Jan
6
Collegium Cantorum of the University of Dallas’ Pilgrimage to Rome, 12/26/08 - 1/5/09
Filed Under christianity, personal | 2 Comments
Just an opinion. Quite obviously, many others in the same group will differ. Also, an additional note: our tour guide, Alessio Rosoldi, was excellent. He can be reached at alessiorosoldi@hotmail.com - if you’re planning on going to Rome, contacting him is a very smart idea, and I do have his phone number in case you want to contact him that way. Anyway:
But the fight against Plato or, to speak more clearly and for “the people,” the fight against the Christian-ecclesiastical pressure of millennia - for Christianity is Platonism for “the people” - has created in Europe a magnificent tension of the spirit the like of which had never existed on earth: with so tense a bow we can now shoot for the most distant goals. To be sure, European man experiences this tension as need and distress; twice already attempts have been made in the grand style to unbend the bow - once by means of Jesuitism, the second time by means of the democratic enlightenment which, with the aid of freedom of the press and newspaper-reading, might indeed bring it about that the spirit would no longer experience itself so easily as a “need.”
- Nietzsche, from the Preface to Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann
1. When we were in Assisi, there were many Italians along with us crossing themselves in front of the incorruptible remains of St. Clare, or slowly and meditatively walking through St. Damiano, trying to find that which motivated Francis to “rebuild” the Church (it was a crucifix, quite literally, that bent down and spoke, and is in a cathedral higher up).
This was an older Collegium group for the most part, and it was interesting to see the people they’ve become outside of school. The main unifying element was, I felt, a very intense Catholicism that takes the proposition Rome is the holiest city very seriously. The implication of Rome being holiest was spelled out exactly in a homily given in Florence by a University of Dallas graduate who is Cistercian and living in Italy. Accompanying those ideas is a moralism most inflexible: the things that can be said we will all agree on. People who can recite copious amounts of Church history or teachings from encyclicals, Catholic mystics or reactionary publications loomed large in this crowd.
I don’t want to give the impression any of this is bad. Collegium is something I love dearly and I would like you to help me support. But if you’re more secular, and you encounter Collegium, it will strike you at first as strange. And I can’t say that it doesn’t strike me as strange, still - there was definitely a feeling of “I want to get married” pulsing through the various members of the group that was even stronger than when I was taking classes. There were many prayers said in front of relics, i.e. the severed head of St. Catherine of Siena, that made me wonder where the truth truly lies.
2. So that’s the group I felt I was with for the most part. If you ask around, you’ll get other answers about what happened, and more than likely told that my explanation is a strange one. People who carry their notebooks around everywhere, after all, don’t quite fit in.
Where did we sing?
- We didn’t get to sing for the Pope or in St. Peter’s or the Sistine Chapel. Yes, I’m bitter about this, even though I blame no one. This choir is marked by its liturgical function, and it does help maintain the sacredness of the Mass. To ignore what Collegium does is really a slap in the face to a heritage that worked hard to only give the absolute best to God.
- We did sing (”drive-by singing”) in San Giovanni (where the papal throne is), St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls, the Sacred Steps, and probably a few others in Rome that I’m forgetting. We sang Mass at Santa Croce in Rome, I think - it was the church devoted to the relics of the True Cross, with the chapel of St. Helen. We sang Mass for a local parish in the city of Marino. We sang in the giant black and white striped gothic/romanesque cathedral in Siena, Santa Croce in Florence (in front of Machiavelli’s grave), San Francesco in Assisi, and had a really moving Mass in a church in Palestrina as well as a nearly 1000 year old Church in Rome near St. Mary Major.
We had a very large group - 70-80 people, I think, nearly all of them singers - and so we had volume and tended to blare a bit. The strength of the group is that since we’ve all been doing this forever, we didn’t have to practice much to get or maintain a good sound, and in quite a few places we had a brilliant sound emerge from a section or two. Recordings I’ve heard of us made impromptu on this trip sound pretty awesome.
3. I hung around my little group quite a bit - Bill, Ryan, Barbara and whoever else wanted to tag along. Learned a lot about what’s happening on campus, how to elaborate the notion “God is being,” and parenting, respectively. Bill was an excellent tour guide for Rome, although when we were just walking through it, my imagination started taking over. It’s hard to read Virgil, Ovid, Augustine and see the Renaissance art and not start wondering what the spirit of Rome is, and how it relates to both the ruined and finished buildings. The Forum and Pantheon were genuinely exciting: my greatest desire at both places was insight into what greater thinkers experienced.
I spent a good deal on good meals. Boar with polenta; this “forest” scented pasta sauce with two sorts of mushrooms blended into it, one of the mushrooms being truffles; the tenderest, juiciest veal with this subtle lemon sauce that went great with wine.
One of the worst meals I had I paid too much for, but it was a time I spent learning. At that meal I sat with a few Collegium members who were really hurting, who were in pain because of failed relationships, career choices with unexpected consequences, and trying to explain that they had grown, but weren’t sure how it happened. They knew they spent more time listening than before, and were curious what the next stage, from wonder to talking too much to listening far more, would be. It felt like Collegium for the most part was in that “talking” stage, but these members were beyond that.
I just sat and enjoyed the bean soup and all its delicate, overpriced flavors and listened. I know more than anyone else that growing up alone will not solve one of the major crises of our time, that our humanity is so decayed we can only reject religion or embrace it wholly uncritically. Somewhere along the line we started seeing each other as objects, as means to ends. It is unclear how any of us, sacred or secular, could deal with an afterlife where social graces might matter that much more. I always thought the one thing God wanted from us was that we love each other as He loves us.
