers in town, or you can even make music with something as simple as rubber bands, balloons or glasses of water. (Don’t believe me? Go look up MysteryGuitarMan on YouTube). You can learn how to cook new dishes, create art, do magic tricks and much more.

You can even go on small adventures, either every day or once a week or whenever you want. Go on a walk. Find a new music genre. Notice something new as you go to work.

But this time of year is the perfect time to find renewed joy in learning and exploring. So I invite everyone to smell that crisp autumn air, listen to the rustle of the leaves, watch the changing colors and find the youthfulness of the dying year with me.

First "Les Mis" recording

And here it is! This one took awhile to put together, but I think it was worth the effort.

A favorite hymn!

This is perhaps my favorite hymn, or at least is in the top five! I'm afraid I haven't done it justice, but it was time to go for it. Someday I may try it again.

Stay tuned for the next video on August 28 - that one will be completely different!

First recording request

This is not a hymn I would have chosen to do myself, but a neighbor requested it, and it was pretty fun to put together after all.

... And my second YouTube recording!

Embarking on a new musical journey

For the last few months, I have been exploring music in several different ways, including through recordings and trying different instruments. This is my first self-published musical cover on YouTube and is of one of my favorite hymns.

Second hymn recording

Hope in a Polarized World

It has been a rough few weeks for the American dream.

Although we just celebrated the 240th anniversary of America’s independence, the last month especially has brought blow after crushing blow to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in what was once hailed as the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Oh, we still are comparatively free, and we do have countless brave individuals, but the bravery that is most lauded now is not the bravery that involves standing up for the rights of others. No, today’s bravery involves standing up for our own rights or for a certain demographic of individuals — and that inevitably means that liberty will be systematically stripped from other demographics.

It’s not that we don’t think of specific people in connection to a cause, but bravery is increasingly defined as just standing up for a cause — not even people, but a cause. Hence, there are movements to stand up for women’s rights, for LGBT rights, for safe spaces, for anti-hate speech, for change, for Black Lives Matter, etc.

This is also one of the reasons why America is so polarized politically. At some point, we began to define ourselves by an ever-changing political party instead of by the principles we have and always will fight for — and the parties are moving as far apart as possible and as fast as possible.

I went to both the Democratic and the Republican caucuses for Uinta County this year, and at the Democratic caucus, I heard it put in plain words that, over the last few years, the Democratic party has separated itself more and more from the Republican party. It was said in a positive manner, but the more I reflect on the statement, the more I realize this polarization is a divorce of the ugliest degree.

It used to be that people from different parties could more amicably agree with many of the other party’s principles, I think. But we now see a world in which people from different parties are often foundationally split. We don’t usually have enough in common anymore to have a reasonable discussion about the things that most matter to us.

The definition by broad categories like political parties and causes, then, truly tends to separate us.

As I wrote in another column in October, part of the problem is that it is easy to pick and choose things and people to support and love.

And more and more often in past days and weeks, I’m seeing prioritization. There are preferred groups, preferred people, preferred causes. The groups and people and causes that don’t fit into those preferred categories are cast by the wayside and sometimes even trampled underfoot. They lose respect, their jobs — and sometimes even their lives, as we saw last week with the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling and police officers Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens and Michael Smith.

These people have been defined by the color of their skin or by the color of their uniforms. We are pitted against each other for various reasons, none of which are truly necessary.

This prioritization occurs at many levels. We have seen conflicts between people of different races; between people of different faiths; between people of different professions; and even between mothers and unborn children.

As I reflect on the value of life after seeing so much death and tragedy in the news, I can’t help but remember that the lives of the most vulnerable and defenseless among  us are still under attack every day. Even as people are killed in the line of duty or when doing nothing to provoke anyone at all — and as people rise  up, shouting for the protection of their lives and rights — those even at the highest level of the law, such as the Supreme Court, condone the destruction of families and lives at the most domestic level.

We have seen this in last week’s ruling against basic standards of healthcare in abortion clinics in “Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt,” in which the court-instituted right to abortion trumps the safety both of the woman and her child.

Texas had instituted laws that would apply basic standards of healthcare to abortion clinics. Requirements included that an abortion doctor must have active admitting privileges at a nearby hospital that can provide obstetrical or gynelogical healthcare and that the abortion facility’s minimum standards must be equal to those for ambulatory surgical centers. (Further information can be found online by searching for Texas H.B. No. 2 from 2013.)

As a result of these requirements, several abortion clinics shut down voluntarily in Texas. When the bill was brought to the Supreme Court, the majority of the justices determined that the two main provisions were unconstitutional because they placed an undue burden on abortion access.

Again, these requirements are no more stringent than those placed on other doctors — and abortion is a serious surgical procedure. It may be an elective surgery, but it has been known to cause scarring, infection, perforation of the uterus, damage to organs and even death. That doesn’t even touch the psychological effects, either. There are, in fact, numerous support groups for post-abortive women, as well as for post-abortive family members and for ex-abortion providers.

