Cat Language?

Tonight I observed something that makes me wonder whether cats can communicate with each other on a verbal level.

I went into the kitchen for a bedtime swig of milk. My greedier cat, Tyrone, followed me in hopes of getting a second round of Pounce. He watched from the counter while I pulled the plastic ring off a new jug of milk, unscrewed the lid, and drank a few swallows. I recapped the jug, put it back in the fridge, and tossed the ring into the part of the empty dish drainer where drying silverware is wont to stand. I was simply too lazy to pull out the garbage can from under the sink and dispose of it properly.

I walked out of the kitchen and paused a few steps away. Already I could hear an annoying but familiar sound: the scraping, thumping sound of a cat drying to dig something out of the dish drainer. The odd part was that Sinead is the cat who likes to play with things like the plastic ring off a milk jug. But Sinead hadn't been in the room when I tossed the ring into the drainer.

I walked back into the kitchen to see what was going on. Sure enough, I caught Sinead jumping down from the counter, having already flipped the plastic ring onto the floor. I picked it up and binned it properly this time. But I also marveled, when I thought about it afterward. How had Sinead found out so quickly that I had hidden one of her favorite toys in the dish drainer? I had scarcely walked the length of the dining room before she found it. What instinct could have led her to it so fast?

Had she smelled the freshly opened milk and associated it with toys? Had she heard the click of a tiny, almost weightless strip of waste plastic against the plastic bottom of the dish drainer? Had she spotted the whole business from an unobtrusive vantage point? (Unlike Tyrone, Sinead rarely jumps onto the kitchen counter.) I don't know. As far as I know, she wasn't in the kitchen when I left it. Perhaps it was something Tyrone said to her? Did he, I wonder, yell out in a language outside the range of human hearing, "Hey! Sinead! Look what Dad just threw in the sink"?

Why Do We Have Music in Church?

1. Because we can. In whatever measure God has given anyone the ability to hear, understand, and enjoy music, to sing, play musical instruments, or compose new music, that person is a steward of those gifts. As Christian stewards, we have an opportunity to devote a portion of all that God gives us to His glory and to holy use. This is fitting, since it all belongs to Him.

Because the officiating pastor's musical ability is also a gift of God (and because his singing voice may carry better than his speaking voice), this principle also applies to the pastor chanting his part of the liturgy.

2. Because we may. Music is part of God's good creation. As His beloved children, we are free to use every created thing, within the bounds of fitness and lawful order. There is no law against making appropriate use of music in worship. So it suits our Christian freedom to use worship music in a manner that shows love to God and our neighbor.

Again, there is room within this Christian freedom even for the pastor to chant his side of our liturgical dialogue.

3. Because we should. The church's cultural life, including music and other arts, is a reflection of its spiritual life. Only a church of the flesh can spare no room for an inner life, no time or resources for the pursuit of excellence. And if the church made no use of music or the arts, these wholesome gifts of God would become nothing but instruments of worldly concerns and desires. As Luther allegedly said: "Why should the devil have all the good tunes?"

In light of this principle, we put a high value on the heritage of hymns and sacred music bequeathed to us by the faithful of earlier generations -- especially where artistic excellence is married with a strong witness to our faith. On the other hand, this principle also enjoins us to appreciate and encourage the creative offerings of today's faithful.

4. Because we must. Hearts moved by God's Word cannot help but express themselves: their sorrow over sin, their joy in forgiveness, the comfort of their heavenly hope. Many religious texts have been born of the overflow of such feelings. The music that goes with them was born when Christians recognized that the words were too beautiful to be merely spoken; they must be sung.

Who hasn't felt ashamed, at times, to hear one's fellow parishioners reading a Psalm in a bored monotone? We need the music to remind us how to feel about the text, to tell us what the words mean.

5. Because music can instruct us. Music is a powerful aid to memory. We retain words combined with a tune far better than words alone. Good words set to well-written music can be a powerful tool for teaching the faith, both to children and to adults. Religious bodies - heretics included - as well as political parties and commercial firms have all recognized the propaganda power of a song that sticks in the head. A hymn learned in childhood may often be one of the last memories preserved in one's forgetful, old age. Experience says that churches with a well-learned core of worship music can get by, if they have to, without an organist or a hymnal. This is why it is so much easier to follow an order of service with music we know, than with strange music or even no music at all. We hear a familiar musical cue and we know exactly what to sing next, even where a spoken cue might leave us confused and uncertain.

