Carlos Acosta Recalls the "Clarion Call" of His Vocation in Dance

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The Wild Reed series on dance continues with an excerpt from Carlos Acosta's autobiography No Way Home: A Dancer's Journey from the Streets of Havana to the Stages of the World.

Born in Cuba in 1973, Carlos Acosta is widely considered the most accomplished male ballet dancer in the world. Based in London, he has danced with many companies, including the English National Ballet, National Ballet of Cuba, Houston Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. He was made a permanent member of The Royal Ballet in 1998. Five years later he was promoted to Principal Guest Artist, a rank which reduced his commitment and allows him to focus on a growing schedule of international guest appearances and tours.

The excerpt I share from No Way Home focuses on what broadcaster Alan Titchmarch calls the young Acosta's "Damascus Road moment," the moment when the rebellious teen-aged Acosta realized that his vocation was to be a dancer.

The idea of vocation interests me greatly. I've written about my own sense of vocation here, and in 2010 shared as part of The Wild Reed's "In the Garden of Spirituality" series, Parker Palmer's thoughts on vocation. Writes Palmer:

Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks – we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as "the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need."

For sure the world needs beauty, beauty that embodies and conveys the often complex truths about what it means to be fully human. I believe this is the beauty of Dostoevsky's famous line from The Idiot, "Beauty will save the world." Like so many performing artists, Carlos Acosta's profound and dedicated embodiment of his vocation brings this type of salvific beauty to the world.

In his 2009 address "Meeting with Artists," Pope Benedict XVI spoke eloquently of this type of beauty, one that he called "authentic beauty."

Authentic beauty . . . unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence.

Yes, art has the potential to connect us to the Divine Presence! This liberating truth reminds me of Rosanne Cash's words of wisdom:

The more exploitative, numbing, and assaulting popular culture becomes, the more we need the truth of a beautifully phrased song, dredged from a real person’s depth of experience, delivered in an honest voice; the more we need the simplicity of paint on canvas, or the arc of a lonely body in the air, or the photographer’s unflinching eye. Art, in the larger sense, is the lifeline to which I cling in a confusing, unfair, sometime dehumanizing world. In my childhood, the nuns and priests insisted, sometimes in a shrill and punitive tone, that religion was where God resided and where I might find transcendence. I was afraid they were correct for so many years, and that I was the one at fault for not being able to navigate the circuitry of dogma and ritual. For me, it turned out to be a decoy, a mirage framed in sound and fury. Art and music have proven to be more expansive, more forgiving, and more immediately alive. For me, art is a more trustworthy expression of God than religion.

Wow! Who would have thought Dostoevsky, Parker Palmer, Pope Benedict, and Rosanne Cash would all be quoted in the same blog post? That's The Wild Reed for you!

And now I add to the mix the words of Carlos Acosta! They're followed by a short interview that Alan Titchmarch recently conducted with Acosta for The Royal Ballet. In this interview Acosta talks about his production of Don Quixote and offers cautionary words for young dancers lured by fame.

But first, an excerpt from Carlos Acosta's autobiography, No Way Home: A Dancer's Journey from the Streets of Havana to the Stages of the World.

The Vocational Arts School in Pinar del Rio was a huge concrete block on the edge of the city. Its three buildings bordered an enormous interconnecting courtyard and were surrounded by stairs leading up and down to the classrooms for music, the visual arts, and ballet. It was here I discovered love and friendship, as well as other qualities that helped the boy I was become the man I am.

It was here that I found my passion for ballet.

One evening the school organized a visit to the Saidén Theatre on Real Street in Pinar del Rio to see the Cuban National Ballet perform. I was annoyed because I wanted to stay in and watch the baseball game between my Havana team, the Industrials, and the Pinar del Rio team, the Vegueros, which all the other pupils in the school supported. But I was dragged along with the rest of the group and seated next to our teacher Juan Carlos in an uncomfortable seat in the theater's third row.

My friend Rogelio and I were discussing who would lead the batters that year. Lazaro Vargas was his hero, and Rogelio always imitated his batting style whenever we played in the rough concrete sports area of the school.

We were shushed as the curtain went up. It was a slow piece. "Educational," the teachers might say; "a jewel of classical repertoire," a fan or critic might say; a load of crap, I thought.

I was calculating that by now the game would have reached the third inning. The Vegueros were leading the championship. If they lost, the Industrials would be only half a game away from first place. It was not just a game of baseball between Havana and Pinar del Rio; there was more at stake than that. My honor as a Habanero was on the line, but I also knew I stood to lose either way. If the Industrials won, then some people would vent their spite and frustration on me; if they lost, three hundred people would shout at me, "Ha, ha, ha, Havana lost the game, you're a yellow Habanero, you can't beat us 'cos we're better than you!" They would push me and tug at the neckerchief that we had to wear as part of our school uniform. I was getting frustrated just thinking about it.