When a state establishes basic standards of healthcare, and abortion clinics shut down as a result, that should tell us more about the quality of such “medical providers” than anything. Likewise, when the Supreme Court rules in favor of abortion for the sake of abortion and not for the health and safety of those seeking medical care, we are ruled by people who fight for causes rather than people  — who say that access to safe healthcare is secondary to easy abortion access.

What happened to “safe, legal and rare?”

It was overruled years ago, perhaps, but this most recent Supreme Court ruling has now officially overruled it.

Furthermore, one of the things that most breaks my heart about the pro-choice/pro-life conflict is that I believe to be pro-life really means to fight for the lives and wellbeing of all — yet it is always painted as a black and white situation in which we must fight for the rights either of the mother or of the child.

Kind of like black and blue — which one takes precedence? Is it Black Lives Matter, or is it Blue Lives Matter?

Why can’t we love them both?  Why aren’t their needs the same? Why must one’s life be sacrificed to the life of the other?

Mothers should never have to be pitted against their children, born or unborn, just as the lives of law enforcement officials should not be weighed against the lives of law-abiding civilians.

And when the Supreme Court rules to protect the right to abortion — even when abortion clinics don’t even adhere to basic health standards, such as sterilization, proper training, parental notification laws in the case of minors or physicians’ admitting privileges to nearby hospitals — there is a problem. When the leaders of our country publicly take sides in the matter of black versus blue, or black versus white, there is a problem. The fight has moved even from the prioritization of one group over another to the elevation of a cause over the people involved.

What can be done to mend this? Well, there is currently an #alllivesmatter movement — but that, too, has come under fire because it may marginalize those who are oppressed. And that is, in and of itself, still hashtag activism.

When the world is falling apart, Facebook and Twitter can’t fix it. Rage and righteous wrath cannot fix it. Hand-wringing sympathy cannot fix it.

Only Love can.

And Love takes the form of a man who willingly put himself in front of the guns and violence and hatred of the world — of the governor, of the President, of the law enforcement, of the broken church, of the wrathful people.

Love takes the form of a man who suffered and died out of love for those who killed him, although he was almost universally despised when he wasn’t outright ignored.

He did not unleash obscenities and hatred in revenge for his tormentors’ unjust actions; he did not incite violence in his followers; he did not blast his tormentors with fire and destruction; he did not even try to save himself.

Love takes the form of an innocent man unjustly and horribly executed who, after three days, rose again to show that even death is not permanent and that we do not have to lose ourselves to fear and hatred.

There is only one haven in which we can take refuge from the bloodbath that we see approaching to flood our very streets: the church where this man, fully man and fully God, gives His Body and His Blood to those who killed him so that they might live for eternity.

Recording the Psalms

'In Media Res': What's Your Story?

I took a literary criticism course in the 2014-2015 school year, and there is one literary technique that has always confused me: in media res. It means starting in the middle of the story.

Aside from books like “Twilight” that literally start at the end of the story and then tell the story from the beginning for the next 400 pages, the term in media res is just confusing to me.

Even in books like “Twilight,” it’s still confusing. Was Bella Swan dropped on her head as a child? Did she have a life before falling in love with Edward? Did she have a life even after technically dying? So many unanswered questions!

All facetiousness aside, what defines “the beginning?” Look at just about any story, and you’ll find that you need at least some background for everything. You can start with the birth of the princess in the fairy tale, and you know what? You still need back story. After all, why did the wicked fairy curse the princess? There is history that you need to know (or sometimes just want to know).

In other words, unless you are talking about a Creation story, there is some background. Every story starts in media res.

The Bible is a good example of this. Even though there are a lot of stories and a lot of chapters, the continued focus on genealogy is significant. We can get so wrapped up in the stories that it’s a bit disappointing to take a break to go to what seems like endless lists of fathers, sons and everyone in between.

What is all too easy to forget, though, is that those chapters of genealogy are there to remind readers of their history. Not a single story in the Bible is meant to be taken in isolation. You can’t understand the story of Daniel or Ruth or Elijah or Moses or Jesus or even the Pharisees without knowing and understanding the backstory that stretches back to the Creation and the Fall and the Flood. That’s their story.

That’s what makes Jesus’ birth so shocking, actually — because the genealogy was broken. After all those hundreds of names of fathers and sons (and sometimes daughters), the genealogy was forged anew.

But there is cultural and family history there. Every story begins in media res except for the first chapter of Genesis.

How do you have backstory when there is none? You can’t.

But there is backstory to every other story.

What does that mean for people here and now? It reminds us that we have a history. It means we are in the middle of a story involving ourselves, our children, our parents, our grandparents and everyone else we are related to or have come in contact with.

