Presentations

Selected Recent Presentations and Publications

STEAL AWAY HOME: THE SPIRITUALS AS VOICE OF HOPE

ABSTRACT for Festival 500 International Symposium VII , to be presented in July 2009, in St. John's, NL

In melodies of simple yet profound beauty, in lyrics of vivid images, and in rhythms drawn from their homeland, the songs that came to be known as spirituals give voice to the suffering and hope of an enslaved people. This music expresses a suffering of body, mind, and spirit, a protest against injustice, a hope for freedom, and a conviction of worth despite all affliction. At the same time, it embodies the beauty of the human soul beneath and beyond all cruelty. Often sung in secret gatherings, the spirituals enabled those enslaved to express an interior soul space that the harshness of slave owners and slave drivers could not reach. These songs ultimately became a source of inspiration and courage as that inner spirit of freedom became outwardly realized in the movement known as the Underground Railroad..
This paper will explore themes of word, melody, and rhythm within the spirituals as they bear witness then and now to the capacity of music to express and sustain the depth, beauty, and power of the human spirit. If we listen carefully, we may hear in the spirituals a voice of universal significance; a voice that reaches beyond all culture, race, gender–beyond all differences–to the core of our shared humanity.

THE TAIZE EXPERIENCE –A PATHWAY TO PEACE

This workshop follows the model of the Taizé ecumenical community in southern France.
You are invited to enter into this experience,
to allow it to lead you gently into your own centre as a sacred place
where your worth is affirmed,
and where you are connected with others,
and with the silent Mystery.

Saturday, November 15, 2008
9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Workshop Program

8:30 –   9:00 a.m.        •Coffee/Muffins, and Mingling
9:00 – 11:30 a.m.        •“Brother Roger and the Story of Taizé.”
                                    –Exploring Taizé style prayer
11:30 – 12:30 p.m.        •Lunch
12:30 –   2:00 p.m.        •“The Music of Taizé.”
                                    –Exploring music as meditation and prayer in community
2:00 –   3:00 p.m.        •“A Taizé Prayer.

ABSTRACT
The word Amemory@ comes from Amind@ and suggests that what is directly experienced remains in our awareness. Even though no longer physically present, experiences may be called to mind or remembered. The word Avoice@ or Avocal@ comes from Avox@or Avocare,@ meaning to call, with its cognates Aevoke,@ to call forth, and Arecall,@to call back. The notion of memory, therefore, may be linked to the voice both calling back and, in a sense, calling forward various experiences of one's life. To remember is to call back a voice from one's past, to hear it again in its same form or to give it new voice. Through music, perhaps especially vocal music, we are drawn to return or called back to a place, a time, a person, and with the thoughts, feelings, and associations of that experience that remain with us still.

<>This paper is an attempt to explore the connection of vocal music with memory. Essential elements of this exploration include: the roots or etymologies of words connected with memory and voice, the various dimensions and meanings of memory at the level of thought, feeling, presence, and identity; the inseparably relational dimension of memory; and its flowing not only from the past into the present but also reaching into the future; and the connection of all of these with vocal music. Music may be a link to our human quest to find and express our authentic voice, within a greater relational, communal, and social context.

< style="font-weight: bold;">Photos taken at Newfoundland Great War Memorial, Beaumont Hamel, France, Augus,t 2007
©NK & JR, 2007
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<>"... At the site of the Battle of the Somme in Northern France, a young guide, herself a Newfoundlander, explained how an incredible percentage of the young male population of that island lost their lives there. As she concluded, she quietly and emotionally sang the strains of the Ode to Newfoundland, a single voice paying hommage to the great sacrifice of these men. She could find no other way to remember and honour them. ..." (from the paper)

Photos taken at Canadian War Memorial, Vimy Ridge, France
©NK & JR, 2007

" .... On April 9, 2007, the 90th anniversary of the World War I battle of Vimy Ridge was remembered. During the ceremony, a young violinist stood alone beside the imposing statue of “Mother Canada,”a woman grieving for her lost children. She played a gentle, haunting native melody that moved all who heard it. For a moment at least, this music reached beneath and beyond age, race, gender, and background, and evoked a collective memory and a common feeling of being Canadian. ..." (from the paper)

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Some Reflections on Healing and Wholeness

•Basic Perspective: There is a fundamental worth, value, or sacredness and beauty to each human person. The basic challenge of life is to feel, honour, and cherish that worth in ourselves and others, especially in the face of the hurts, wounds, and betrayals of life.

•We discover this worth in music, meditation, and intimate conversation; in solitude, friendship, and the compassionate struggle for social justice. This worth may be felt as a gift that calls for a life-giving rather than death-dealing response.

•We all have experiences of limitations, wounds, and betrayals:
    –limitations of the human condition
    –falling short of expectations and ideals
    –hurt within, wounds at the hands of others or of life
    –a sense of being untrue to our own inmost self, violating others, and contributing to the injustice of society.

•A key to understanding and responding to these limitations, wounds, and betrayals is to struggle towards a sense of our own worth as deeper than all else.

•In the face of our own hurt, a part of the healing process is to acknowledge the reality of this hurt, in the silence of our own heart or in the caring presence of another.

•Forgiveness towards another does not mean a denial of the wrong done, nor does it imply any contact with the violating person. It does mean that we no longer allow that person’s script to rule our lives, nor allow ourselves to be imprisoned by hatred or the need for revenge; but learn to be true to our own inner self, within an interpersonal and social context.

•Forgiveness means an affirmation of a worth beyond and deeper than any wrong or betrayal; a sacredness that is deeper than any brokenness.

The Music of Taize: Implications for Music Teachers

Spirituality and Human Worth: An Exploratory Perspective

... Presented at Gebser Society Annual Meeting, Santa Fe, NM; published in Integral Studies 2003

Abstract

One of the developments in the contemporary era is the differentiation of spirituality from religion. A person's spirituality may be understood as the basic guiding vision of a person's life. It comprises the vision, values, and support system to which a person turns to discover or create meaning in his or her life. The quest for meaning designates essentially the quest for identity and worth, for belonging and purpose. A large number of people today are engaged in a search for meaning that neither organized religion nor the secularized mythology of economic growth seems to address satisfactorily.

An attendant factor is the search for a grounding of spirituality in some non-religious basis, which may at the same time draw upon insights and images from religious and other sources. One possible foundation may lie in the conviction of the worth, value, or sacredness of the human person, and, indeed, of all life and being. This notion is one that can be shared in theory by people of diverse backgrounds and convictions, including those who adhere to a religious tradition. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (1948), as well as the subsequent UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1969) and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) all begin with an affirmation of the inherent dignity of all human beings. This Human Rights perspective is developed more philosophically by such authors as Charles Taylor and Michael Ignatieff, is given an explicitly religious foundation in Pacem in Terris by John XXIII, and is also exemplified in the Multiculturalism Act and Policy of Canada.

An example of a spirituality of human worth is found in the postwar writings of Viktor Frankl, who concluded from his concentration camp experience that the dominant human drive is the quest for meaning, which may be discovered even in the face of inescapable suffering. More recently, authors such as Sam Keen and Wayne Muller draw upon a variety of philosophical, psychological, and religious sources in order to fashion a spirituality that gives identity and purpose to human existence. One helpful image to illustrate this theme is that of the garden (echoing the image of Eden), whose fruits and flowers give concrete expression to the necessities and beauty of life, to its survival and meaning, and which offers an imaginative context within which to raise questions of meaning, even in the face of suffering, betrayal, and death.