IT’S GREED, INDEED!

Hanns F Skoutajan

“There is strength in numbers.” That was the message that the Sunday

School teacher illustrated to the children at a recent service.

About a dozen or more youngsters gathered around her on the chancel

steps in the presence of the congregation. I often feel that the parents and

other worshippers, let alone the children, learn more from this “teaching

moment” than they do from the sermon to follow.

On this occasion the teacher reached into a bag and brought out a pencil.

She handed the pencil to one of the younger children and asked her to

break it. The child looked a bit startled, she was usually admonished not to

do this destructive deed. Nevertheless, with all her strength she bent and

broke it into two pieces. Once more the teacher reached into her bag and

this time brought out a bundle of six pencils held together by an elastic. The

teacher now gave the pencils to an older, bigger, stronger child. He applied

his power to the task but try as he might he could not break the collected

pencils. The combined pencils successfully resisted him.

It was, of course, a simple illustration that there is strength in numbers -

simple but not simplistic. It is a lesson that will be well remembered by all.

The news that day had to do with the massive protest marches that were

taking place in New York, Toronto, Vancouver and many other places

throughout the world. Their message was loud and clear calling on

governments and industry to curb the activities that cause global warming.

The huge rally in Manhattan came auspiciously a day before the UN

Climate Summit, a gathering that our own prime minister decided not to

attend. Instead he sent Leona Aglukkaq, minister for the environment in the

Harper cabinet who spoke to a sparse audience at the UN and never

mentioned the word “oil.”

There was a time when Canadians could point accusingly at other

countries for their infractions of human rights, the production of weapons of

mass destruction and invasion of sovereign territory of neighouring states

as well as environmental pollution. Evil was always remote from our

borders. Today the citizens of this Peaceable Kingdom no longer have that

luxury inasmuch as we have become the producers of significant amounts

of greenhouse gases. We, courtesy of Fort MacMurray, are now in the big

league of polluters. Not only the mining but the transporting of the bitumen,

is a risky business. At the end of the line this fossil fuel is sold to be burned

to produce energy and thus add further to the smog that hangs over such

countries as China and India. The once beautiful Gaia that the first

astronauts beheld from outer space has become besmirched with pollution.

Numerous pipelines are on the planning boards to be built to transport

Alberta’s bitumen south via the Keystone XL conduit, awaiting Obama’s

approval, or west over the mountains by way of the Northern Gateway to

Kitimat from whence it is to be shipped by supertankers through the

precarious passages to the Pacific ocean. The construction of this pipeline

has been vigorously opposed by First Nation People who feel that their

native lands are being violated. Oil spills would have devastating affects on

the pristine wilderness.

I have recently been reading This Changes Everything in which Naomi

Klein Illustrates and makes the case against the corporate invasion of the

world’s ecology. She documents the assault being made on this globe, and

it is, indeed, global in extent. Bill McKibben whom she quotes frequently,

who is one of the most outspoke leaders against global ecological

degradation, made the point that the petroleum industry has enormous

financial resources but the people have the numbers as has been shown in

recent demonstrations.

Our prime minister prides himself on the free trade deals that he has been

able to sign, with Europe and the Orient. This, he maintains, will bring

significant investments to Canada which will translate into jobs and wealth

that will make Canada a truly extractive giant.

Free trade agreements beginning with NAFTA and the MAI have included

what is known as Chapter 11, a provision that allows corporations to sue

foreign governments that dare to pass legislation to protect their

environment to the detriment of the investors. It is a totally undemocratic

arrangement inasmuch as it rudely overruns the wishes of citizens in favour

of the multinational corporations. The judicial process is carried out in

courts over which the country affected has no control.

We may recall the Doomsday Clock, a count down to a possible politically

related global catastrophe, such as a nuclear war that would bring

civilization to an end. However, today, there is a different doomsday threat

as the amount of CO2 emissions climbs ever higher moving the world ever

closer to a point of no return at which global warming takes on a life of its

own and human technology no longer has the power to reverse it. Already

we are witnessing changing weather patterns, to wit: storms, drought,

flooding and other unusual climate experienced also in our own country.