I made myself watch the ballet. The ballerinas who floated across the stage as delicately as goose down distracted me from the baseball game for a moment, when suddenly a male dancer leaped across the stage and was suspended in the air for what seemed like a full minute before falling back down to his knees.

Shiiiit! I thought. How the hell did he do that? He was just hanging in the air!

Everyone applauded. I was trying to work out where the wire was, thinking the muscular guy must have been held up by something. He jumped again. It looked effortless. He did not even appear to be sweating, just smiling as he kept time with the heavenly music.

My spirits soared. I felt transported. Perhaps if I worked hard, then I could hang in the air like that!

It suddenly dawned on me why my father had been so tough with me all these years. I saw it all with great clarity. All he had ever wanted was for me to be able to jump like that! I was mortified to have caused him so much trouble. . . . But at the same time I was happy and grateful that God had given me another chance.

When we returned to the school there was a crowd of people waiting for me. The game had gone into extra innings, but the Industrials had lost 2 to 1.

"Ha, ha, ha, Havana lost the game! Yellow Habanero, you're yellow, you're yellow, you're a yellow streak of piss!" my classmates shouted at me, tugging at my neckerchief. But instead of reacting, I simply smiled and thought: One day I'm going to be like that dancer I just saw. One day I'm going to be like Alberto Terrero!

I did not give a damn about the Industrials' defeat, or the fact that the championship hung in the balance, or that my classmates were trying to provoke me. I had heard the clarion call of vocation. It was a sanctuary, a refuge that would help me bear the leaks in the roof of [my half-brother] Pedro's house, the cockroaches, the mosquitoes, the overpowering stench of the river, and the loneliness. All I had to do was concentrate on my mission, which was to dance like Alberto Terrero, the ballet dancer whom I seen fly through the air that day at the Saidén.

Up until then, I had applied myself, at best, about 70 percent. I had grown stronger, and for the little effort I put in, I had done all right, but now it was different. During the week I worked furiously, forcing myself through the corrective exercises that my teacher set for me. At the time I thought that the olive-skinned Juan Carlos, with his wiry body and his Andalusian eyes, was a brutal taskmaster, but I understand now that he was an excellent teacher. He had been a dancer with the Camagüey Ballet, but his knees could not bear the strain they were subjected to over the years, and one day they gave up and never obeyed him again. So he started again as a teacher, a little disillusioned and resentful, but still with the desire to achieve something worthwhile. His work came to be recognized in the highest educational circles in the country.

Normally, after the school lunch, my body demanded a good siesta, but now I forced it to keep working. I had to adapt my muscles to flight.

– Carlos Acosta

Excerpted from No Way Home: A Dancer's Journey
from the Streets of Havana to the Stages of the World
Scribner, 2008
pp. 77-79

Related Off-site Links:
Carlos Acosta's Official Website
Carlos Acosta is the Image and Inspiration for a Dance Program – Luis Manuel Mazorra (Cuba Headlines, October 7, 2014).
Cuba’s Carlos Acosta to Promote BBC’s Young Dancers Contest – Latin American Herald Tribune (October 2, 2014).
Carlos Acosta: Cuban Dancer and Novelist – Michael Cathcart (ABC Radio, July 7, 2014).
Leaving the Barre: Ballet in Crisis Over Lack of Women, says Carlos Acosta – Adam Sherwin (The Independent, July 19, 2013).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Dancer and the Dance
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• Ruth St. Denis on "Dancing as a Life Experience"
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer (Part 1)
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer (Part 2)
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer (Part 3)
• The Church and Dance
• The Naked Truth . . . in Dance and in Life
• Gay Men and Modern Dance
• Recovering the Queer Artistic Heritage
• Dark Matters

Rockin’ with Wanda

“Man, you really like the old warhorses!”, a friend once remarked as he flipped through my CD collection. He was referring to the female vocalists who dominated my collection and who were “of a certain age,” shall we say: Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull, Tina Turner, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Shirley Bassey.

The thing was, this was the early 1990s and none of these women were really that old! At the time they were probably in their late forties or early fifties. I guess it said a lot about our (or, rather, my friend’s) perception of what it meant to be “old”! We were still in our twenties, after all. Even so, I really didn't think of any of these women as old in any kind of negative sense. Rather, I appreciated and resonated with the sense of transformative journeying that I discerned in their lives and careers. I guess I saw them as survivors. But they were also much more than that. They were and are icons! And we gay men, it seems, love our icons. And why not? Especially if like any authentic icon they point us toward and led us into dimensions of greater awareness of ourselves, of love and life, and of that sacred force that holds all things together.

