The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.
Wendell Berry
I write about an experience that I really cannot put into words. That experience was at a concert of music that perhaps 99.9% of the population does not know.
I do not intend to sound "elitist" in making such a judgment. Indeed I, despite having been aware of the music for decades, never understood it in the way I understood it at that moment. I barely understood it at all. Nor did I feel what I take to be its "message" until that night, that moment, at that concert. (Even these words are inadequate.)
I will begin with a confession: I've always had more than a little trouble with Christian teachings on the resurrection. I know I should have always been certain about resurrection–both the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of individuals–because I have, in my role as a pastor, often stood firm on the subject in the presence of others. People no doubt thought I was certain. Fortunately, there are biblical and liturgical words as well as prayers that make it easy to sound certain, because they sound certain. I just had to read them with conviction.
Unfortunately, from my standpoint, much of what has found its way into our prayers and into our liturgies and into our common cultural understanding of resurrection is either quite unbiblical, or at best a tiny minority report within the greater biblical witness. It is also hard to make sense of.
I have great problems, both theologically and personally, with the soul-body dichotomy that comforts many. I cannot wrap my mind around notions of a heavenly dwelling place for disembodied spirits somewhere "up there." I struggle with the idea that eternity has the wherewithal to judge lives bound by constraints of time and space. I don't know what eternity with "all the saints" would actually be or feel like (should I make it into that great company), and seriously doubt that I would have the patience to live with so august a gathering for that long. And though I like to sing, I would hope there are long breaks in the rehearsals and concerts of the heavenly choirs.
I've gone from fairly serious to fairly silly in the above, but you may get the idea: I am not comfortable with somehow being split in two so that the two halves of me end up forever totally separated from each other. I am not comforted by the thought of being thus divided. I think, I feel, I know that soul and body are each integral to who I am. Resurrection without both (or all) parts of me makes no sense to me.
Anyway, the concert I speak of was by the Cleveland Orchestra last month. Under the direction of guest conductor Donald Runnicles, and featuring mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and tenor Paul Groves, the Orchestra performed Gustav Mahler's Song of the Earth.
If I haven't lost you yet, hang on, and I will do my best to keep you in the fold.
Gustav Mahler wrote really long, really complex music in which he tried to sort out the meaning of life and of death. Song of the Earth was composed in 1908, and takes around a hour to perform. Its words are from the works of a German named Hans Bethge, who creatively reworked them from "classic Chinese poems." In Mahler's hands, Bethge's poems are about life and death...no, they are about life that dies. Or about death that lives. In the earth.
Here's another confession those of you who do know Song of the Earth will probably chuckle over, because it reveals how limited my appreciation of music can be: I've had recordings of Song of the Earth for maybe 40 years: an old, old LP, and a much newer CD. I've listened to it now and then and tried to follow it and understand it, but never really got into it until last month. Maybe I wasn't ready for it until that night I sat still for an hour and concentrated on it (concentration is a life-long problem of mine).
I listened hard to it, and this is what I think I heard: The hope for us is in return to the earth, in return to the soil, in return–body and soul–to the land from which we came. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," as the liturgy says, reflecting the Genesis 2 creation account, and the New Testament assurance of the redemption of the earth, of "all things," in Jesus Christ.
Or, as the priest assured me Wednesday night as he crossed ashes my forehead, "From dust you have come; to dust you shall return."
The final words of the Mahler's Song of the Earth are these, sung exquisitely last month by Michelle DeYoung:
Where am I heading? I go, I wander into the mountains.
I seek peace for my lonely heart.
I go to my native land, my home!
I shall never roam in distant lands.
My heart is quiet, and awaiting its hour!
The beloved earth everywhere blossoms forth in spring and greens anew!
Everywhere and forever the horizon brightens to blue!
Forever...forever...
As "forever" (German ewig) faded, I felt a comfort about my place in eternity that I cannot recall ever before feeling, a comfort and a peace about death that I cannot put into words. Did hints of the texture and smell of the good, rich soil of my native Iowa make their way into my subconscious? Was that the peace beyond my understanding? I do not know. I cannot put it into words.
Does what I have dared confess and affirm in this essay cast doubt on my identity as a Christian? I don't really think so. The claim–my lifelong conviction–of God's incarnation in Jesus the human being makes me think that what I am questioning and finding is very much Christian.
I have no illusions that I've experienced anything new (as evidence, the Wendell Berry quote at the top). But that experience and the way I felt it was and is new to me. It comforts me. I am consoled.
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