Unfortunately there are still those who remain unconvinced by the

testimony of scientists, who prefer not to believe that which stands in the

way of their ability to make more profits, simply put, their greed.

Yet, as is evident, all over the world more and more people are deeply

concerned where this “economic development” is leading us. It is

undoubtedly the most important issue facing the people of the world. Ban

Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has stated that,

“Climate change is the defining issue of our time. It is not a distant threat. It

is coming and approaching much, much faster than we may think.” As I

looked at the assembled children at church I could not help but wonder

about their future.

It has been stated that there is No Second Chance. Once having destroyed

Nature it is difficult if not impossible to rebuild. Nature can do without us but

we cannot do without it. Nature is not our enemy, although we often treat it

as an entity to be subdued. Rather, we need to treat it as a friend.

Remember the Children’s Moment at my church - individually we can be

broken but together we are strong to resist the forces of greed. The

catchword of our time is: UNITE!

Spirit Quest 28/09/2014

PS: This just in and Three Cheers!

BERLIN, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Germany will not sign a trade pact

between Canada and the European Union unless an investment

protection clause allowing companies to take cross-border legal action

against governments is scrapped, Germany's economy minister said

on Thursday.

FROM THE DIAPHRAGM

Hanns F Skoutajan

“You have a stentorian voice!” she accused or honoured me. I’m not sure which.

I had some sense of what that meant - a voice that is impossible to ignore. I had

been involved, as is often the case, in a debate that passes for conversation on

the patio of our favourite coffee shop in Ottawa. Conversation is not enhanced by

the passing traffic, especially not by the trucks and occasional fire engine that

can bring communication to a halt. Even my stentorian voice is overwhelmed by

that.

I was curious about the origin of the term, stentorian, and so turned to Google

and Wikipedia for an answer. The designation, I discovered, originated from the

name Stentor, an Athenian soldier in the Trojan Wars. He was well known for his

powerful voice which was a real asset on the battlefields of the time as it would

be on the parade squares of today. Unfortunately Stentor died of overexertion in

a shouting contest. His name, however, persisted in modern parlance.

While chaplain at Dalhousie University in Halifax in the latter fifties I was invited

to be the interim minister at St. Matthew’s United Church in downtown Halifax for

almost a whole year. It consisted of preaching Sunday morning and evening. St.

Matthews is a large and beautiful church with a tall spire that defines the corner

of Spring Garden Road and Barrington Street. Inside it is unique for the little

doors at the end of each pew. The seating capacity was close to 1000 and well

attended in the morning and evening. The sermon was preached from a

magnificent pulpit high on the front wall of the sanctuary. From that perch most

ministers with a normal voice should manage to be heard. The worship was

enhanced by a great four manual Casavant pipe organ and a well trained choir.

The organist took me in hand to teach me how to project my natural stentorian

voice to best affect. Complaints dramatically subsided. I hope that what I had to

say was also worth hearing. I do have some old reel to reel tape recordings of

those occasions. My successor who was less well accoustically endowed

begged the board to procure a public address system.

Two years ago I was honoured with an invitation to preach at the 265th

anniversary of the congregation. The building itself dates from the latter 19th

century, one of the oldest in the city that managed to survive the great explosion

of 1917 that ravaged a good deal of the city below Citadel Hill.

Much has changed. The congregation is considerably smaller as is the fate of

many old downtown churches. However, the interior has been beautifully

preserved and the little pew doors remain intact. The high pulpit is no longer in

use. Worship is now conducted from a raised platform and, of course, enhanced

with an excellent PA system. It is from there that I delivered my sermon.

During the closing hymn Betsy Hogan, the minister, whispered to me an invitation

that I could not refuse and had secretly hoped to hear. Would I speak the

benediction from the old pulpit? And so it was that during the singing of the last

verse of the hymn I mounted the long stairs to what had seemed close to

heaven. When the hymn was completed I raised my “stentorian” voice to speak

the words of the benediction without a PA system:

Go into the world with a daring and a tender love,

The world is waiting for you

Go in peace and may all that you do be done because of love,

And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.