I mention my friend’s rather crude comment as I recently wondered what he would make of my current interest in the music of 74-year-old Wanda Jackson, the “Queen of Rock” and a living legend not only within that particular genre but also within those of country and rockabilly.

As you may recall, I recently saw Wanda perform at the Minnesota State Fair. It actually wasn’t the first time I’d seen her in concert. About ten years ago I saw her perform at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. I must admit I didn’t know much about her; I couldn’t even name one of her songs. But the image used to promote the concert (right) intrigued me, as did the fact that she’d been around for so long as a revered artist. Yes, that iconic, archetypal sense of journey, again!

Seeing her at the Minnesota State Fair earlier this month (above) reminded me of the album she recorded last year with Jack White. He had previously worked with another legend of country music, Loretta Lynn. Despite the fact that I’m not a country music fan, I bought the album Lynn and White made together (Van Lear Rose) and unreservedly recommend it. (I highlighted a song from it back in 2007.)

A few days ago I bought The Party Ain’t Over, the 2011 album that Jack White produced for Wanda. Here’s how Amazon.com describes the album:

This collection of vintage and contemporary covers was produced by fan and new-found friend Jack White at his Nashville studio and recorded with a late-night honky-tonk feel by members of My Morning Jacket, the Raconteurs, and Dead Weather, among others. The White-curated lineup of tunes, says Jackson, showcases “all the various types of music that I’ve done through the years – some country, some gospel, some rockabilly, some rock ’n’ roll. It’s got all of that, and we threw in a Bob Dylan song 'Thunder On the Mountain,’ just to be safe.”

The spirited Jackson, revered for such classic singles as “Let’s Have a Party” and “Fujiyama Mama,” proves that brash rock and roll attitude need not have an age limit. Her trademark growl remains intact on rockers like “Rip It Up” and “Nervous Breakdown”; she opens the set with an echo-laden sneer on a rollicking version of “Shakin’ All Over” and ends it 10 songs later with a plaintive take on Jimmie Rodgers’ “Yodel #6.” Along the way she tackles the Andrews Sisters kitschy “Rum and Coca Cola” and a big-band rendition of the DeCastro Sisters' “Teach Me Tonight,” and she out-sasses and out-classes Amy Winehouse on a cover of the British bad girl’s “You Know I’m No Good,” which has already been released as a single.

Below is the video for Wanda Jackson’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Thunder on the Mountain.” It’s followed by Rosanne Cash’s insightful words about Wanda, spoken when she inducted the “Queen of Rock” into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.

Wanda Jackson. Even the name sounds like a declaration and a promise – Wanda Jackson. I asked Wanda what she wanted people to know most about her and she said: “Number one, I can rock! Number two, I was a lady and reputations are important. And number three, rock ’n’ roll and God are not mutually exclusive.”

As one writer has noted, Wanda was there at the beginning of rock and roll, and for girls with guitars, myself included, Wanda was the beginning of rock and roll. Everyone who cares about roots music and rock ’n’ roll reveres Wanda. But in particular, every young woman I know, musician or otherwise, worships her as the prototype, the first female rock star, as she so modestly acknowledges herself.

But this is not a woman who used her staggering beauty to manipulate an audience. This is not a coy woman. This is not a woman who used her powerful energy as a means to just become famous. She is vibrant and edgy without being abrasive, and sweet without being saccharine. This is a woman who has rhythm and joy in equal parts to the depth of her soul.

. . . She started her career when she was a junior in high school in 1954 and she said it was a family affair. Her father drove her to performances and managed her career and her mother sewed her outfits. She was put on package shows in the South with Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and my dad [Johnny Cash], among others; her buddies, as she calls them. . . . She may be the only lady in history who had that kind of rockin’ rhythm and raw sensuality and not only didn’t self-destruct but had fun and kept her soul intact in the process. She's not a red carpet-celebrity-rehab-tabloid kind of person. She’s a person of strong religious conviction, deep integrity, a road warrior, and a rock ’n’ roll queen.

In the beginning, Wanda was a country singer, and one day on the road Elvis said to her, “You should do the new kind of music like I’m doing.” And Wanda said, “But I’m just a country singer.” And Elvis said, “Well, I am too.” And that was that.

Wanda was equally authentic in rockabilly as she was in country. Elvis let the genie out of the bottle with that one little exultation. She told her mother, who was making her stage clothes, that she didn’t want to wear those big skirts anymore, and so she and her mother created the fringe dresses, the high heels, and long earrings that brought her image and her musical style into an electric, cohesive, sharp focus.

