photo courtesy of usgs.gov

“Death be not proud,” taunted John Donne. “One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, / And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.” Death interrupts our view of eternity, a fearsome jalousie obscuring a future we must approach. Like Donne, we console and distract ourselves by turns with bravado, with pleasure, with laughter and finally with God.  Peter Berger, eminent sociologist of religion, wrote that “the power of religion depends, in the last resort, upon the credibility of the banners it puts in the hands of men as they stand before death, or more accurately, as they walk, inevitably, toward it.”

Religion masters death by writing it into the second act of a cosmic drama of the soul.  For Christians, the principal figure in this drama is Jesus, whose own death and resurrection conquered death for all.  The glory of this victory, and its appalling price,…

Thunder Rd. street sign

I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, so it’s no surprise that I’m anxiously counting down the days until this Sunday when I’ll get to see him and the E-Street Band in concert at the Scottrade Center.

In addition to writing some of the best lines ever in rock and roll music, in the song Thunder Road Springsteen is  responsible for what I think may be the most honest - albeit horribly conceived - pick-up line ever:

“You ain’t a beauty, but hey you’re alright.”

Of course, he follows it up with the reassuring, “And that’s all right with me,” which brings some level of humility to the whole thing and somehow makes the statement actually seem kind of sweet, in a naïve way (since I don’t think that the narrator is speaking grudgingly but rather that he genuinely means that her appearance is okay with him).

Still, I can’t imagine…

The American Kantorei, under the direction of Robert Bergt

Recent events notwithstanding, the arts—in particular, classical music—will continue to be alive and well on the Concordia Seminary campus. (In case you don’t know, both KFUO stations broadcast from the Concordia campus, even though they are owned by The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.)

Case in point, the just-announced 18th season of the renowned Bach at the Sem series will premiere on October 25. Bach at the Sem features presentations of J. S. Bach’s music by The American Kantorei, under the direction of Robert Bergt. But as you’ll see below, Bach isn’t the only composer whose music bellows the gracious space of the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus. In the best cultural tradition of St. Louis-Forest Park, there is no admission charge and no tickets are issued. So, be warned, the seats go fast.

The 2009-2010 Bach at the Sem season is as follows:

Sunday, October 25, 3:00 p.m. Psalm 130:…

The Fates are traveling to St. Louis for two concerts–one in the folkie haven of MoKaBe’s coffee shop,  one at the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville Center for Spirituality and Sustainability.

The Traveling Fates is the latest collaboration of S.J. “Sooj” Tucker, Ginger Doss and Bekah Kelso. All three have independent recording careers. The trio last appeared in the St. Louis area in July while on their way to another event. As they so often do to earn extra cash between official gigs, they set up in a friend’s living room for a few sets. It was the first time I’d heard Tucker live. And the first time I knew she’d teamed up with a couple other singers. (That sound you hear is my friends deleting several “cool points” from my tally.)

The Traveling Fates are S.J. Tucker, Ginger Doss, and Bekah Kelso. Photo courtesy Traveling Fates.

As I love three-part harmony, folk music,  alternative bluesy…

Those of you who attended Dutch 10 year-old Jacob Bodden’s concert heard him live.

But for everyone else, Post-Dispatch/STLtoday.com photographer Stephanie Cordle put together a “Mixed Media” video that includes footage of him playing in the carillon booth.

Very cool.

Luther Tower, home to Concordia's landmark carillon

TOMORROW (Wednesday, Aug 12) at 7:00PM, Jacob Bodden, a 10 year-old boy from Amersfoort, Holland, will give a free carillon concert at Concordia Seminary.

After taking carillon lessons for only a year and a half, Jacob has played concerts at the Belgium Monument in Amersfoort, the Munt Tower in Amsterdam, and the tower in Hilvarenbeek. Last summer, he was interviewed and filmed in Amersfoort for being the youngest carillonneur in the Netherlands.

A carillon is a series of bells housed in a tower and played on a keyboard, like an organ, only more difficult. Concordia Seminary’s carillon (housed in Luther Tower) contains 49 bells, ranging in size from 17 pounds to 2.5 tons. The carillon is played for special events and for a regular concert series every Tuesday evening in June.