As I looked over the congregation, now much smaller than I remembered it back

in 1958, memories flooded my mind. I recalled some of the congregants of the

time, a few were still present on this occasion, still occupying the same pew. In

my heart I gave thanks to Clifford Gates who had helped me to use my vocal gift

to best advantage, then and through the rest of my PA assisted ministry.

In my education for the ministry, preaching was an important subject. We were

also trained to use our voice. “From your diaphragm now, men (and we were all

men).” This was later replaced by microphone technique, if at all. The stentorian

gift is no longer a necessity as it was then most definitely.

Silence is precious but when there is something to be communicated it is best

that it be clearly understood and heard.

Spirit Quest 21/09/2014

                          GIVE THEM THIS DAY THEIR DAILY SOUP

                                                   Hanns F Skoutajan

There was a time in my life when I was nourished at a soup kitchen. Thankfully it was a long time ago and far, far away from here.

My parents and I and a lot of other refugees had flooded into the city of Prague, so much so that the Czech authorities were sending them back by trainloads into the arms of the SS. All were German antifascists on the run from Hitler’s forces and the minions that were supporting his takeover of the Sudetenland in the fall of 1938. The Nazis were intent on picking up the leadership and shipping them off to concentration camps such as Dachau. My father’s name was prominent on their list, I was later to discover.

We had very little money or possessions, only what we could carry when we arrived in the capital city. What money we did have we tried to save for even harder times ahead. We did not know what was to come. The future did not look promising.

Our accommodation was in an attic which had been supplied with straw mattresses on the floor, there was not a stick of furniture about. One toilet supplied the needs of all of us. Most of our neighbours were Jewish who had been able to read the writing on the wall. Their hope was to reach Britain, the US or perhaps Palestine. Our worst suspicions came to reality a few months later when the German forces occupied the rest of our country. We had reached a safe haven by that time.

Every day a large crowd gathered at the Labour Hall to line up at the counter where we were dished out a (thankfully) thick, rich soup and a hunk of heavy rye bread. and a piece of hard chocolate. It was better than what was served in Canada during the depression. We were grateful for these mercies.

What sustained our morale was the sense that we had one thing in common, that we were not alone. We were political refugees with a common enemy. This fear also united us.

I still recall the slogan on the wall of the hall - “Work and Democracy.” That’s  quite different from the words over the entrance to the concentration camp that awaited many : Arbeit Macht Frei:  (work will make you free). This was of course a lie for in those camps all were slave labour, and freedom would only come with death or if you were lucky to survive until the arrival of the allies armies.

Our family was among the fortunates inasmuch as my father was one of the most endangered and thus soon spirited out of the country to Britain. Mother and I followed three weeks later. In the meantime we continued to be guests at the soup kitchen and attic.

As I pass by the Shepherds Of Good Hope at the corner of Murray and King Edward streets in Ottawa, I observe the crowd, fortunate in their misfortune to receive food and accommodation. I have never been inside but can only imagine it to be pretty crowded and quite basic. 

The clientelle is quite different from what we were back at the Labour Hall in Prague in the fall of 1938  There is only one thing we have in common: we are all victims. There are those who blame the victims for their victimhood, but many of them have histories of mental illness, drug abuse, first hand or second hand as in fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as a plethora of other causes. 

We were victims of ideology. We believed in freedom and social justice, peace and security.  We all suffered homelessness and fear.

I admire those who care for them as well as those who cared for us either through donations or with feet on the ground. It is not an easy task.

Today there are victims on every continent, especially in Africa and the Middle East but also some on this blessed continent. They are the poor, the displaced, the sick, children and the aged.

Those bowls of soup at Prague’s Labour Hall remind me how narrow is the trail from misfortune and how broad the stream of those en route. Much has changed from those days when my parents and I stood in line dependent on the compassion and generosity of our providers. Unfortunately much has remained the same. Fortunately there are many agencies and individuals dedicated to helping them whether at home or abroad. The need is dire. Support them generously! 

SQ 14/09/2014

More writing may be found at MYQUEST   

    

                              PARLER VOUS.....?

                                          Hanns Skoutajan

A strange phenomenon has been manifesting itself in my brain - words and phrases in the Czech language, irrelevant and often inappropriate, have been popping into my head at all hours. 

