filched from another thread here today but pretty nice and hopefully appropriate...
Posted on 09/08/2002 11:32:40 PM PDT by Havisham
filched from another thread here today but pretty nice and hopefully appropriate...
It's Sept. 12 and I'm back. I can report that the Rolling Requiem concert in Tucson at Centennial Hall was a profound event. It went like this.
We were perhaps 200 singers on risers and we filled the stage. By mistake (there had to be one) the heavy velvet curtain was closed so it was quite warm. It occurred to me to pray to the Lord to help our director, the singers, soloists, instrumentalists, audience, and me. We'd only had four rehearsals and one run-through with the 12-piece orchestra and soloists. At 8:44 a.m. the curtain rose and our director, David Gardner, took to the podium and addressed the audience. No multicultural homilies(none really expected), just a brief recap of the concert's purpose, thirty seconds of silence then boom!Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is, Do-mine.....
During the solos I could concentrate on the audience. I shouldn't have been surprised to see that they were everyday people and younger than I expected. One dark, burly guy in polo shirt and board shorts (Tucson casual) in particular caught my eye. He, even more than the others, looked very sad and I thought: we've all been hiding our grief for America. The requiem seemed to fly. The orchestra was driving us. Before I knew it we were singing Qui-a pi-us e------s! Sustained but subdued applause. (It was a mass afterall). Without further announcements we players exited the house with the audience through the front. We tarried there in the bright sunlight. We were relaxed and smiling now. The thought came to me, yes, their souls are at rest. I didn't see the burly guy again. I hoped his year of sadness had passed, too.
The Rolling Requiem as it took place in Tucson was a profound experience. So many coicidences took place in order for me to have this tremendous moment of grace--I have no formal musical training and have only been singing in Latin choir for a year--that I just praise and thank Him.
Thank you for your report on the rolling requiem you were a part of. I heard that 10,000 people attended the one here at Safeco field. On a workday.
My hope is that all those attending were the equivalent of prayers reaching God from all around the world. Although it my sincere belief that those who were murdered were embraced in peace and love by God, and I wish, wish, wish that we had the courage as a country to have the cross from Ground Zero used as a symbol instead of that stupid sphere. I just cringe when I see that thing. I mean, if God sent us a cross and we chose the sphere instead to memorialize the victims, what does that say about us?
There are no coincidences in this life, a priest in my church once told me.
The municipal authorities (elections next month?) were going to hold a full-honors flag presentation for a sailor from Tucson who died in the attack on the Pentagon. Many of my group were surprised when each of the leaders of a dozen religious sects came forward to lead us in prayers. The Arab muslim, Indian Hindu, black Baptist and Orthodox Jew kept it short. Not so the Christian ministers or the white converts to Islam, B'ahai or Sikhism (who, BTW, couldn't stop fussing with their unaccustomed drapes). Their invocations seemed to be from a limited phrase book and "a country in which no one is ever excluded" was the distinct theme (sounded most conspicuously by Bishop Kicanas of the Tucson Diocese). I called their part of the event 'a multicultural nervous breakdown' since none of these leaders had anything rational to say to a nation under attack.
These invocations and artistic offerings extended the evening from the expected one hour to two-and-a-half. As I sat on the stage I was keenly aware of the solemn uniformed men and women, police and fire brass, and of the dead sailor's grandmother who were being forced to endure this pathetic and irrelevant spectacle. At one point a youngish white guy with a feather braided into the back of his hair sang what he called a Sufi healing chant. It fizzled when he couldn't get his voice around the complicated coda and the audience stifled their laughter.
The whole ghastly business made me angry for our uniformed defenders and that grieving grandmother. It's entirely possible, however, that many of those in attendance were moved to the political right that night, my fellow mostly apolitical choraleers and musicians among them.
One can only hope it told the politicians something that there were less than 30 attendees in the hall's 2000 seats for this multicultural train wreck.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.