Maundy Thursday Logomorphism

[alanajoli]

Today is Maundy Thursday, something I quite forgot about until I saw someone's status message on twitter that they were headed off to service. As I noted previously, my regular religious practice has fallen to the side since I moved out to the East Coast, and realizing that I'd forgotten today was Holy Thursday, which has always been one of the really important holy days for me, was sort of jarring. To honor it, I listened to a bunch of music that I'd written for a play I intended to write, starting on the Saturday after the crucifixion. The religious figures became real people to me during the writing process -- as they have to in order to write them, I suspect -- and that connection refreshed me a little bit. Not quite enough to alleviate the guilt of forgetting, but I'm planning to go to a service in the morning (and then sunrise service with holmes_iv on Sunday), so hopefully that will set things into right relation (to completely misuse a phrase I associate with a different religion all together).

As you readers know, I take pretty seriously the idea that people haven't always thought in the same way -- couldn't have thought in the same way, because their world was different. And so thinking about my musical today, I realized I'd logomorphed (to use a Barfield word) quite a bit -- made the religious figures not only into "real people," but into people who thought like me. And while I think that might not be the most mythic way to consider the story, I think there's some value in seeing the story in a modern way. What were people thinking? How did people feel? Or, maybe more accurately, what would I have felt if I'd been a part of the story?

There are definitely dangers in logomorphism, in assuming that things mean literally what we might see as metaphoric. But I also think that reimagining stories, particularly important stories, gives us a firmer connection to them than if we let them float away without us, if we see them as things that happened to people a long time ago. If we logomorph, we risk assuming that things are the way we see them. If we don't, we risk stories becoming irrelevant. I think there's a happy medium somewhere in the middle.

Just thoughts to muse on during a week I should have been paying more attention to.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The Holy Thursday Mass here was lovely. I went in in a very mundane mind-set, and by the end, felt very uplifted--which is rare for me. We sang a hymn in Latin, and somehow everyone singing together, and the light on the incense... it made me feel connected with people five hundred and a thousand and fifteen hundred years ago.

You write music? How beautiful. Is there any way to hear any?

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

That does sound lovely. I'm hoping for that similar feeling of connection on Sunday. The sunrise service is usually very meaningful and inspiring for me (inspire here in its literal etymological sense -- meaning breathed into). ;)

I don't think there's a way to share my music currently, although if you have the free version of Finale, I could send you a couple of files (sheet music and midi-file together). I don't have anything recorded in actual voice yet, though maybe one day...