Preparing to enter the silence...

On a recent trip to New York City for an arts/spirituality conference, I came across the new book by Daniel Barenboim while waiting for my train in Grand Central Station. Music Quickens Time is his exploration of how music can change the world and how he has used music to advance the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East. It is both a remarkable story and a compelling read - especially for those of us about to enter Holy Week - and I am grateful for the serendipity of discovering it.

For those (like me) who are unfamiliar with Barenboim, he is a master concert pianist from Argentina who currently resides in Berlin.

He holds citizenship in Argentina, Spain and Israel and was granted a Palestinian Authority passport, too. In addition to his stunning piano work, Barenboim is also a highly respected conductor. It is his work in creating the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, however, that shapes the insights of this book.

This youth orchestra - created in 1999 by Barenboim and the late Eduard Said - is made up of young musicians from Egypt, Israel, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Barenboim describes the Divan like this:

The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance.

A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to - and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago - ...create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives.

He writes in the first chapter of Music Quickens Time that "each note must be aware of itself, but also of its own boundaries; the same rules that apply to individuals in society apply to notes in music as well... Each note cannot be self-assertive, wanting to be louder than the notes preceding it; if it did, it would defy the nature of the musical phrase to which it belongs.


So a musician must posses the capacity to group notes - and this very simple fact has taught me the relationship between an individual and a group. It is necessary for the human being to contribute to society in a very individuals way; this makes the whole much larger than the sum of its parts. Individuality and collectivism need not be mutually exclusive; in fact, together they are capable of enhancing human existence."

For those of us in the Western Christian tradition, tomorrow (March 28th) is Palm Sunday. My own part of this tradition, the United Church of Christ, has constructed one of my favorite liturgical prayers for this day (probably from the pen of Thomas Dipko.) It proclaims:

O God, who in Jesus Christ triumphantly entered Jerusalem, heralding a week of pain and sorrow, be with us now as we follow the way of the cross. In these events of defeat and victory, you have sealed the closeness of death and resurrection, of humiliation and exaltation. We thank you for these branches (the palm fronds used on Palm Sunday) that promise to become for us symbols of martyrdom and majesty. Bless them and us that their use this day may announce in our time that Christ has come and that Christ will come again.

Brilliant: the closeness of death and resurrection - the embrace of humiliation and exaltation - the dance of martyrdom and majesty. The liturgy begins with celebration and dance - shouts of "Hosanna" fill the air - and then, almost before you know it, the hymns and prayers are talking about the cross. For years I thought this was theological schizophrenia but now... now it simply seems true. Perhaps that's why we lift up prayers of joys AND sorrow, yes?

This closing clip is from another of Barenboim's insights: he was the first to break the social taboo of playing the music of Wagner in Israel. His courage, audacity and spiritual commitment to the paradox of a healing spiritual encourages me to prepare to enter the silence...