But she never gave up doing country as well as rockabilly. Sometimes she would release a record with a rocker on Side A and a country song on Side B. She had and still has enormous international popularity. . . . She has been recording for 54 years and has recorded in four languages. She’s made around 50 albums, she’s toured the world and inspired legions of people with her grace and fire. She said she wants to keep doing this “as long as my health holds up and as long as the fans want to come out and see me. But it’s not fallen away yet.” No, it’s not.

In his review of The Party Ain’t Over, Nathan Phillips wonders why Wanda was for so long “the most under-appreciated rockabilly pioneer.” He suggests it may have been due to sexism within the music business or Wanda’s “conversion to Jesus.” Elsewhere on the web I found the following quote by Wanda, in which she talks about her faith.

. . .[T]he main thing that happens when you become a Christian or you’re born again is the change in your own heart and the peace that you can have. You just — you can’t hardly describe it.

It’s just the knowing that Christ is there, he’s real. He’s more real than anything that we can see or hear or feel or touch. He guides my life. I just want my fans to know that if they’re floundering in life and realizing that they need a savior, and they need someone to throw them that life ring and save you, that’s what the Bible says happens: we get saved, and it changes you wonderfully. I don’t belabor the point, but I just briefly tell an audience what happened to me: that I received Christ as my lord and my savior and he made a wonderful change in my life, and I do a gospel song in just about all of my shows. People love it. They love to hear that something good has happened to people, you know.

October 9 sees the release of Wanda’s 31st studio album, Unfinished Business. And judging from the following preview, it’s going to be a great collection of songs.





Recommended Off-site Links and Updates:
Long Live the Queen: An Interview with Wanda Jackson – Shelley Peckham (True Endeavors, August 29, 2010).
Roots of Rock: Wanda Jackson – Digital Reporter (via YouTube).
Wanda Jackson Unveils Autobiography Every Night Is Saturday Night – Brittany McKenna (Rolling Stone, August 30, 2017).
Wanda Jackson Biography in the Ken Burns documentary Country Music (2019).
Wanda Jackson, ‘Queen of Rockabilly,’ Retires From Performing – Ryan Reed (Rolling Stone, March 27, 2019).

A Musical Weekend

That's how I describe last weekend when I experienced two wonderful musical performances here in the Twin Cities.

The first was the incredibly talented Rosanne Cash in concert Friday, November 18, with the Minnesota Orchestra.

Jon Bream's November 20 Star Tribune review says it well:

For her orchestral debut, Rosanne Cash [left] wore black jeans, a sequined green top and a black jacket with (short) tails. The informality mixed with the formality worked for Cash and the Minnesota Orchestra Friday at Orchestra Hall. The symphonic sounds added emotions to a few numbers and buoyed Cash on a couple others. She also offered several tunes, accompanied by her three-man band or merely her husband/guitarist/producer, John Leventhal. . . . [The orchestra's] strings underscored the sadness of Patsy Cline’s "She's Got You" and added a fitting Irish flavor to Cash’s own "The Good Intent," a dreaminess to "The World Unseen" and a loneliness of "Sleeping in Paris." The best arrangements had to be the swelling "Seven-Year Ache," Cash’s biggest hit, and the closing "The Wheel," her most uptempo and dynamic tune.

Oh, and I'm happy to report that Rosanne sang one of my favorite songs: "Dreams Are Not My Home" from her 2006 album Black Cadillac. I particularly love the lyrics of this particular song, including the following.

The waves are breaking on the wall.
The queen of roses spreads her arms to fly, she falls.
If I had wings I'd cut them down.
Live without these dreams
so I could learn to love the ground.

'Cause I wanna live inside the world,
I wanna act like a real girl.
I wanna know I'm not alone,
and the dreams are not my home

The future's like a ringing bell,
the road to good intentions
wanders all the way through hell
The note that hangs in the gilded hall,
the clanging of my empty rooms.
Yeah, I could learn to love them all . . .

Yes, it was a wonderful evening of music, one that I shared with my friend Greg and which I have my generous friends Amy and Dawn to thank for.

The second musical event I attended last weekend was "Everything Changes," the first concert of the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra's 2011-2012 season.

The concert was named after a 2006 piece by Erika Foin. This particular piece, which opened last Saturday's performance, was inspired by Cicely Herbert's poem "Everything Changes" which Foin was first introduced to ten years ago courtesy of the London Underground!

My good friend Kathleen (left) is the orchestra's Principal Second Violinist, and Saturday's performance was the first for Jacob Sustaita, the orchestra's newly appointed Music Director.