Jan
1
Masaccio’s “Holy Trinity”
Filed Under personal | Leave a Comment
Seen in person at Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
The Holy Trinity, with the Virgin and Saint John and donors
The classical elements are not superfluous. The hallway supported by arches suggests the Father is walking towards us, except He is holding the cross bearing His Son. The dove, the Holy Spirit, is between Father and Son, but approaches vertically as opposed to horizontally. Our eyes are drawn in both an opposite horizontal and vertical direction. Horizontal motion invites us to place ourselves with the patrons kneeling, or attempt to step beyond them.
The Holy Spirit descends, but we ascend: we see the family crypt of the patrons, then the patrons themselves. They are on the outside looking in, separated - made almost invisible - by the pillars. Mary is visible to all, inviting us to observe the crucified Christ. What motivates John is invisible: he is lost in contemplation. The vertical movement leads to a contrast between divine and human death. We know Christ will rise; we know we must die. We relate to God through God dying: God cannot be stepped up to. The patrons are as far as we can get.
Jan
1
When in Rome…
Filed Under personal | 2 Comments
1. New friends: mosaic artist Julie Richey not only does some amazing work, but is even blogging about the Collegium Rome trip I’m still on. Cherie Peacock’s (who’s on the trip) Catholic Answers site explains the piety of many on the trip, even though she’s not blogging about this publicly (or at least, not that I know).
2. The University’s Rome campus needs more books and computers. The former are necessary because teaching here, if I were so privileged, would be a nightmare without them: I would constantly say “hey, you should look at such and such a secondary source” and it wouldn’t be there. Specifically, they need books by UD professors and by teachers of UD professors.
Also - there are a grand total of 2 computer terminals on campus. Think about that for a second, if you don’t quite see a problem.
3. We were in Siena, Florence and Assisi recently - more on all of that later, but for now, I want to take note of the monument to Machiavelli in Santa Croce in Florence. The woman depicted holds his portrait atop books in her right hand. Her left grips scales lying slack (h/t Sean Lewis), with a sword in one scale (the blade is hidden) and a scroll in the other. She has not weighed both or either yet, and one wonders how that judgment resolved in writings unambivalent about unleashing power for peace.
Dec
26
Dear _____:
I’m packing for a trip as I write this. When I come back, the new year will have arrived and all will be at work again.
I think of you often. I love all my exes even though I talk to none of them, and there are many whom I love and have loved who I talk to sparingly or not at all.
I don’t talk to you at all. I have nothing to say directly, usually.
This is not the usual. For all I “know” - I obviously know something, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this - you could be married now, completely settled in your work situation, and best of all, independent and cared for by trustworthy friends. I couldn’t stand your friends because their drama was really one giant excuse to do whatever they liked. And then the drama became a giant excuse to do whatever you liked.
Blogging is thankless work. I am so grateful for the people who read my stuff, respond to it, promote it. Because really, what am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to say to my professors “yeah, I’m trying to get the school’s name out there, but it’s failing, so um, can i get some thanks?” Am I supposed to say that my stuff is better than 99% of the net? I may feel that way, but I know how I feel when I read people who write just as densely, and my head starts aching. Am I supposed to say my stuff is real scholarship? I don’t know I want to say that: as I work on the dissertation, I run into papers and books that are awesome, with exquisite attention to detail. The “jots and tittles” are taken very seriously by many academics, and I admit that for all my ranting about the academy, I want to produce something like that, which is why I’m writing a dissertation.
But here’s the thing about “blogging:” I’ve put myself out here, made my dedication to my work public, demonstrated I eat, sleep, breathe this stuff, and invited others to share my journey. And I’m not saying “I’m so great.” I’m not.
I’m saying I wish you were “here.”
We don’t need to talk, but I want to know you’re doing more than just playing horrible Flash games and saying dirty things on Myspace and Facebook. I want to know that no matter what happens to you, you’re growing, you’re getting the right people around you, and you’re being yourself in the fullest way possible and accepted for that.
I want to know that you’re happy being your best.
This is the New Year: my authority stems from my words alone, not what I do, not how much money I make, not who loves me. It stems from my words because of all the other opinions I’ve taken seriously and continue to take seriously.
I sincerely hope you’re happy wherever you are, because I know when you’re happy, you’ll spread your wings, if you haven’t already. The time we knew each other closely was hibernation for you, and I apologize that I couldn’t help you in any way. In many ways, you were and are a far better person than I am. It is entirely possible you do not need this exhortation.
But if you do need it, it’s here. I owe you for many of my best words and best thoughts - you were not afraid to be critical and loving then, and despite the fact this could easily make Jezebel’s “Crap Mail from a Dude,” I don’t want to be any less critical if a truly greater good can be effected.
Dec
23
I’m around, just quiet…
Filed Under personal | 2 Comments
I’m out of the country from Dec. 26th - Jan. 5th. My brother whom I haven’t seen in months is back for a short while and I want to hang out with him, but I’m also rushing to get a little something done for the dissertation before I leave - I feel like I’m really behind on that even though I’m always reading and taking notes and all that junk.
Anyway. Point is, if I’m quiet and you want to hear from me, contact me. I want to get in at least 3 more blog posts before I go - there’s an important topic or two that I think might be nice to introduce - but no guarantees. I’ll have lots to say when I’m back.