The Czech language, until I was ten years of age, was a second language for me, German being my mother tongue. I was then living in what used to be the Sudetenland, an area stretching along the border of Germany and Austria. In our city, 85% German, Czech was the second language. We children were taught Czech in school. By the time I was nine years old I could converse in basic Czech but then we were forced to flee the country when Hitler annexed it.

Just before Christmas of 1938 we arrived in Scotland and I was now exposed to English albeit with a Scottish accent. One day someone approached me and addressed me in Czech. I was embarrassed, although the language sounded very familiar and I thought that I should understand it, nevertheless I did not know what the person was saying. It seemed that in my effort to learn English Czech had been totally wiped from my mind. Not until four years later in Canada when we took up residence in the little wartime community of Batawa east of Toronto, did I hear Czech once again.

Batawa was the home of the Bata Shoe company who had also come to Canada with Tom Bata to establish the shoe business in this country. Many of my new friends spoke Czech with each other which sounded familiar but was mostly incomprehensible to me except for bits and pieces.

In high school I learned French and later Latin. The French that was taught was Parisian but not that which was current in La Belle Provence. However, we did read Maria Chapdelaine, a novel set in the Lac St. Jean area of the province. 

As for Latin, it is basic to many of the modern romance languages, especially Italian.  Once upon a time it was the official language of the Roman Empire, the language of Virgil and Cicero. When it disappeared from common usage it continued to be, until this day, the language of the Roman church.

At university I studied the Greek of Homer, Aeschylus, of Plato and Aristotle , but also the New Testament of the Bible. although much of it was written in a colloquial form known as koine. It also familiarized me with the Cyrillic alphabet which allowed me to read the street names in Moscow and prevented me from getting lost. 

As well I was also exposed to Hebrew and managed to be able to read some of the Torah and Psalms particularly because I was already familiar with them in English. 

Jesus did not speak Hebrew. The language in his home and community was Aramaic, a sort of amalgam of Hebrew, Arabic and other semitic languages. 

However, I have retained German, my mother tongue. My cousin, a German lawyer, maintains that my German is better than it ever was and that this is a sign of old age.  I studied German literature at university and did a year of postgraduate studies in German  which certainly helped in maturing my mother tongue.

But all this is ancient history. What amazes me is the occurrence of Czech phrases and words, seemingly out of the blue, having been stored somewhere in my subconscious all these years. As a child I had learned simple songs  such as : ”Jade, jade, poštovsky pan,” about the arrival of the mailman, or  “Ja mam konĕ,” about owning a pony, not very sophisticated, you will agree. 

All this leads me to assert the importance of learning another language, be that becoming bilingual in Canada or comfortable as a tourist in Latin America and elsewhere.

Language is more than words. It is a culture, a way of life. As the world gets smaller and our neighbourhood contracts, we need to appreciate those neighbours and their modus vivendi. However many of us are content to rely on English, the universal language, spoken and understood the world over. It is thus easy to become linguistically lazy.

I realize that I shall never become fluent in Czech or any other language for that matter, and there are languages such as Spanish or Chinese that are more practical, but I must admit that upon hearing Czech, either sung or recited, a chill runs down my spine and I sense an affinity and love for my first second language. 

My strong advice to all who have not yet reached the age of dotage is to attempt to learn to read, if not to speak fluently, another tongue. Being able to converse and to read in German has given me a great sense of satisfaction. I practice it at every opportunity. 

SPIRIT QUEST  

September 10, 2014

More writings are available on MYQUEST

  

IN THE BEGINNING : SOMETHING TO STAND ON

Hanns F Skoutajan

“Nooooo, not you of all people!” was the response of Pat Bennet, my favourite high school teacher, when at age 17 in Grade 12 I revealed my professional aspiration to her. She was a Catholic and undoubtedly had in her mind the image of a pious celibate which didn’t quite jibe with the Hanns she had come to know. 

Mr. Sigsworth, the principal of this village school in eastern Ontario, was a strict Free Methodist who was less negative but had some doubts about my beliefs. I had not been “saved” as far as he perceived me. My fellow students were unanimously ambiguous or just didn’t give a damn what I did with my life after I left the school. 