The MPO was founded in 1993 by Kevin Ford, a gay man who had a vision of a gay and lesbian orchestra that would build community and fellowship through the performance of classical music. Notes the MPO website:

Although Kevin succumbed to complications from HIV-AIDS in 1995, the organization he created continues to grow and diversify today. The MPO includes players from a variety of backgrounds and orientations who share a commitment to inclusivity, non-discrimination, and to the performance of works by under-represented composers.

Last Saturday's concert impressively showcased the MPO's high standards of musicality and artistic integrity. I particularly appreciated and enjoyed the performance of Rodrigo's "Adagio for Wind Orchestra," the nimble playing of guest violinist Andrew Sords, and the gracefully energetic conducting of Jacob Sustaita (right).

I look forward to future concerts of the MPO and strongly encourage my Minnesotan readers to get to know this "instrumental voice for the GLBTA community." You can learn about future performances of the MPO here.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Beauty and Wisdom of Rosanne Cash
"Movin' On" with Rosanne Cash
The Potential of Art and the Limits of Rigid Orthodoxy to Connect Us to the Sacred
In the Garden of Spirituality – Rosanne Cash

God is in the roses

. . . and the thorns.

As many of you know, I often share music here at The Wild Reed on Friday evenings. Tonight I share Rosanne Cash's beautiful song "God Is In the Roses," from her 2006 album Black Cadillac. Writing and recording this album was quite the cathartic experience for Rosanne, who, at the time, was coming to terms with the deaths of her father, mother and step-mother – all in the space of two years.




I dedicate my sharing of "God Is In the Roses" to my friend and colleague David McCaffrey (pictured at right in August 2009), whose funeral Mass took place earlier today at St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in St. Paul. The sharing of this song is followed by thoughts and images from this very special gathering that remembered and celebrated David's life and legacy.

God is in the roses,
the petals and the thorns;
storms out on the oceans,
the souls who will be born.
And every drop of rain that falls,
falls for those who mourn.
God is in the roses
. . . and the thorns.

The sun is on the cemetery,
leaves are on the stones.
There never was a place on earth
that felt so much like home.
We're falling like the velvet petals,
we're bleeding and we're torn.
But God is in the roses
. . . and the thorns.

. . . My whole world fits inside the moment,
I saw you be reborn.
God is in the roses,
and that day was filled with roses.
God is in the roses
. . . and the thorns.

Following is the eulogy that David's partner of 13-and-a-half years, Michael Douglas (pictured with David at left in July 2009), shared at the beginning of the Mass.

What can I say about Davey Joe? We met just as I was beginning sub-specialty training at the University of Minnesota fourteen years ago. For him it was the perfect time for a relationship that – to David – seemed perfectly serendipitous. You see, he was in the same situation I find myself at this very moment – overcoming the loss of his most cherished loved one (in this case, his mother who died just a few months before I moved to Minnesota). Everything about David seemed to be dictated by fate, as he would say – and our meeting at a Family Practice Department social, set the stage for a bond that would only continue to strengthen. Although his passing was sudden, it by no means eclipses or truncates his influence on so many people. His soul will live on.

David was so much more than a friend. More than a partner. More than a husband. He was the kind of person who could simply brighten, enlighten, and enliven any environment he inhabited. He just had that positive energy that made even the most curmudgeonly among us capitulate with happiness in his presence. This quality conjures up a wonderful memory: when he first met my parents, he knew the only way to allay any immediate insecurities he felt they would be having at the potentially awkward moment of formal introduction, was through humor. When my mother asked how we met, I think that he sensed major unease on her part – and simply responded: "Oh, Mrs. Douglas, no need to worry; I didn't rob from the cradle. Michael robbed from the grave." Needless to say, I don't remember that going over too well. But, it was just another way in which David would ingratiate himself toward others – a quality as effortless as his infectious personality.

David left his mark in life in so many deliberate ways. His tireless efforts at social justice within and outside of the Catholic church are legion to the Twin Cities' history of pioneering social activism. Ask anyone with a hand in the advancement of lesbian and gay rights in Minnesota, and he or she will tell you David was an essential element in that movement – establishing a legacy that inspires others in his footsteps more than 30 years later. David also lent his considerable talents to under-served racial minorities, freeing them from lives of certain societal exile.

These qualities are the ones most will remember about David Joseph McCaffrey. The qualities that I'll always cherish, however, are the ones that attracted me to him in the first place. His smile, fundamental generosity toward others, and overall blissful attitude toward life are at the top of that list. David is the most selfless, generous, magnanimous person I have ever met. It certainly makes his passing that much more difficult. But, with the inevitable grief that comes with his departure from this earth, comes the security in knowing that I will always hold his soul squarely in my heart. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Thank you.

Above: Without doubt it was a very beautiful funeral Mass, one that embodied the very best of the Catholic tradition. The homily was especially powerful and reflected the liberating compassion of Jesus like few others I've heard.



