I like the idea of places where the boundary between the worlds is the thinnest. It's a threshold we cross where we meet the divine here on Earth. Some readings I found from our UU Soul Matters repository inspired further thoughts. In his essay "Thin Places" Connecticut Unitarian-Universalist minister John Morehouse says that in the Bible many spiritual encounters happen at a well. Jacob finds Rebecca there; Jesus converts the Samaritan woman there. Even our own tradition recognizes thin places, he says. Henry David Thoreau during his sojourn at Walden Pond wrote that through him "Earth's eye looked into the beholder measuring the depth of its own nature." Wells, caves and lakes like Walden Pond can be thin places. Harvard theologian Peter Gomes mentions mountains as vertical meeting places of the temporal and the eternal, and rivers as horizontal ones.
But we truly cross a threshold only when we reorient ourselves inside to meet changing circumstances, says fellow Harvard author William Bridges. We cross thresholds in times of change as well as in places; times that truly change and awaken us. Personally, I can experience a great awakening with each new moment of creation. And I feel as if some brilliant creations of later times are reverberations of earlier ones. For example, I hear the synthesizer riff in The Who's epic song Won't Get Fooled Again as if it portrays the ongoing echo of the French Revolution. The famous descending sequence in Beethoven's Leonore Overture, (in case of ad; click on skip ad, or move scroll bar back again) from his 1806 opera that was inspired by the Revolution, actually anticipated Pete Townshend's synthesizer sound in Won't Get Fooled Again in the way each little phrase gets louder and then cuts off. (And the comparison goes much further: the first notes of the main theme in each piece being virtually the same, the orchestral scream after the riff (like Roger's vocal one), and then the recap of the same main theme (when Roger sings meet the new boss, same as the old boss), and then virtually the same ending of 5 repeated tonic chords.) And in The Who's latest song from Dec.2019, Pete actually confirms my impression by saying "This sound that we share has already been played, and it hangs in the air." Every time I hear a great work like these, it's like drawing up more divine water from the wellspring, like reverberations from the original big bang.
In the same way, I feel historic moments of great awakening still reverberating. Many of us remember such a time in the mid 19-sixties, when counter-cultural and social movements began that still shake the world, or the time when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Vibrant shock waves still emanate from earlier ones too, like at the turn of the 20th century when all modern art, science and music was born. In the late 18th century, we experienced revolutions that shaped our current society and launched the romantic movement. In the Renaissance, we experienced great discovery and renewal. The 12th century awakening sent cathedrals soaring into the sky to bring the glory of God down to Earth. When the first followers of Jesus saw his resurrection and discovered their ability to heal as Jesus did, it opened a new age that elevated the world toward the divine, and it still echoes today, however faintly, in Christian churches in every western neighborhood. The Greek golden age around 500 BC was part of the simultaneous Axis Age of spiritual enlightenment in places like Israel, India and China that inspired all future religion, philosophy and arts. In these great awakenings we crossed thresholds that still echo down from the original moments, like a heartbeat from the past that keeps pumping new blood through my body, and through all of us. A transforming moment can reorient my life or yours anytime. Then we discover that our own experience actually connects back to larger awakenings from the past.
And NOW I wonder, are we on a threshold? Can I experience the awakening again, in the midst of crises that seem to be never-ending and all-consuming now? Is something happening to me these days? Can the crisis of our times impel me into a new era of action?
Much depends on how we meet the changing times. We hear all the time now, what was once just a liberal slogan, that we are all in this together. Will the message last? Are we paying attention to the needs of others? Can we transform disease into a crowning corona glory? Can we make progress again? What do my prophetic studies tell me? Can this still be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the coming of a new humanity and a new earth? A new city on a hill of peace and love, a New Jerusalem surrounding us in wonder?
We are crossing a threshold, and we'll soon see what we create together.
Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones followed this reflection with a description of this moment as crossing a threshold in the movement against racism. Some appropriate hymns and anthems were performed.
For this service, I also played and recorded this exuberant, uplifting but simple and concise Fugue in F by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) that reverberates to us today from the optimistic and expansive baroque era.
Thin Places by Rev. John Morehouse (note: no audio)
Fly Away: The Who and Our Generations
Civilization: The Great Thaw "There have been times in the history of mankind when the earth seems suddenly to have grown warmer or more radioactive. Well, I don't put this forward as a scientific proposition, but the fact remains that 3 or 4 times in history, man has made a leap forward that would have been unthinkable under ordinary conditions....." Kenneth Clark, 1969
Civilization: The Fallacies of Hope "An enclosed world becomes a prison of the spirit....and what is that I hear, that note of urgency, of indignation, of spiritual hunger? Yes, it's Beethoven..... We must leave this trim, finite room and go to confront the infinite. We're still the offspring of the romantic movement, and still victims of the fallacies of hope." Kenneth Clark, 1969
Leonore Overture #3 another version of the closing riff and orchestral scream etc.
Won't Get Fooled Again complete
My essay on Louis Vierne, featuring his First Organ Symphony Finale (1899) that also reverberates from the French Revolution, and which the composer called "my Marseillaise." See my video of a recording of this piece, with evocative pictures.