It probably follows that the average congregation only needs to learn one setting of the Divine Service -- ever. It's OK if the hymnal has 3, 5, or even 11 settings. Those extra musical settings will add a dash of variety to a few, exceptional congregations that are good at sight-reading music. They also provide plenty of choices for a parish considering making the switch to traditional liturgy for the first time. But the proverbial Church of St. John-in-the-Cornfield should stick with the service they know. It is serving the "aid to memory" function of church music very well. A change to something unfamiliar will only get in the way.

6. Because music can identify us. A visitor to your church can quickly learn a lot about you, simply by listening to your hymns and liturgical music. In Lutheran circles, the type of worship music they hear can tell them which of several types of Lutheran church you are. There's the type that will do or say anything to be popular or relevant. There's the type that wallows in nostalgia for an old-time religion, without distinguishing between Lutheranism and any other type of Protestant doctrine. And there's the type of church where some effort to uphold the principles of the Lutheran Reformation can be heard in the liturgy and hymns.

Our worship music is a public confession of where we stand spiritually and theologically. Though any confession can leave some people feeling excluded, there are those looking for a faithful church home who will only know they have found it by your sung and spoken confession.

7. Because music can unite us. We share a heritage of church music with Lutherans throughout the U.S. and in other countries. So every hymn and canticle that we sing is an act of fellowship with our brethren across the country and abroad. It also puts us in fellowship with the saints in heaven who sang the same pieces when they were on earth.

By continuing to use the best hymns and liturgical music, we show good faith toward those who are struggling to build new, faithful Lutheran church bodies, or to turn troubled, old bodies back to the faith of their forefathers.

8. Because of the command of God. Particularly in the Book of Psalms, God's Word frequently calls upon the faithful to sing His praise. See 1 Chronicles 16; Psalms 30, 95, 96, 98, 147, and 149; Isaiah 12 and 42; and Jeremiah 20, for example. Certain musical instruments are also mentioned as being used to worship the Lord. Bearing our Christian freedom in mind, we are not to suppose that only those instruments, or the precise words of the Psalms, are to be heard in church, any more than the verse that reads "Sing to the Lord a new song" requires us to invent new hymns every week. But because of so many commands to "sing unto the Lord," we know at least that God does not hate or despise our songs of praise. In fact, He invites them, and when our songs focus on His marvelous deeds we can even be certain that He regards them favorably.

The God-inspired apostle Paul urges Christians to worship God in "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5; Colossians 3), both to honor God and to instruct one another in His Word.

9. Because of the examples of men. Jesus and His disciples sang hymns (Matthew 26; Mark 14). Paul and Silas sang while they were in prison for preaching the Gospel (Acts 16). The saints in heaven sing in praise of the Lamb in Revelation 5 and 14. Hymns, sequences, and canticles such as the Gloria in excelsis and Te Deum are among the earliest surviving literary works of the ancient Christian church. Much of the oldest notated music that can still be deciphered consists of Gregorian chant and the polyphonic church music based on it. The history of Christendom is crammed with faithful witnesses who, among other things, wrote hymns: including a certain Martin Luther of cherished memory. Putting together orders of worship (including chanted liturgy) and hymnals were among the first orders of business in the Reformation. When Siberian Lutherans, under the persecution of Soviet atheism, were stripped of their pastors and books, they kept the faith alive by circulating samizdat hymnals, handwritten from memory.

The great composer J. S. Bach devoted much of his career to serving the Lutheran church with sacred music for choir, orchestra, organ, and more. Others before, during, and since Bach's time have contributed musical offerings that bear witness to the spiritual and cultural treasure that glows within Lutheranism. We draw encouragement from their faithful witness each time we hear or perform their music -- and when we reflect on the fact that, in many instances, their witness was so powerfully faithful indeed. Bach, for example, has been called the "fifth evangelist," because the study of his music has led music lovers of many faiths (and none at all) to Christianity and, in many cases, to Lutheranism.