Above: The parish choir in which David had shared the beautiful gift of his singing voice.



Above and below: After the funeral Mass, the remembering and celebrating of David's life and legacy continued downstairs in the church hall.



Above: Jim, Kathleen and Tom.


Left: Seated at left with (from left) Phil, Paul, Mike, Mary Lynn and Ed.







Right: Aimee and Craig.

Above: Ed, Randi and Phil.

Above: Undre, Justin and Maria.

Above: A number of David's fellow parishioners. They were so welcoming of all who attended his funeral Mass.

Above: Alice, Donna and Roger.

Above: Members of David's family, including his brother Richard, second from right.



I close this post with a lovely poem by Amelia Burr. It's a poem that beautifully captures David's wise, generous and hopeful spirit. Thank you, David, for sharing that spirit and inspiring its blossoming within so many of us.

A Song of Living

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I have sent up my gladness on wings, to be lost in the blue of the sky.
I have run and leaped with the rain, I have taken the wind to my breast.
My cheeks like a drowsy child to the face of the earth I have pressed.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I have kissed young love on the lips, I have heard his song to the end,
I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend.
I have known the peace of heaven, the comfort of work done well.
I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive out of hell.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I gave a share of my soul to the world, when and where my course is run.
I know that another shall finish the task I surely must leave undone.
I know that no flower, nor flint was in vain on the path I trod.
As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God,
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

– Amelia Burr
American poet (1878 - 1968)

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Sad News
"I Have Never Felt Closer to Anyone in My Entire Life Than to David"

Recommended Off-site Link:
Remembering David McCaffrey – Mary Lynn Murphy (The Progressive Catholic Voice, July 12, 2011).

The Potential of Art and the Limits of Rigid Orthodoxy to Connect Us to the Sacred

The more exploitative, numbing, and assaulting
popular culture becomes, the more we need
the truth of a beautifully phrased song,
dredged from a real person’s depth of experience,
delivered in an honest voice; the more we need
the simplicity of paint on canvas,
or the arc of a lonely body in the air,
or the photographer’s unflinching eye.

– Rosanne Cash

I have to say that the older I get the more I realize that the most appropriate language of humanity’s attempt to grapple with the mystery of God is not the language of catechesis, doctrine and dogma but rather of poetry, metaphor, myth and art. The former, it seems to me, is generally far too crude in its absolutism to even begin to acknowledge let alone explore the complexity, diversity, beauty and mystery of the sacred’s presence and action in and through human experience.

Yes, I understand that the desire for absolute certainty is a very human one, but in our pursuit of such certainty we tend to create rigid, monolithic and very absolutist institutions that accordingly are very dehumanizing. Indeed, they become the very antithesis of what Jesus was all about.


A false god

It shouldn’t have to be this way, of course. Yet without doubt we’re witnessing in our time and across the religious spectrum a rise in fundamentalist thinking and the subsequent lifting up of rigid orthodoxy to the status of a false god. Mind you, orthodoxy doesn’t have to be a dirty word. In fact I don’t think of orthodoxy as an idol demanding unquestioning obedience but as a way of the church as the people of God simply (and humbly) saying this is the best we can say about this or that issue given what we currently know.

In a recent article over at The Progressive Catholic Voice, my friend Bob highlights the tragic trend within Catholicism of reducing orthodoxy to the level of idolatry (and thus rigidity and stagnation) when he notes that “the Roman leadership has spiraled further and further into a more aggressive absolutist, monarchical and judgmental kind of leadership that . . . has embraced a power that is neither pastoral nor loving.”

A visitor to The Wild Reed recently commented: “The clerical Church has pretty much banished art since it has banished any honest expression of human feeling.” There is a connection between this observation and Bob’s as encouraging and honoring the “honest expression of human feeling” is what being pastoral and loving, i.e., a follower of Jesus, is all about.

To be sure, there is a definite link between “honest expression of human feeling” (and all that such expression entails – vulnerability, trust, compassion, community and relationships) and the creation of art. And the power of art, as Jamake Highwater reminds us, resides in its capacity to “awaken imagery within us, to compound mystery with more mystery, and to illuminate [and I would say connect us to] the unknown without reducing it to the commonplace.” It’s a link and a capacity that rigid orthodoxy has a hard time grasping and expressing. Accordingly, I don’t consider such orthodoxy to be an authentic expression of religion.


A deeper strata of truth

Indeed, I resonate with John Haught when in What Is Religion? he notes: “Religion is not in the same category of understanding as, for example, knowledge of the multiplication tables. It hardly possesses that kind of clarity and distinctness. People do not become religious simply by performing automatic operations in logic. Religion instead is closer to interpersonal kinds of experience and knowledge” that open people to the reality of the sacred.

