Transcendent Beauty and Limitations in Everyday Ramblings

So this is where I spent part of my day yesterday, St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The Cathedral was built in this location in 1926 and was fully restored to this more modern interpretation in 1996. I sat in the 2nd pew back and listened to a choral concert of the Odes of Repentance. It was sung mostly in Slavonic but the beginning and end were in English.

Earlier in the day I was in Federal Courthouse Room #61 for a lecture called “The Words Write My Music” by a scholar on Arvo Pärt. The presenter is a faculty member at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Yonkers New York and I loved his lecture because it attempted to explain the way something deeply felt in a skilled artist can be translated to an audience.

And not only did I get this hear this fascinating food for thought lecture I got to sit in the jury box. (The chairs were more comfortable.) The courthouse is amazing, built in 1932 and 1933 it is a paean to the seriousness and majesty of the law of this troubled nation of ours. It is not currently being used so they rent parts of it out to movies and television shows and…

After a concert after work and after a post op dental appointment I had to wait 75 minutes for on Thursday and a concert after work and after teaching on Friday and a heartbreaking Weight Watchers meeting that I had to pay to participate in because I was .6 lb. over goal I was toast yesterday. Toast.

It was dry but cold, which was a miracle, and when I got home from the afternoon concert I took a bath and realized I literally couldn’t do another hour and a half in a pew. There was a second candlelight concert in the same space including some musicians, the same vocal group and the organ.

I was heartbroken but even if I had Uber’ed both ways, those pews are hard and my back is being problematic. (I am seeing my doctor on Thursday) I couldn’t deal.

They sent out an urgent email saying that the concert would be packed and for people to come early and take public transportation.

So I went to bed.

And slept 10 ½ hours. Ant listened to the music that was featured at the concert this morning.

I am better today but decided to skip the Catholic Mass at another church way across town but am going to another lecture and chamber music concert this afternoon.

Because I have been listening to the Great Courses “How to Listen to Great Music” lectures I actually understood what the professor was talking about when he was using musical terms like “recitative” and “melisma”. That was a wonderful feeling.

Plus all this is getting me fired up about poetry again.

But what a lesson in limitations. No I can’t work a full week including overtime and teach three classes, go to Weight Watchers and do my chores and fully participate in every event of a music festival.

It also made me miss both Mr. Finch, who went to a couple of concerts with me of the same group at this cathedral about 10 years ago and Mr. POA with whom I was first introduced to the amazing genius that Arvo Pärt is, the world’s spiritual minimalist.

Last updated February 12, 2017