As for my parents they were relieved that I had chosen what they called an intellectual calling. Father had left the Lutheran church when he was a young man. It was too narrow and nationalistic. Mother had similarly left the Roman Catholic Church about the same time. She was a humanist and feminist and that didn’t sit too well in the pew.  In Canada they joined, and indeed became quite active, in the United Church.

I had been challenged by my pastor, the Rev. Henry Vaclavic, shortly after my confirmation. He was a Czech like ourselves and a minister of the Church of All Nations in Toronto. He made periodic visits to our little community to minister to Czech families.  His services in the Batawa recreation hall were rather long inasmuch as he repeated the sermon in Czech. I thus became well acquainted with the flooring of the hall.

“Have you ever thought of the ministry?” he enquired of me. Well, yes I did. Although my parents had left their respective churches they felt that I should be acquainted with their former faiths. Father took me to the Lutheran church. It was very plain but had a large statue of Christ with outstretched, welcoming arms, behind the altar as if to say, “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden...” The services were rather wordy. The music was very Lutheran, not lively. “A Mighty Fortress” however was powerful and father sang it with conviction. Mother had taken me to the Catholic church and I was quite impressed by the bells and smells, the elaborately garbed clergy who bowed and genuflected gracefully before the altar. It was all very dramatic and reminded me of the operas I attended at our beautiful baroque opera house where father was on the board of managers. I regarded the mass like a dramatic performance to be enjoyed but not believed in literally.

After my positive response Mr. Vaclavic passed my name on to Queen’s Theological College in Kingston where the students were organizing a gathering of young people during the Christmas holidays known as the Christians Renewal Conference. I received an invitation and decided to attend. On leaving home father warned me, “The students will make a significant impact on you, think carefully about your decision.” 

The students were indeed infectiously enthusiastic about  their chosen profession. One of whom was Bob Shorten, who is still in contact with me. We had fun but also listened to lectures given by some of the Queen’s staff. I was particularly interested in the ideas expounded by Prof. Mac Gilmour who gave the gospels a more liberal interpretation than that with which I had been familiar. Also Prof. Harry Kent, an Old Testament teacher, made this ancient history come live. There was also a church bureaucrat present to talk to possible candidates for the ministry individually. Dr. John Leng became my mentor.

One day I received an invitation from Leng to come to Toronto to the “Church House,” the secretariat of the national church, at 299 Queen Street West, not 999 on that same street which was the well known mental hospital.

Leng introduced me to a number of senior secretaries, one of whom advised me to go to the United Church Book Room in the building and to obtain a recently published book with the interesting title “Something To Stand On.” Lewis Dunnington the author was minister of a Methodist church in Idaho. A good many students attended his services - remember this was the post war period. They had lots of questions about the Bible and religion in general. He put a question box in the foyer of the church and invited students to put their questions into it. He then endeavoured to preach on the suggested topics and later gathered them in the book that I had bought.

In these sermons/chapters, he dealt with “Hell, A Place or State of Mind” coming down on the latter, of the person of Jesus, could he possibly be both God and man, and again came down on the latter. He wrote/preached about miracles, sin and forgiveness and much more. His book has a place of honour on my bookshelf inasmuch as it had opened my mind to other interpretations of the faith than that with which I had been accustomed. Today his thinking is represented by John Shelby Spong, an American Episcopalian bishop, who has been in the forefront of the movement for gay marriage and women priests and bishops. He is both reviled and highly honoured by Americans. I have acquired and read most of his books. He is also a frequent lecturer in Canada.

The conference at Queen’s concluded with a communion service at Morgan Memorial Chapel on the Queen’s campus. During that service I did some serious thinking as my father had admonished me to do and came to the conclusion, as he suspected I would, to embark on my journey to ordination in the United Church of Canada. In his latter years when he and my mother lived in Toronto they were always in my congregation.

On returning home I was soon conscripted by my local pastor to assist him. The Frankford pastoral charge consisted of four congregations: Frankford, the village church, Stockdale at the corner of two roads just west of the village and Zion at the end of a long farm road. After the war Batawa was added to this trio of churches. It was different, looking more like a suburb. Its residents were employees of the Bata Shoe Company and thus a more urban crowd. For our education we travelled by bus, perhaps the first school bus in Canada, to the schools in Frankford and finally to Trenton and Belleville. 