Similarly, I appreciate filmmaker Werner Herzog’s understanding of “the deeper strata of truth in cinema . . . [the] poetic, ecstatic truth [that is] mysterious and elusive” and which can only be reached “through fabrication and imagination and stylization.”

Anyway, I mention all of this as recently I finished reading Rosanne Cash’s memoir Composed in which she similarly reflects on the role of art in the spiritual life and the limits of rigid orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that appears to have been her experience of religion as a child in a Catholic school.

I’ll close this post (as I began it) with Rosanne’s words of insight and beauty.

We all need art and music like we need blood and oxygen. The more exploitative, numbing, and assaulting popular culture becomes, the more we need the truth of a beautifully phrased song, dredged from a real person’s depth of experience, delivered in an honest voice; the more we need the simplicity of paint on canvas, or the arc of a lonely body in the air, or the photographer’s unflinching eye. Art, in the larger sense, is the lifeline to which I cling in a confusing, unfair, sometime dehumanizing world. In my childhood, the nuns and priests insisted, sometimes in a shrill and punitive tone, that religion was where God resided and where I might find transcendence. I was afraid they were correct for so many years, and that I was the one at fault for not being able to navigate the circuitry of dogma and ritual. For me, it turned out to be a decoy, a mirage framed in sound and fury. Art and music have proven to be more expansive, more forgiving, and more immediately alive. For me, art is a more trustworthy expression of God than religion.

Recommended Off-site Link:
Cash Walks the Line – Jon Bream (Star Tribune, August 28, 2010).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Wisdom and Beauty of Rosanne Cash
• ”Movin’ On” with Rosanne Cash
• Celebrating Our Sanctifying Truth
• James Carroll on Catholic Understandings of Truth (Part 1)
• James Carroll on Catholic Understandings of Truth (Part 2)
• James Carroll on Catholic Understandings of Truth (Part 3)
• James Carroll on Catholic Understandings of Truth (Part 4)
• James Carroll on Catholic Understandings of Truth (Part 5)
• The Catholic Challenge
• Truth Telling: The Greatest of Sins in a Dysfunctional Church
• The Journal of James Curtis: Part 6 – Father Brandon

"Movin' On" with Rosanne Cash

For this evening’s “Friday night Wild Reed music spot” I’m happy to share the music video for “I’m Movin’ On,” the first single from Rosanne Cash’s latest album, The List - set for release this Tuesday, October 6.

Rosanne Cash is among a select few artists that I appreciate, enjoy, and trust enough to buy any new album they release on the day it comes out. So you can be sure that of all my “things to do” this Tuesday, riding my bike to Cheapo Discs on nearby Snelling Ave. to buy The List will be, well, on the top of my list!




Earlier this year Rosanne told Billboard magazine that The List is “based on a list my father [the legendary Johnny Cash] made for me when I was 18 years old. He called it the ‘100 Essential Country Songs’ and said if I learned this list, I would be truly educated.”

Rosanne also notes that her latest album, her 12th studio recording, is “basically me getting a chance to be an interpreter instead of a songwriter for a change, which is really liberating, really fun.”

Produced by Rosanne’s husband, John Leventhal, The List includes Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On,” Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You,” and Hank Williams’ “Take These Chains From My Heart,” as well as duets with Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.

In reviewing The List, NPR’s Stephen Thompson notes:

Rosanne Cash has never been the showiest country singer around, which is part of her considerable appeal: She inherited her father’s plainspoken nature, which lends her a measure of authenticity and authority. [The] 12 covers [that comprise “The List”] are — by definition and necessity — timeless, and Cash’s performances give them room to breathe and shine.

Recommended Off-site Links:
Rosanne Cash Discusses The List - Juli Thanki (The9513.com, September 10, 2009.)
Rosanne Cash Narrows Down Her Father’s “List” - Ken Tucker (Reuters, September 25, 2009).
Rosanne Cash at AllMusic.com

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Beauty and Wisdom of Rosanne Cash
In the Garden of Spirituality - Rosanne Cash

Musical artists previously featured at The Wild Reed:
Enrique Iglesias, Helen Reddy, Australian Crawl, PJ and Duncan, Cass Elliot, The Church, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield, Wall of Voodoo, Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy, Pink Floyd, Kate Ceberano, Judith Durham, Wendy Matthews, Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1927, Mavis Staples, Maxwell, Joan Baez, Tee Set, Darren Hayes, Suede, Wet, Wet, Wet, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Cruel Sea, Shirley Bassey, Loretta Lynn & Jack White, Maria Callas, Foo Fighters, Rosanne Cash, Jenny Morris, Scissor Sisters, Kate Bush, Rufus Wainwright, and Dusty Springfield.

