My Lenten Sacrifice

Lent started approximately an hour ago ... and I realized, upon reflection, what I need to give up, and who I need to become even further, for the next six weeks. During some internet reading, I came across something remarkable. It is a tribute, given by Deen Larsen, about soprano and artist Elly Ameling. 

Now, Elly Ameling has, for the last 35 years, been the very heart of this special summer academy. For she truly embodies the highest qualities of the German Lied as the expression of the Romantic soul. She is our most genuine voice of Mignon and Mignon’s Sehnsucht – that pure longing of the heart for union with the Absolute Beloved, that burning desire to know and to be known, which consumes us and inspires our best songs, both spiritual and erotic at the same time. Elly Ameling has given us Mignon and Gretchen and Suleika and all the souls of Eichendorff and Hölty and Mörike. She has given us the truth of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, because she is a truth-teller. Truth-tellers never sing for their own glamour and glory, they never ingratiate or flatter, they have no hidden agendas and no selfish possessive desires. In fact, the singular self disappears like Ganymed and the Greater Self – the All-loving Father who has no name – takes possession of his chosen prophets. And then Goethe speaks, Schubert plays, and Ameling sings. Or rather, Universal Creative Love – at once spiritual and sensual – speaks and plays and sings in and through these geniuses. As Goethe tells us: the Whole is present in every part. 

There is still a small kernel of something within me that I need to sacrifice completely. I sense this surgery is going to be difficult. Yet I know it to be necessary. 

I need to give up the last bit of my ego. 

We have journeyed together through decades, at the keyboard, over oceans, through relationships, times of humility, and times of growth. Egos aren't bad all of the time. They get you through countless dark places of "what do I have to say" and "how dare I take the stage" and "do I deserve this work" and "do I deserve to be here." 

Egos have a bad side, too. At best, they hurt people. At worst, they do permanent damage to great art or the artists within others. 

Let us not, in Larsen's words above, "[live - sing - write - play] for our own glamour and glory." 

For Lent, my singular self needs to disappear. 

1 John 4:7-10

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Lenten Daily "Office"

Monks celebrate their daily office using a regimen of frequent gatherings and "check-ins". Today I was required to meet and do things regularly, but I had a good amount of time on my own, for practicing, study, and silence.

I've been thinking a lot about Lent (because it is Lent now). Growing up, and attending CCD, we had to talk about "what we were going to give up." Candy and video games were the trendiest Lenten sacrifices amongst my elementary school classmates. On this, and many other things, I think we entirely missed the point.

Lent can also be about "taking on something." And so, my Lenten challenge is summed up in one word.

Core.

Attend to the core, and everything else will work itself out. I mean this physically (gym and yoga today), emotionally, spiritually, and musically. Part of each day will be devoted only developing core (technique, prayer, writing, cleaning. etc.). It's so easy to get lost in sensational periphery. My Lenten journey will be taking this on, as much as getting rid of unnecessary extras.

As author Kathleen Norris asks, "What is worth dedicating ourselves to?"

Photo: The core of the Rochesterian snow is melting. That doesn't mean that more won't come. We are still in the core of winter.