This doesn’t exclude adopted children; on the contrary, if you are adopted, you have been adopted into the history and family of those who have adopted you. You have a biological heritage, but you also have a new familial heritage. 

For those who wish to cast aside their history and start anew, this doesn’t destroy your hopes — but I would venture to guess that most people do not want to lose everything.

If you could, would you give up your past, your memories, your family, your friends, your education?

Like it or not, some of that is what has made you who you are. There is nothing to say that you cannot rise above terrible things in your past and  build a richer, more stable and more meaningful life than you have or you have seen. Of course you can — absolutely you can. However, your experiences may help you grow in wisdom. You just have to be willing to learn from your experiences.

As I write this, I can’t help but remember movies like “The Bourne Identity,” in which an ex-CIA agent and assassin loses his memory but struggles to rediscover his past. He has the ultimate chance to start over, but even after that baptismal opening scene, he still wants and needs to know who he was. 

The same thing goes for Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” in which ex-convict Jean Valjean also struggles to create a new life and identity for himself. Even his new identity is molded by his past.

That’s the thing that most of us have forgotten, I think — or it’s downplayed more and more, especially in modern media. Fewer people know (or care to know) their heritage, and few know not only their family history but their country’s history and their ideological history.

There’s background behind each historical movement, each institution, and in the modern world, but the gut instinct seems to be to throw old institutions away in favor of the new without understanding the history and the meaning and the purpose behind those old institutions.

So we need to use our own in media res origins to learn, grow and build a future, both for ourselves and for those around us. More importantly, though, we should strive to understand what it is that we wish to change in the world before we seek to change it.

We must have foresight, but why cast aside hindsight as well?

Reflections Over the Holiday Weekend

Valentine’s Day fell right after the beginning of Lent this year. Lent is a season of fasting and reflection and has its own connotations. Despite the closeness of the two holidays/seasons, Valentine’s Day seems to have degenerated into a day of flowers and candy.

It’s been a long time since I’ve liked Valentine’s Day. That phase lasted for as long as it was fun to draw and make valentines for my siblings (probably through my school-age years), but I haven’t enjoyed it as much as an adult. For me, the holiday feels frivolous.

Especially nowadays, it seems like it’s all about flowers and candy — kind of like kissing someone under the mistletoe at Christmastime. There’s not really anything substantial about it.

Or is there?

Actually, we have Valentine’s Day in memory of St. Valentine, who was martyred for his faith. Some histories or legends suggest he was arrested and martyred partially because he was secretly marrying Christian couples and helping them escape the Roman emperor Claudius.

So maybe that’s where the romantic “date day” comes from, but it’s still kind of heavy stuff for what has become a frilly day.

In contrast, I think that Lent and Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter) may be my favorite part of the year. Some of my favorite music includes Lenten hymns and some of Bach’s music, such as “Tilge, Hochster, meine Sunden” or “Chaconne in D minor” for violin.

To me, this season, as deep and as simple as it is, has come to mean love. Not romantic love — as in chemistry — but a deep, abiding, self-sacrificing love that suffers all, even death, for the salvation of all.

And better yet? That Love was so strong that it defeated death and the grave.

I can’t see our modern Valentine’s Day competing very well with that.

It’s also why one of my favorite songs is J.S. Bach’s “Chaconne in D minor” for violin. The song was reportedly written after Bach returned home from a three-month-long trip, only to find that his beloved wife had died in his absence, leaving him and his [four] children bereft and grieving.

In that period of mourning, he wrote one of the most lasting and poignant violin solos of all time.

Not only does the Chaconne express Bach’s profound grief and heartache — you can hear him crying to God for relief and a reason for his unbearable loss — but it transforms about two-thirds of the way through the 15-minute piece. In the middle of the grief-filled melody, the music suddenly transforms to major chords.

And it soars.

You can hear the prayer and Bach’s faith that his prayers have been answered and that he is not alone. Right in the middle of his near-despair, he expresses trust and hope and faith.

The echoes of the heavenly golden chords still echo for the rest of the piece, even when it goes back to a sad melody.

It’s fascinating because the piece is full of both joy and grief. Not happiness — never mistake happiness for joy. Happiness is not a truly lasting emotion; in fact, it is often fleeting. However, joy can exist alongside the deepest and most painful grief and sadness.

But, contrary to what you might expect, the 40-day season of Lent, Holy Week and Easter can be full of more joy than any transient happy holiday like our modern Valentine’s Day ever could be.

In stark contradiction to a holiday that now seems expressly designed for happy couples and leaves out those aching from loss, fear, unhappiness and loneliness, Lent is for everyone.

Valentine’s Day appears almost blindingly cheerful but is over very quickly (sometimes leaving post-holiday doldrums); the season of Lent and Holy Week proclaims the ever-present hope and certainty that the dawn will come after the night.