In the Garden of Spirituality - Rosanne Cash

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“We are not on earth to guard a museum,
but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.”

- Pope John XXIII

The Wild Reed’s series of reflections on religion and spirituality continues with an excerpt from a message by singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash, originally posted on Cash’s website shortly after the release of her 2006 album Black Cadillac – an album she wrote over the two years in which she lost her father Johnny Cash, her stepmother June Carter Cash, and her mother Vivian Liberto Cash Distin.

(NOTE: I previously shared this excerpt as part of the Wild Reed post, The Beauty and Wisdom of Rosanne Cash.)

________________________________________

My darlings, there is no need to worry about my immortal soul. Some of you seem determined to save it. But that’s my job, and I’m on it. If I express tremendous doubt in some of [the] songs [on Black Cadillac], I also express profound faith. The record is a map of many things that surround loss: grief, confusion, anger, doubt, faith, transformation, love, despair and hope. There are a lot of questions, not a lot of answers. I love the quote from Rilke: “Try to love the questions in your heart . . .”

I do, I do. I love the questions, I am empowered by the search, I’m inspired by the exploration, all of which is fundamentally human. I really don’t trust people who say they have no cracks in their faith and never entertain doubt. That’s not faith, that’s fanaticism.

What do I believe in? I believe in a universe that supports our highest potential. I believe that love survives death, and can heal even the most grave damage, given time and trust in the process.

I believe in a God that defies my understanding. I think that my mind is not even close to being large enough to understand what God really is, and this excites me.

I believe there is something outside my own existence that is all-knowing, whose creative potential is so vast that I can barely glimpse even the smallest edge. I believe that when I am in my most creative zone, I am touching that edge, but beyond that, it is unfathomable to me. I also believe that some day I will understand this better.

I believe that I chose my parents, and they chose me, for reasons that I only partially understand, and the same goes for my children.

I believe that the frog in the rain forest inhales the same air I exhale, and that we are all connected on a level that is so profound, so complex, and so basic, that if we got even a momentary insight into this subject, it would transform us.

I believe war is fundamentally wrong, and that at some point in the future, our descendants will look on us as barbarians for conducting ourselves in this way.

I do not believe in Armageddon, which seems to be a popular belief these days. The idea that the world, which is billions of years old (sorry, Pat and Jerry, but you need to go back to third grade science class), will end in MY lifetime, because I am just so special that all things will come to an end once I have graced the planet, is just too narcissistic to even entertain.

I do not believe that any one person has a special hold on God’s ear, but that there are as many ways to God as there are people on the planet, and that God, in His/Her infinite understanding, is able to tolerate a multitude of differences in this regard, since He/She created those differences, partially through the exquisite, complex miracle of evolution. I don’t believe anyone needs to mediate with God on my behalf, and I certainly don’t believe God gives other people messages to give to me. My letter box is always open to receive directly from the Source, thanks.

In turn, I respect your belief in anything, everything or nothing, as long as you don’t try to inflict those beliefs on me. Arrogance and ignorance are a lethal combination, and it seems to pervade some bastions of organized religion at the moment.

A gentleman gave a review of my record on Amazon, and he said that I “dissed” the religion of my father and stepmother. I don’t challenge very many misinterpretations of my work or beliefs, but this one could not go unmentioned. This is absolutely untrue. The religion of my father and stepmother was tolerant, loving, powerful and personal to them, as was the very different religious faith of my mother. I have nothing but respect for that, and for them. My songs are about MY experience, and nothing else. And by the way, they are SONGS, not a diary. Open to interpretation, obviously, but for yourself only.

Gregory Lisenbee sent me this great quote, and for that I thank him: “The unknown is the mind’s greatest need, and for it no one thinks to thank God.”


Recommended Off-site Links:
Loss Drives Rosanne Cash’s Cadillac - Dan Leroy (Rolling Stone, January 30, 2006).
Rosanne Cash: Diving Deep for Painful Honesty - Tom Lanham (Paste, January 31, 2006).

Others highlighted in The Wild Reed’s “In the Garden of Spirituality” series include:
Zainab Salbi, Daniel Helminiak, Rod Cameron, Paul Collins, Joan Chittister, Toby Johnson, Joan Timmerman, Uta Ranke-Heinemanm, Caroline Jones, Ron Rolheiser, James C. Howell, Paul Coelho, Doris Lessing, Michael Morwood, Kenneth Stokes, Dody Donnelly, Adrian Smith , Henri Nouwen, Patrick Carroll, Jesse Lava, Geoffrey Robinson, Joyce Rupp, and Debbie Blue.

Opening image: Michael J. Bayly.