10. For the glory of God. Bach used to end his musical manuscripts with the letters "SDG," initials standing for a Latin phrase meaning, "To God alone be the glory." If you view music as a language, church music is language addressing worship to God. If you view music as an art or craft, church music is a vessel dedicated to God. It follows that we intentionally give Him our best, and that we seek to please Him rather than ourselves. Whatever touches on the mission of the church -- from making a confession to the stranger in our pews to instructing, nurturing, and comforting church members, from delivering God's Word to our hearts to carrying our praises back to Him -- church music is part of it.

All this is not to the credit of the composer, the publisher, or the performers. It is the work of God, who has both created music and yoked it so effectively to His living and powerful Word. So Bach's scribbled "SDG" is not merely a pious conceit. Church music really does work to the glory of God!

Consecutive Tackiness

Today's new message on the same ELCA church sign reads:

COME HEAR
GOD'S STIMULUS PLAN
ECONOMICS OF THE CROSS

Translation: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where stock and real estate values doth corrupt, and where investment managers break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither bank nor brokerage doth corrupt, and where Bernard Madoff types do not break through nor steal. Turn your mammon of unrighteousness over to us, and rest assured that no one will foreclose on your eternal mansion..."

All right, if I keep going, people will want to go and hear that message. Nowadays even in the church - especially in the church - all the talk all the time has to be about money. Pity!

IMAGE: The peril of funding a church by corporate sponsorship.

Sanguinary Tackiness

I left blogging it until after the sign had been changed, but last week's message from the neighborhood ELCA church sign said something like:

LENT IS ABOUT GIVING BLOOD TO SAVE LIVES
BLOOD DONOR DRIVE ___DAY, __-__ P.M.

That's what I call the "Red Cross Theory of Atonement" -- Jesus is the universal blood donor spreading antibodies against sin to people of blood types A, B, AB, and O; let us therefore donate our blood in remembrance of Him!

If this message inspires you to donate blood, thanks and remember - I have Type B.

Three Book Reviews

The Dragon of Never-Was
by Ann Downer
Recommended Ages: 12+

Further to Hatching Magic, this book reunites a young wyvern (try to picture a catlike dragon) with a similarly young wizard. Vyrna (the wyvern) and Theodora (the wizard) have been separated by an ocean since the Events of Last Summer - when they put a stop to the plans of an evil wizard that involved time travel, demon possession, and the summoning of a Chinese dragon in the middle of present-day Boston, USA - but one gathers they are still destined to be together.

Since the Events of Last Summer, Theodora has been coping by writing a journal, taking art lessons, and trying to hook up her nanny with her widower dad. But now a power she did not look for or ask for is blooming inside her. Partly to protect that power, partly to exploit it, and partly to decide whether or not to take it away from her, a magical organization called the O.I.G. has seen to it that Theodora and her father arrive in Scotland in time to investigate the discovery of a mysterious scale, belonging to a creature unknown to science.

But more is afoot on the Isle of Scornsay than a nondescript species of fish or reptile. An evil genius is pulling mysterious strings. A wild man, possibly connected to a decades-old missing-persons case, wanders the island searching for something. The tale of a treasure cut out of a dragon's eye crosses threads with rumors about an ancient, forbidden book of magic. The boundary between our world and a strange, nether realm is about to rip open. And with her friends and loved ones in danger, Theodora must quickly learn to accept the changes happening in herself.

Written with fast-paced charm and zest by the author of the Spellkeys trilogy, this is a magical mystery showcasing a growing magical talent that should go right to the heart of Harry Potter fans. Though this book came out way back in 2006, I sense that there are more adventures in store for Theodora and Vyrna.

The Whim of the Dragon
by Pamela Dean
Recommended Ages: 12+

In The Secret Country and its sequel The Hidden Land, a pair of magic swords transported five cousins into a world of magic and adventure - the very world, in fact, that they had invented together over several summers of make-believe games. They found the real version of their fantasy world full of disturbing deviations from what they had dreamed up; yet in its most tragic details, they could not divert their well-rehearsed plot line from its course.

They could not prevent the king's favorite counselor from poisoning the king. They could not spare Ted the terror of battle and a descent to the Land of the Dead. Rather than face the final act of the story - in which Ted must fight a duel with his best friend - the children fled back to their world, leaving behind a letter confessing that they were imposters standing in for the real princes and princesses of the Secret Land, who had been murdered by the evil sorceress Claudia.

