Monthly Archives: December 2022

Separation  (12/12/22)

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We have wondered from time to time how to reconcile public performance with personal behavior or belief.

We recently heard a choir perform a song that struck us as a hymn, or potential hymn.  Some of our readers who are more in tune with popular culture will recognize these lyrics.  I am old enough to be disconnected from the appeal of People magazine, for example and I probably would not have known the significance of a good percentage of the women who caused extensive gushing from observers as they strutted along the red carpet at the Oscar ceremonies recently. I have never known why the word Kardashian should occupy any of my attention whatsoever.

So I heard this song and I evaluated it for its lyrics and its sentiments.  And that’s the only thing I considered.

I used to think that I could not go on
And life was nothing but an awful song
But now I know the meaning of true love
I’m leaning on the everlasting arms

If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
I believe I can soar
I see me running through that open door
I believe I can fly

That seems to be a pretty uplifting sentiment, one that has been expressed in prose, poetry, and music—and inferred in scriptures of various faiths—for centuries: by placing trust in “the everlasting arms,” a person is capable of great things.

At the least, the song is a statement reminiscent of Norman Vincent Peale’s best-seller, The Power of Positive Thinking, which is still in print sixty-five years after it was first published.  Peale wrote, “A positive mental attitude is a belief that things are going to turn out well, and that you can overcome any kind of trouble or difficulty.  Those who seek positive thinking in the Bible point to the first chapter of Luke where it is said, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”  The sentiment also appears in the nineteenth chapter of Matthew.
I’m leaning on the everlasting arms

If I can see it, then I can do it
If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky


The rest of the lyrics are al continuing affirmation of that idea, the idea that by leaning on the everlasting arms, anything is possible:

See I was on the verge of breaking down
Sometimes silence can seem so loud
There are miracles in life I must achieve
But first I know it starts inside of me.

If I can see it hoo, then I can be it
If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

I believe I can fly
I believe…

 A flash mob performed this song in, of all places, an airport in Stockholm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCucos4qGQw

But will we hear this song sung in future gospel festivals?  Will we hear it sung by our church choirs?   Will its message be dismissed because of who wrote it?

R. Kelly—

—-who will be sentenced in February on three counts of production of child pornography and three more of enticing a child.

This is the point where some of us ask whether a performer’s works should be ignored because of their personal actions or political positions.  Or can we, should we, separate the person from the performance?  Does the idea that we find a performance worthy of praise somehow automatically mean that we support who the performer is or was as a person?

In the 1960s, plenty of people attacked actress Jane Fonda and folk singer Joan Baez because of their personal political positions on the Vietnam War. And we have seen similar reactions to more contemporary performers such as athletes who kneel during the National Anthem. Many of those who are vehemently opposed to those who kneel during the song cheer when that same player does something good on the field.  Clearly there is room for separation.

Several years ago. I attended a worship service at Martin Luther’s church in Wittenberg, Germany.  At the close of the service, with the centuries-old organ playing behind us, we stood and sang, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” Luther’s great hymn. Goosebumps seldom come to me in church regardless of how good the sermon is. But they did that night.  Afterwards, as we talked to the young Lutheran minister from Ohio who was preaching English-language sermons in the church, we were led outside and shown a carving high up on the wall of the old church. It showed people suckling a pig, an anti-Semitic carving on Martin Luther’s church, a reminder that even Luther was not above political sentiments of his time.

I am bolstered at times by the music of Richard Wagner, whose music is informally banned in Israel because of his anti-Semitic writings that influenced the Nazi movement and apparently were appreciated by Adolf Hitler.  But does my appreciation for Wagner’s music mean I agree with his nationalistic writings?  I hope not. Does my appreciation of Jane Fonda as an actress mean that I supported her actions in Vietnam? I hope it doesn’t mean that. Do I have to agree with those who attack kneeling athletes to be a good American, or do I think I need to kneel, too, to be a good American?

So does R. Kelly’s apparently pending disappearance into the prison system for some decades and the reason for it lessen the inspiration that listeners might feel listening to—or even performing—“I Can Fly?”

Why can’t I believe I can fly even if the person who suggested it is beneath my respect?

 

Enheduanna’s descendants

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About twenty descendants of Enheduanna met at the Missouri River Regional Library yesterday afternoon.  I might have been the only one, certainly one of the few, who knows about this relationship.

It was a gathering of mis-Missouri authors, all of whom had their books for sale.  I sold five in two and half hours but I had some lively conversations with with some of the other descendants.

Enhe—who?

I am a member of the Archaeological Institute of America and a former member of the National Geographic Society.  Do not be impressed.  That only means that I subscribe or subscribed to a magazine.

In my latest edition of the AIA’s Archaeology magazine is the story of Enheduanna, a poet and a composer of hymns to the temples of the Akkadian Empire.  She was a priestess and a princess, the daughter of Sargon the Great who founded the world’s first great empire by uniting northern and southern Mesopotamia,  and his spouse, Nanna.

