REBEL JESUS

 

REBEL JESUS

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
While the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
As their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
There's a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

                  Jackson Browne

CHRISTMAS 2020

Dear Friends and Family,

I was properly chastised. I wrote something very rude about the present incumbent. My friend replied, “I wonder what my fellow Jew, Jesus, would say about that remark?”

We celebrate the birth of Jesus at this time of the year. He was born into a middle-class family. He was not the Christ, the Prince of Peace, the incarnate one or the Messiah until well after his death.

Jesus stood for feeding the hungry, healing the sick and seeking justice for the oppressed. He didn’t care about people’s sex lives, getting rich or making people Christians. 

This year of the epidemic has thrust the sick in front of all of our lives. Massive efforts by medical professionals, states and businesses have hurtled into action caring for the sick, suffering and dying. I won’t mention the role of the Federal government.

At this season of the birth of Jesus, I like to reflect on what we know of his life and work. He was direct and clear in speech. He illustrated his points with vivid stories like the prodigal son and good Samaritan. He was an artist.  He saw people sick and he healed them. He welcomed the outcasts and the marginal.

He chided the rulers of religion and the government. He spoke out. We can and do that in our country.

Ann and I have flourished while we stay at home. Ann shops, I cook. Ann reads way more than I do. I watch good TV more than I used to. I write in my journal every day and have a wide correspondence. Ann takes online classes at the Fromm Institute and visits friends on Zoom. We do zoom church on Sundays. Except for no travel and fewer dinner guests, life remains about the same for us. We are grateful for our good health.

With Love,

Robert and Ann

3839 20th Street San Francisco, CA  94114

Here is what I want for Christmas

1. Black lives will really matter
2. Life will get better for immigrants
3. Life will get better for poor and struggling Americans.
4. There will be homes for the homeless.
5. Americans will respect those with different religious and sexual practices and political views.
6. All people commit to climate change action
7. A time when we can all meet again in person.

MY LIFE IN MUSIC

 

Today is Beethoven’s 250th birthday. I was first introduced to classical music by my father who made me listen to the final movement of the Fifth Symphony with the bombastic climax.

Growing up in a church going family we sang hymns at church  and some at home. I listened to classical church music without thinking about it. Choir anthems, organ preludes and postludes were written by classical and church composers. I remember Rae Willar dragging me to hear a cantata at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY. I don’t remember the music butI wanted to be with Rae.

At Colgate in 1949 I heard Dimitri Metropolous conduct the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in Prokofieff’s Classical Symphony and liking it a lot.

At Camp DeWolfe I listened to records of Handel’s Messiah by the Huddersfield Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent (maybe). I played. The Halleluia Chorus and He Shall Lead His Flock and other arias over and over again so it drove the other staff nuts. I loved the music, the melodies and choral and symphonic music.

I listened to Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Schumann symphonies, when driving from Welfare Island, over the Queensborough Bridge with the Lewis boys and their mother going to our respective universities, one to Columbia and I to NYU. I went to free choral church concerts at Manhattan churches on Sunday afternoons.

At NYU I took a year’s survey course in Classical Music and I think a years course in Opera. Ever since then I have listened almost exclusively to classical music. I missed  the Rock and Roll evolution and popular music as I was immersed in seminary fro 1953-56. I like folk music and some country.  Joan Baez is one celebrity I would like to have dated. I saw her once or twice at parties but we never spoke. I used to enjoy fast and furious music, now I love slow, gentle and romantic music. 

From 1970-1983, I held tickets to the SF Symphony and Opera. I loved Seji Ozawa in SF. Women friends Judith Ets-Hokin and Susan Mitchell encouraged me and accompanied to many. By the time I met Ann, I had grown tired of the old symphonies and did not like the new ones. I used to go to concert music to meet women or to entertain them. When Ann and I married I did not have that reason d’être any longer.

My suspension of disbelief wore out with the old operas.I did not like seeing fat people clomp around the stage singing. We have seen an excellent Carmen in New Mexico and a good Barber of Seville in SF. I like the great tenors, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. I have seen them on stage and love their singing on CDs. I listen to classical music as background music most of the time.

As a teen I loved the dance bands led by Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and crooners like Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Vaughn Monroe. I like to slow dance but did a pretty good Lindy hop. Sally Meehan was a good dancer and good kisser.

I am sad that I never learned to play the piano and thus be able to know more and experience the emotions of music. I took one piano lesson from Lois Neiglia in 1942 and then he went into the army soon thereafter. Perhaps, I was the cause.