Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Looking Up at The Iguazu Falls
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Looking Down at The Largest Falls on Earth!
Barriers
OR
Beauty:
Our Creator’s Visible Music
Ezra 3:11
They sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever towards Israel.’ And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.
Mark 14:26
When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Words of Grace For Today
Music carries the human heart when all other modes of expression and communication fail.
A great moment is reached for the Israelis as Solomon has taken on the task of building a temple for their God, though God had many times said that there was to be no temple. Settling in the Promised Land transformed the people’s understanding of God’s needs (and their needs hidden therein). So Solomon starts building. Or rather a great number of the people, under orders from Solomon, start building, starting with the foundation.
Foundations are important not just in construction of buildings, but in life, and in relationships.
The 1986 movie The Mission portrays the Jesuit’s work to bring the Christian Gospel (as good news, life giving news) to the natives in South America where Brazil, northeastern Argentina and eastern Paraguayan meet today. Their outreach to the Guaraní natives, isolated beyond the Iguazu Falls, the largest falls in the world, has failed, resulting in the deaths of every priests who has ventured above the falls.
Father Gabriel, having ordered the last priest up the falls to his death, climbs the cliffs next to the falls, knowing full well he is likely to also be sent tied to a cross back down the falls to his death. He brings with him one more tool for outreach, his oboe. As he senses that he is being stalked by the Guaraní he pulls out his oboe and plays Morricone’s “Gabriel’s Oboe” (or Gabriel’s Oboe) a haunting, loving, profound piece of music. Father Gabriel’s stalkers are moved from aggression to curiosity to …. Though one warrior grabs the oboe and breaks it, the others take Gabriel and his broken oboe to their chief. Father Gabriel is left unharmed, and later one of the natives returns the oboe to him, repaired.
This lays the foundation for a very fruitful relationship between Father Gabriel and the Guaraní … until, like all things good, the devil breaks it all to pieces. This time European and Papal politics, in the Treaty of Madrid (1750), transfer the area the Jesuits have worked in from the Spanish to the Portuguese. The Portuguese allow slavery. The Portuguese destroy the Jesuit Missions that, under the protection of the Spanish, have brought education and music as the bearers of Christian faith to the peoples below and above the falls.
Still, today, as in every generation, music carries the Gospel beyond what words and actions can. Music permeates our lives down to the foundations, and helps the Holy Spirit rebuild our foundations on that which created and sustains the universe, God’s unconditional steadfast love and generous Grace.
Exactly what so many poets and thinkers have expressed in words that have been put to music, for example Dietrich Bonhöffer’s Von Guten Mächten Wunderbar Verborgen to Siegfried Fietz’ music here Fietz’ limited English translation
Wenn sich die Stille nun tief um uns breitet,
so laß uns hören jenen vollen Klang
der Welt, die unsichtbar sich um uns weitet,
all deiner Kinder hohen Lobgesang.
(When now the silence permeates deep around us
let us hear those full sounds
of the world, invisibly spreading everywhere:
all your children’s hymns of high praise.)
…
So we raise our voices in the unending chorus ….