Enheduanna, whose name translated means “Ornament of Heaven,” was the high priestess at the temple to Nana-Suen, the moon god, in the ancient city of Ur, once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates River on the Persian Gulf in what is now southern Iraq.  Time has caused the coastline to shift and the site of Ur is on the south bank of the river, about ten miles from Nasiriya, a city not far from the Gulf.

There is a portrait of her—sort of a portrait—found on a 4,000 year old disk excavated in 1927.

She is shown in the long dress, two male servants behind her and another in front of her, prayerfully working on one of her poems or hymns.  The disk dates from about 2250 BCE.*

She is important in today’s observation because she is the world’s first author.

Or at least the earliest person whose writings have survived with an author’s name attached.

Kate Ravilious, in her magazine article, quotes Assyriologist Anette Zgoll: “The rituals that Enheduanna performed were instrumental in creating the new power structure by reconciling the city states and the wider realm.”

One of her hymns is Temple Hymn 26: To the Zabalam Temple of Inanna:

O house wrapped in beams of light
wearing shining stone jewels wakening great awe
sanctuary of pure Inanna
(where) divine powers the true me spread wide
Zabalam
shrine of the shining mountain
shrine that welcomes the morning light
she makes resound with desire
the Holy Woman grounds your hallowed chamber
with desire
your queen Inanna of the sheepfold
that singular woman
the unique one
who speaks hateful words to the wicked
who moves among the bright shining things
who goes against rebel lands
and at twilight makes the firmament beautiful
all on her own
great daughter of Suen
pure Inanna
O house of Zabalam
has built this house on your radiant site
and placed her seat upon your dais

She wrote in cuneiform and her works are preserved in 4,000-year old clay tablets.

Perhaps you have been moved to write a poem (beyond your elementary school English classes where a teacher might have had you write one as an assignment), or a published or unpublished book.

Or maybe you blog.  Or perhaps your literary tastes are confined to Facebook or some other social media platform.

Those who write are literary descendants of a woman who lived for that four millennia ago and whose words are preserved on clay tablets.  Some of us also write on tablets but our works probably won’t be found by archaeologists thousands of years from now.

Enheduanna would be considered the patron saint of authors, probably, except she probably is considered a heathen by those who confer official sainthood.

A lot of people, perhaps most people, have an urge to write. Something.  Some make a living doing it. But only a minuscule percentage of writers are in that category.

I don’t think any of the people at the tables in that library room make a living from writing, but mot would agree that writing makes living better.

You can be the Enheduanna of your household.  Publication is secondary to the reward of just writing, whether is poetry, a memoir, a family history, or an attempt at the great American novel.

Don’t worry about where to begin. Just start.  The beginning point and the ending point will come later.  But write.

Enheduanna has had a lot of descendants.  Be one more.

*BCE is an archaeological term for “Before the Common Era,” which provides a process of dating that does not favor a particular religion.

(photo credit: wikicommons)

The last man

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We have enjoyed some of the images sent back to earth from the Artemis spacecraft and its crew of three mannequins as it made its first rehearsal for a trip to the Moon.

We suspect an 87-year old man in Albuquerque, New Mexico has noticed them, too.

Harrison Schmidt not only saw the Moon from that perspective; he walked on the moon.

He is one of four surviving Moonwalkers. He is the only survivor of the last manned landing. Harrison Schmitt, Gene Cernan, and Ronald Evans were crewmates on Apollo 17 which lifted off from Cape Kennedy at 12:33 a.m., Eastern Standard Time.

Cernan, the mission commander, climbed back into the Challenger moon lander after Schmitt went up.  He signed a piece of artwork for me shortly before he died five years ago.  The third member of the crew, Ronald Evans, stayed in the command module while Cernan and Schmitt explored the surface.

Schmitt is the only scientist to have walked on the moon. He was a geologist who made one of the more startling discoveries in the Taurus-Littrow region where they landed. On their second excursion outside the Challenger, Schmitt excitedly proclaimed, “There is orange soil!” Cernan assured listeners back on earth, “He’s not going out of his wits. It really is.”

Fifty years ago, in the early morning hours of today, I watched the Saturn V rocket begin taking these three men to the moon.  To say that it “lifted off” is a gross   misunderstanding of what those of us at the press site witnessed that night. It was, simply, the most awesome thing I have ever seen.  Or heard.  Or felt.

The press site was three miles away from Launch Pad 39A. The flames from the rocket were so bright that the camera’s exposure setting barely captured the rocket as it broke ground.  The colors have faded but the memory remains vivid.

We were three miles away but I still was about 100 yards closer than Walter Cronkite and the other broadcasters describing the event.

Imagine a rocket so tall that if it was on the railroad tracks below the capitol would be as high as the statue of Ceres on the dome.  It had to carry so many tons of fuel that the flames and the smoke seemed to boil about it for several seconds as the engines built up the thrust to push all of that weight toward the sky.