Guests are invited to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and picnics to enjoy in the main quad or…

My hipster brother in Chicago, who always has his inner radar tuned to music to knock your socks off, passed along this YouTube clip. “Good music will always find a way in the dirty soul,” he says.

This is Black Gospel at its finest by one of its finest, Dorothy Love Coates.

If this doesn’t get you up offa that thing, clapping your hands, and shouting “Amen!”, you better check your pulse.

…and I haven’t bought it yet. I only mention it because it ends my longstanding tradition of buying each new album by this generation’s greatest rock ‘n roll band on the day it is released. But I have been preparing myself. I’ve been listening to past albums to gear up for the new. Their landmark work The Joshua Tree (1987) was one of my first independent purchases as a junior-high teen, and I’ve owned every album since.

Why am I telling you all this? Just yesterday, I was listening to 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind when I was awestruck once again by the bridge lyrics to the hit “Beautiful Day”:

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
See the bird with a leaf in her…

Still from The Reader

Can we ever understand that which we condemn?  Does true understanding require empathy, meaning that once we understand something it ceases to be wholly “other,” and so is in some way recognizably like us?  Does such empathy imply that we acknowledge the ways in which we are potentially capable of that which we condemn?

I was going to recommend the movie The Reader as one that asks its viewers to wrestle with profound questions of individual guilt, collective responsibility, and the limits of forgiveness. But then I hit upon a link that brought me up short. (Note: The rest of this post will be full of pertinent plot points (spoilers), so read no further if you want to see the movie without knowing too much.) The headline in the Telegraph reads: “Kate Winslet’s Holocaust movie The Reader faces renewed Jewish criticism.”  In a now much-repeated quote,

Mark Weitzman, head of the Simon…

Last weekend, my church hosted Gladys Knight and the Saint’s Unified Voices Choir.

Yes, that’s right, Gladys Knight, from Gladys Knight and the Pips. Only this time she wasn’t singing with the Pips and she wasn’t singing “Midnight Train to Georgia”.  Instead, she was performing with a 100 person multi-cultural choir made up of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) who live in the Las Vegas, Nevada area.

We had 6000 tickets, free and by invitation only, for four performances that could better be described as praise worship events. Someone called it a “Mormon revival”.

The packed events were much more spirited and lively than anything our church typically does. The musical heritage of our faith finds its roots in those of its early converts, many of whom were white and from the eastern United States and Europe. They brought with them a ural heritage of many faiths, but the influences of African American ure have been slow to take root.

That is…

Omaha, Nebraska

Summer, 1993

Humanae Vitae Conference

We gathered in Omaha, that summer of 1993, to celebrate 25 years of Humanae Vitae. There were 1,500 of us from 29 countries, a veritable small village of doctors, historians, nurses, nursing mothers, priests, scientists, nuns, young married couples, single people, bishops, Lutherans, a cardinal, politicians, philosophers, theologians, publishers — even an ex-abortionist.

One evening, after a day of talks and small-group sessions, we were bussed to an off-site auditorium, one large enough to hold us all.

The lights dimmed, the murmuring ceased, and the tall theater curtain parted just enough to reveal 16-year old Gianna Jessen, center-stage, beautiful in a long black velvet gown. And Gianna started to sing.

Gianna, with the voice of an angel, had us in the palm of her hand.

When she was finished, when the thunderous applause was done, the curtain closed.

We never saw her halting steps as she left the stage.

We would not have…

Lil Wayne’s new album Tha Carter III has now gone double-platinum, selling two million copies in the first nine weeks of its release. It passed one million copies in the first week alone.

These are huge sales, especially in our day of digital music purchasing where people buy singles but not albums.

Speaking of singles, the success of Tha Carter II seems to be driven by the incredible demand for the first single off the album, “Lollipop.”

Music Choice reports that “Lollipop” is now its most popular music video - ever. Damon Williams, VP of Programming for Music Choice said, “Wayne has done an incredible job of consistently delivering what today’s hip-hop fans want. The milestone of realizing over 10 million views for a single video speaks to the power of Lil Wayne’s fan base. Lil Wayne is the best in the game.”

And there is crossover appeal in the song. It not only reached #1 on the…