During the summer holidays all four congregations wanted morning services and I was conscripted to preside over two in rotation. My minister gave me a number of books of sermons to peruse and then turned me loose in those four churches. Dunnington’s book was always close at hand. I needed something to stand on.This turned out to be a real education. I still have some of these sermons in a box in storage. 

A number of people have asked me about my faith journey. There is much more to it than what I have just narrated and of course my mind has changed in certain instances, but it is the beginning and I hope to add to this story as time goes by. 

SQ 25/08/2014

THE GUNS OF AUGUST CAN ONCE AGAIN BE HEARD

Hanns F. Skoutajan

“The War that Ended Peace” Is the intriguing title of a book by Margaret MacMillan in which she explores the reasons for the Great War, 1914 - 1918. It had been preceded by a century of relative peace since the end of the Napoleonic wars, relative inasmuch as there had been minor confrontations but nothing to match the conflagration that would consume all of Europe and a good deal more. It would entail a massive loss of life on both sides especially on the front between Germany and France.  It ended with an armistice on November 11, 1918  and be followed by a conference at Versailles that dismembered the Austria Hungary empire, establishing new boundaries and creating new states such as Czechoslovakia, the land of my birth. Loss of territory such as the Rhineland and large amounts of compensation were demanded much of which Germany, although the loser, ignored. 

The guns of August, the title of Barbara Tuchman’s book, are also audible in our time especially in the Middle East in a very lopsided struggle between Israel and Palestine in Gaza which is being pounded to smithereens, but also in northern Africa and Asia. Many of the wars today are not nation against nation but internal such as in Syria. Russia and its former vassal state are at each others throats with much of the world particularly the United States, Europe and Canada siding with the Ukraine. These have the potential of escalating into wider international conflicts. 

Let me be frank, I hate war. One would suppose that most everyone does, but that isn’t so. Many countries are gaining great profits by supplying weapons and the fuel that run them. It was Dwight Eisenhower who coined the term “military- industrial complex” where the winners are the suppliers of bombs, aircraft and the oil on which war runs.

Although, as a child until my 9th birthday, I lived less than 30 km from the German border, I never did see shots fired in anger. I did witness political skirmish on the streets of my home town, between the Sudeten Germans, the Nazis versus the Socialists, until the Munich Agreement divided the country on September 25, 1938. 

Only after fleeing to Scotland was I familiarized with war. On a short stay in Glasgow prior to our departure for Canada my parents and I and other refugees were treated to a civil defence film. Much of its footage was shot in the Spanish Civil War and only too graphically showed the bombing by Hitler’s airforce of Republican cities. It frightened me and I could hardly wait until we boarded an ocean liner to take us across the Atlantic far from what would become a theatre of war. 

Of course  during the war I was often exposed to film clips about the fighting in Europe and North Africa. These were usually shown before the main feature films such as Sun Valley, a light song and dance kind of film. That was before the Americans were attacked at Pearl Harbour and themselves became embroiled. 

For a time an allied victory was not a forgone conclusion. Germany was winning on all fronts until stopped at Stalingrad in Russia and Alamain in the Sahara. In the Pacific the Japanese island hopped. Canadian men and women went abroad , many did not return from Italy, France and Germany. War was not a pretty thing.  Brits found out that the civil defence film I had seen was quite realistic. 

It was Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military tactician, who said that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” That process must be reversed, and war must end and negotiations take the place of violence in order to restore normalcy and peace. The United Nations has an important and difficult role to play in the world. Yes, I passionately hate war. I would like to be a pacifist but sometimes it seems that the only way is by military action such as defeating a Hitler.

It is now 100 years since the outbreak of the Great War. We are reminded of the sacrifices Canadians made at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and the Somme as well as many other bloody and muddy venues. The last survivors of that war have now left the stage and the actors in other wars of the 20th century are also diminishing. Soon there shall be few if any witnesses to those bloodlettings.  