For several seconds, night became day for miles up and down that part of the Atlantic coast.

The roar drowned out my voice as I tried to record what I was seeing and what I was seeing was beyond my powers of description.  The ground shook so much that an alligator in the swampy area between us and the Launchpad was startled and crawled up on the shore, causing some of the reporters to scatter.

If you have ever been close to a cannon going off, you probably have felt a concussion against your chest from the explosion of the shot. Imagine feeling that same concussion constantly, powerfully, during that slow climb that soon took the great rocket past the tower and into the darkness of that early December morning. And the roar could still be heard minutes later as the fire of the engines merged into a single distant dot.

My God!

Three men were on top of that thing!  And

They

Were

Going

To

The

Moon.

We knew they were the last, for now.  We had no idea it would be fifty years before another spacecraft capable of carrying humans to the Moon would do it again.

They were 28,000 miles out when one of the astronauts—history has lost which one—turned a 70-millimeter Hasselblad camera back toward where they had started.

It’s called “The Blue Marble” photograph.  It, and Apollo 8’s “Earthrise,” are two of the most widely produced images in photographic history.

No human eyes have seen us this way since Cernan, Schmitt, and Evans saw us a half-century ago.

The Artemis spacecraft is headed back to earth now. It’s to splashdown on Sunday. It will be two or three years yet before another Artemis capsule carries people back to the Moon.

I wonder if any of the twelve men who walked on the moon will be around to greet the next people to go there.

Schmitt is 87.  Buzz Aldrin, the second man to leave footprints there, will be 93 next month. Apollo 15’s Dave Scott, the seventh man to do it, is 90. Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke, the tenth man and the youngest Moonwalker, is 87. Schmitt, the 12th man to touch the moon—although Cernan was the last man to be on the Moon—is the second-youngest.

Only six others who saw the moon up close but never landed are still with us. Frank Borman, who commanded the stirring Christmas visit to the Moon on Apollo 8, is 94.

One of his crewmates, Jim Lovell, who later commanded the most successful failure of the space program on Apollo 13, is the same age. Bill Anders, the third member of that crew, is 89.  Apollo 10’s Tom Stafford is 92.  Apollo 13’s Fred Haise is 89, and Ken Mattingly from Apollo 16 is 86.

My brother-in-law, Curt Carley, who went with me on that trip and who shot the launch image with my camera while I was off trying to verbalize the impossible, and I went to our motel, finally, had a good morning’s sleep, then headed back to his home in San Antonio.  It took a couple of days.  We stopped in Houston at the Johnson Space Center and watched television screens showing us that the men of Apollo 17 were seeing.  In the time it took us to drive to Houston, they had reached the Moon.

There were supposed to be three more Apollo missions but they were cancelled because of shrinking budgets and shrinking public interest.  Short-attention span Americans and their “been there, done that” nature, had other things to do.

It was a time when nothing seemed impossible.

Fifty years have passed.  And I can still feel the pounding against my chest and see with my mind’s eye the moments when night became day at 12:33 a.m., December 7, 1972.

 

The People, Yes

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Carl Sandburg was a great American poet from my home state of Illinois.  His multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln remains one of the great works about the Sixteenth President.

In 1936, Sandburg published his epic poem, The People, Yes. It’s a powerful work that captures the American people in their contradictory, dynamic nature.  It’s a great read.  Sometimes when I’m explaining the Benton mural at the Capitol, I quote it when I emphasize to students and—a few days ago—to newly-elected legislators that politicians come and go but the people are forever and the greatness of a state rests with the people and their hopes and efforts and thoughts:

The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it…

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
“Where to? what next?”

Sandburg also wrote in the poem about Lincoln.  What he wrote about Lincoln has some resonance today:

Lincoln?

He was a mystery in smoke and flags

Saying yes to the smoke, yes to the flags,

Yes to the paradoxes of democracy,

Yes to the hopes of government

Of the people by the people for the people,

No to debauchery of the public mind,

No to personal malice nursed and fed,

Yes to the Constitution when a help,

No to the Constitution when a hindrance

Yes to man as a struggler amid illusions,

Each man fated to answer for himself:

Which of the faiths and illusions of mankind

Must I choose for my own sustaining light

To bring me beyond the present wilderness?

Lincoln? Was he a poet?

And did he write verses?

“I have not willingly planted a thorn

in any man’s bosom.”

I shall do nothing through malice: what

I deal with is too vast for malice.”

What will we look for in the elections of 2024—candidates of malice or candidates who think, “What I deal with is too vast for malice?”

Let us not be so cynical as to believe there are no candidates in the latter category. We might need to persuade some to jump into the arena where they ae badly needed.  We must not tolerate an atmosphere so toxic that those to whom malice is beneath them will lack the support to lead a people who still dare ask, “Where to, what next?”