Having reached the end of The Hidden Land, you may find yourself caught in one of fantasy lit's most excruciating cliffhangers. Heightening your discomfort, the third book of the trilogy is out of print - though new copies of the first two installments are widely available. This has to be one of the strangest mischances in the publishing world; for not only does The Hidden Land leave the story incomplete, but it leaves the reader in almost physical pain.

We have just learned that Claudia has been pulling strings on both sides of the portal between our world and the Secret Country. She has used the history of the hidden land to influence the imaginings of Ted, Laura, Patrick, Ruth, and Ellen. She has then used their imaginings to change things in her own world. Even with her house of mirrors burnt down, Claudia is still at large, the children's adventure incomplete. Yet with so much still at stake, they have gone back to their normal lives in Illinois and New South Wales! How can one possibly stop there? How can one come this far and not see it through to the end?

Thanks to the internet's resources for buying used books, there is still hope of getting one's sweaty fingers on The Whim of the Dragon. I only had to wait one maddening week for my well-thumbed copy to arrive. And the reward is a rich, complex, deeply textured final act of a great modern classic. It combines fascinatingly original concepts and minutely-observed character details with an elaborate embroidery of classic poetry, songs, and literary references. And by the way, if someone were to put out an album of the songs in this book, I would buy it.

What becomes of the Carroll children? Why, they must go back to the Hidden Land, of course. This time, however, they will face the wizard Fence and certain other royal counselors knowing who the children really are. They will have to contend with Randolph's guilty death-wish, Andrew's plots and suspicions, the wiles of the defeated but still dangerous Dragon King, and a party of shape-changers masquerading as themselves. One half of the party travels north to seek answers from a library of magical lore; the other heads toward the Dragon King's court, stopping along the way to visit Claudia's sorcerous stalking-grounds.

They bandy riddles with unicorns, dragons, and creatures whose nature can only be guessed; they gradually find out the stunning truth about what is going on; they cope with visions, dreams, disembodied voices, and encounters with the unquiet dead; and caught between several equally dangerous powers, they struggle not for their own survival but for the future of the Hidden Land itself. In the end, their quest is about the future. Who must surrender to death, and who may return from the dead? Who goes back to the world the Carroll children came from, and who remains to rule the Secret Country? How can family love, romantic love, duty, and honor be served?

When I try to express how well this trilogy pleases me, I find my usual flow of words strangely blocked. I am ashamed to repeat superlatives I have too often used before. What can I say, then, to convince you of my strong feelings? Of course, no one book in this trilogy is perfect in itself. But taken as a whole, as a single sweep from the first line of The Secret Country to the last of this book, it is something better than perfect. In its eccentric wit, its flawless shape, its visionary poetry, its heart-stabbing drama, and the fleshy realism of its characters, it is nothing short of transcendent. It glows, it shines, it twinkles in the firmament of young adult fantasy. It is an apotheosis of the imagination.

Now I must disclose one last thing. It is possible that I am biased toward this book and its trilogy for personal reasons. When I was a bookish kid around the age of this story's Patrick, I joined several of my own cousins in one or two summers of acting out games of sci-fi/make-believe on the family farm. I relish the memory of those games, though I might die of embarrassment if forced to relive them in detail. The idea of a group of literate, cultured kids mining the Classics to forge their own fantasy world is not merely fantasy to me; it is nostalgia. So though the book had some hard bits in it, the hardest bit was taking leave of it. I must therefore trust to the phrase often repeated in it: "All may yet be very well."

Tales from Shakespeare
by Charles & Mary Lamb
Recommended Ages: 12+

Charles Lamb, alone and in partnership with his older sister Mary, published many works across a broad range of styles and genres, but he is best remembered for his eloquent essays and for this book, in which selections from the plays of William Shakespeare are distilled into the form of short stories. Really, that's a respectable legacy for a bipolar stammerer (Charles) and a convicted murderess (Mary)!