We need desperately to be reminded of the “inglory” of war. Our government wants to impress us with the valour of our soldier, sailors and airmen from the war of 1812 to the present, to convince us that Canada came of age at Flanders and a generation later on the beaches of Normandy. I have no doubt about the price of sacrifice but it is nevertheless a tragedy that differences can only be settled on battlefields and with the loss of life and the devastation of environment. I ask myself how the struggle between Israel and Palestine will be resolved. 

I hate war whether Canadians are involved or not. Ours should be a peacekeeping role rather than a warrior nation as written about by McKay and Swift in their book Warrior Nation . 

War is not glorious, it is ugly. Remember the horrors of the last century as well as our present time.

SPIRIT QUEST  28/08/2014

   

BEHOLD!

Hanns F Skoutajan

There are times when, at least to me, this world seems old and worn out, its people aged and exhausted. Our environment is threatened and devastated. Nation wars against nation and  peaceful solutions do not seem imminent. It is a rather negative assessment and no way to invite a readership.

This, I suppose is nothing new. 100 years ago the Great War began with a shot in the streets of Sarajevo. A devastating war followed in which thousands lost their lives in battles that seemed to gain nothing until an exhausted Germany and Austria pleaded for amnesty. Twenty years later they did it all over again.  Margaret McMillan called it The War that Ended Peace.

But even much longer ago the world, at least as it was known then, seemed problematic. Empires clashed, refugees even then wandered the globe. St. John the Divine to whom is attributed that last and most enigmatic of biblical writings known as The Revelations of St. John the Divine, pictured God sitting on his throne and announcing renewal, “Behold I make all things new,” Revelations 21: 5, inspired by the words of Isaiah 43: 18 - 19.  I have long felt that these words ought to be set to music, and indeed, they have been. 

For a time in my ministry I dabbled with music for worship. Nothing I composed made it into Voices United, the new United Church hymn book or its successor, More Voices. 

I was looking for a tune to accompany St. John’s words. Then one evening I attended a concert at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto. The Czech Philharmonic orchestra performed the tone poem  My Fatherland by Smetana. Best known of that musical cycle is The Moldau which describes the river as it springs in the mountains and forests of his homeland and makes its way to the sea. 

Another less well-known segment of that composition is called In Bohemia’s Forests and Meadows. As I sat, listening and enjoying the music from my land of birth, I was suddenly aware that one of the themes of that piece suited itself to the words of St. John: Behold I make all things new.”

On coming home that evening I found the vinyl platter of Smetana’s composition and discovered the bars of music that had so moved me. I scribbled some notes which I then took to my amiable and gifted organist Roger Hobbs and together we came up with a tune based on that theme.

I am not sure whether lyrics beget tunes or is it the other way round, but having a melody to work with I soon came up with meaningful words:

Behold I make all things new, the bread, the wine and you,

The kernels fall to the ground, there they must die, 

and bring forth new shoots of hope, food for all folk, they’ll hunger no more.

Behold I make all things new, the bread, the wine and you.

The grapes are plucked from the vine, give forth their blood, and

slake the hot pain of thirst, gladden the heart and bring forth new life.

Behold I make all things new, the bread, the wine and you.

If you would come after me, take up your cross and

follow the path of love, justice and peace proclaim, and rejoice.

In other words, renewal always comes with sacrifice. Unfortunately humans are too prone to attempt to bring in new eras by means of strife, the rich enriching themselves at the cost of the poor and ravishing the environment to the detriment of all living creatures.

Perhaps I am naive to hope that it can be otherwise, that humans can learn that to live together as peaceful people in a clean environment requires sacrifice. To me that is the predominant message of a true religious faith.

Many years ago while visiting Isreal/Palestine I encountered Faisal Huseini, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Movement. He had just come home from an Israeli prison, Without bitterness he said to me something that I shall never forget. “Israelis and Palestinians must get rid of a hope and a fear, hope that they can have all this to themselves, and fear that they will be pushed out into the desert or the sea.” 

These words had a profound affect on me because they apply to all the world, not merely the much troubled Middle East. The citizens of the world must banish the hope that they can have it all their own way, and the fear that they will be overcome by the enemy.

  

  Spirit Quest 06/07/2014