SW: From Baroque to Faith Community -- So What!?

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Subject:

SW: From Baroque to Faith Community

Author:
Eugene

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Date Posted: 15:16:29 03/11/03 Tue

I have just received my tickets for the Bach concert series at UCLA�s Royce Hall. When I ordered these tickets last year, somehow I expected the experiencing of the great mass in B minor, St. John�s and St. Matthew�s passion will be a good part of my spiritual journey as it approaches the Lent state of mind.

I suppose when most people think about Baroque music, the image that comes to mind is that of well dressed, upper crust ladies/men attending some hauteur concert events. I also think that most would be surprised when they realize that the meaning of the word �baroque� was used to describe something unrefined, raw, primitive and even grotesque. It is a description given to the periodic arts by later artists. It seems that when the next generation artists looked back to the previous generation, they felt the earlier arts were detestably under-developed and failed to express the same range of emotions exemplified musically by the classical and romantic periods.

On the other side of the coin is the fact that as lame and quaint as we often thought of Baroque music now, it was sometimes considered too wild and expressive for its first audience. In fact, one well-respected church lady stood up during Bach�s mass in B minor and cried out in despair that it was nothing other than satanic noises.

So what? What does the history of Baroque music has to do with spiritual journey? Well, do we not see a lot of the same attitudes towards spiritual expressions in our community of faith today?

Don�t despise tradition just because it is �old�.

Don�t despise creativity jus because it is new.

The moment a new movement is born, it is already on its way to become a tradition. What we have to do for others to come into the body of faith is, instead of making our traditions a curse (as in the nowadays hauteur image given to Baroque music), we must use our traditions as a blessing. What have we chosen about our heritage � barriers that make people stumble or instruments that reveal and conduct God�s grace?

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