Für Arvo

“I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”

-Arvo Pärt

I first discovered the music of Arvo Pärt in 1996 through a happy coincidence while living in Bloomington Indiana and attending Indiana University. A Russian friend of mine had off-handedly mentioned his name and thought I might enjoy his music. This friend had studied at the Moscow Music Conservatory and was currently engaged in graduate studies at the Indiana University School of Music. His opinion in this matter had some weight with me, but I did not follow up on the recommendation right away.

A week or two later I was in Roscoe’s, a used CD shop just off of Kirkwood Avenue and a favorite haunt of mine. I spent a good little amount of time going through the Classical music section without any sightings of Arvo Pärt. And that could have very well been the last of that, but then I moved over to the Jazz music section which was my usual hangout. Somewhere in the midst of music by John Coltrane (A Love Supreme, possibly?) I stumbled upon a misplaced CD… Arvo Pärt’s “Te Deum.” If that wasn’t an Augustine-like “take up and listen” command from God, then I wouldn’t know what would be!

Over the years I have acquired many CD’s of Pärt’s music. I cannot listen to it without being profoundly moved. I feel that I somehow acquire senses that transcend the five I was born with. Dostoevsky’s assertion that “beauty will save the world” resonates in my experience of listening to this music. When our son was born we listened to Pärt’s “Für Alina” over and over again those two days in the hospital. It was a precious experience seemingly outside of time and the cares of the world. It was the perfect soundtrack to the miracle of my son’s birth.

We fight not against flesh and blood...

Morning Prayers
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[].

October 30th, 2006 - I arrived at the airport with two large duffle bags and a long thin rectangular case housing an M16 A2 assault rifle. At the Northwest check-in counter an attractive middle-aged woman asked me if I had any bags to check. I said, “yes, two duffle bags and a weapon”. That last word felt so strange in my mouth. I’d joked with the rear detachment NCO who brought me to the airport that I felt like a mafia hitman lugging this rifle around in an elongated black case. The proclamation of having a weapon brought me to the attention of the male attendant who asked me to unlock the case. “Please show me that there is no ammunition in the rifle,” he said. I pulled back the charging handle and locked the bolt to the rear sensing that the eyes of other passengers were on my back. I angled the butt of the rifle towards him so that he could see that the chamber was empty. Satisfied he said, “thank you,” and I hit the bolt release mechanism causing it to slam forward with a loud CLACK! It was that sound that drove home the fact that this was not an overseas vacation I was going on, but a deployment to a war zone.

I found the curiosity of the attendant towards my M16 disquieting. “Is it true that the bullets from this rifle tumble instead of spinning in a straight line?” he asks. I tried to dig back more than fifteen years into my memory as a former infantryman and vaguely remembered something about a “tumbling” bullet and I say, “yes.” The female attendant asked why that was significant and the other replied, "it does more damage that way.” She accepted his explanation matter of factly and I quickly walked away from this conversation only then remembering that the bullet only tumbles when it hits its “target”, but I had no desire to return to the counter and clarify this particularly gruesome fact.

In one of the duffle bags I carried was a hand-carved “prayer box” wrapped inside my sleeping bag for protection. It was lovingly fashioned from walnut and banded with hammered brass to include a primitive brass latching mechanism to keep it shut. Affixed on the inside lid are three icons, the middle of which is surrounded by a carved frame. It is a thing of simple beauty, yet somehow exotic and mysterious. It is my true weapon, containing a prayer book, prayer rope, holy water, and a small sealed wooden sandbox for candles. It is a curious weapon, life-giving, unlike what is in the black case. One is hidden and the other is painfully visible, clunky, and cold. It troubles me that I am more proficient with the rifle than in saying my prayers. Lord have mercy on me…

Dream Doodle

Dream Doodle
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[].

This morning during staff meeting I doodled a dream I had a few nights ago on the back of a business card. It was the first dream I'd ever had with my son in it. As a result I shared it with my training psychotherapist and was able to make a lot of helpful connections.

In the dream I could fly (not uncommon in my dreams), but for the first time in my life I did not fly alone. I took my son up in my arms and flew with him to places where I'd grown up. We hovered over a basketball court in a gymnasium and I even flew him up high to see the lights on the scoreboard. We then flew to a house that I used to live in where an old lady was living now. She invited us in and let us look around.

The resulting doodle seems to be a Chagall/Superman/Hoosier hodge podge...

The Fifth Beatle

 

Last night I dreamt I was the fifth Beatle. It was the oddest thing. We were at a large gathering of some kind wearing white suits, the five of us, Ringo, George, Paul, John, and me. Odder still was the fact I knew John was either dead or going to die and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. 

My sense was that he was also aware of the gravity of his situation, but continued to talk and laugh as if it didn’t matter. I felt as his friend I should do something or say something. All I could eventually bring myself to do was hug him and whisper in his ear, “It’s going to be alright.”

***

"Who is My Neighbor?"

Kramer's 1!
Originally uploaded by Aaroneous Monk.

Our son turned one this past week. Unlike many extravagant celebrations I’ve seen or been aware of in the past for first birthdays, this one was very inauspicious. Most of our friends were out of town for the holidays and the one couple who wasn’t had a sick four month old on their hands and had to cancel.

The day of his birthday arrived. JB baked a birthday cake and we had some Elmo plates and hats on hand for the occasion. Undaunted by the lack of guests, JB & I decided to go knock on the door of two of our neighbor’s houses and invite them. Mind you, this was at 5:00 and we told them to come over at 6:30! One couple is in their 70’s and the wife suffers from mild dementia. The other couple is our age and they have a 5 month old little girl.

To my surprise they both accepted the invitation with little to no hesitation! At 6:30ish the older couple arrived with a card (“for your newborn baby” it read, ha!) that had some money in it. They donned the Elmo hats and settled in for the party. Soon thereafter the younger couple arrived with homemade cookies and explained that the husband had been late in coming home due to a traffic accident which he had to detour around.

It was a very rich evening full of laughter, story telling, and shared secrets of parenting. I sat at the head of the table thoroughly enjoying the moment when I became aware of just how special all of this really was. That morning there was no indication that such a scene would be playing itself out around our dining room table. It was just such a perfect moment with all the magic of serendipity and profoundness of providence.

When they all left JB and I looked at each other like, “what just happened here?” We chided ourselves for not having invited them over sooner. It seemed such a shame that we’d lived here for over 3 years and that was the first time either couple had been in our home. We made a promise to ourselves that with our next move we will invite the neighbors over sooner and get to know them better.

Thinking about this phenomenon the next day it struck me that it reminded me of the parable of the wedding feast that Jesus told. How those invited did not come to the party. How the King sent his servants “out into the highways” to invite those they found there. It also reminded me of the young lawyer who tested Jesus with the question,“And who is my neighbor?” to justify himself and Jesus replied with the parable of the good Samaritan.