Preserving somewhat of the language and even some literal, or nearly literal, quotes of the best speeches, the Lamb siblings did much to bring those rarified, dramatic masterpieces to a wider reading audience. Convoluted plots, difficult language, muddy questions of interpretation, and matters that in those Victorian times were considered inappropriate for children and young women, suddenly became simple, clear, family-safe, and accessible. Today the Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare is rightly regarded as a classic in its own right; attempts to surpass it have been numerous but unsuccessful.

Not all of the Shakespeare plays are here. For whatever reasons, Charles and Mary passed over such important plays as Henry V, Richard III, and other historical plays upon the theme of English royalty. They also skipped such tragedies of the Roman Empire as Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. You may also look, in vain, for quotes of your favorite soliloquies, such as "Out, out, brief candle" and "To be or not to be." Nevertheless you will feel as if you had read Shakespeare almost in his own words - only without half the difficulties that bard poses for the modern reader. The language is old-fashioned, in the manner of the age in which the Lambs lived; but it can still be readily followed, and its formal cadences have their own kind of charm.

What tales will you find here? You will find, of course, great tragedy in King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Othello. You will find romance, often happy - as in The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night (or, What You Will) - but sometimes deliciously sad, as in Romeo and Juliet. There is outrageous humor, as in The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing; tales of faerie, as in The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream; reworkings of ancient legends, such as The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre; and also thought-provoking plays that examine serious problems, such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Timon of Athens, and Measure for Measure.

Several of the plays, including As You Like It, feature characters who go about disguised as members of the opposite sex - with hilarious, romantic, and possibly scandalous results. Some of the plays, like The Merchant of Venice, would probably now be considered "politically incorrect" if they weren't mortared into the cornerstone of English literature. And many of them, like All's Well That Ends Well, have a strong ethical message that comes across loud and clear, even when (often in the "comedies") their endings are too tidy for their own good.

I have a large, heavy, one-volume edition of Shakespeare's complete works. I have enjoyed reading the parts of it I have read. But they take time and work to get through. In this lightweight little book you will find quick and easy synopses that will at least get the main points of some 20 Shakespearean plays into your head. They're good reading. I myself found only one of them dull (Timon of Athens), and the Lambs may not be entirely to blame for that. Rather, they excel at making difficult material easy to understand, doing for the bard what Roger Lancelyn Green did for Greek mythology. To start you on your journey of discovery in the works of Shakespeare, I heartily recommend this book.

Recomposing

I am inching closer to trying to get some of my musical compositions published. Lately I have been combing through my choral scores, adding rehearsal piano parts and turning these, without the choir parts, into keyboard works that I could publish under the same opus number with an "a" added. In some cases I have still need to type in lyrics, dynamics, and articulation marks, and there have been a lot of typos to correct. Also, I scoped out a publisher and found out how to submit my work to them for consideration. So, perhaps in as little as a week or two, I will be ready to start courting rejection.

My seven-stanza chorale fantasy on Luther's Easter hymn, "Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands," now exists as a complete work for SATB a capella choir (with rehearsal piano), a less demanding version for a modest church choir (with keyboard obbligato), and as a purely instrumental piece for 2-manual organ with pedal (including a rough approximation of how the organ is to be registered throughout the piece). I completed the original draft of this piece the same week as organ preludes on two other hymn tunes, one of which I have already taken for a test drive during services at my church. Plus, I'm trying to teach the Easter piece to my church's choir.

After I perform some needful services to the scores of a half-dozen other hymn-based choir pieces, I'll be ready to face the publishing world with a catalogue of preludes, fantasies, partitas, and motets on 24 different chorales. This isn't an awfully huge output for the last dozen years of my composing career, though it doesn't count a setting of the Divine Service, a Psalm, and selections from the Easter Vigil, plus some original hymns. Hopefully enough of of these pieces will find favor in some publisher's eyes, and come to the attention of choir directors or an organists at traditional, hymn-oriented churches. Then, perhaps, I'll be better situated to make money doing this...and, thereby, enabled to do more of it!

Fruity Tackiness

Today is the First Sunday in Lent. If you attended a church with a reasonable semblance of liturgy, you may have heard the story of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve from the third chapter of Genesis. That being the case, you'll appreciate the tackiness of today's lighted sign at the ELCA church down the road:

FORBIDDEN FRUITS CAUSE MANY JAMS

Gosh! Who would have thought a church could make sin sound so yummy!