Here and Now

                         

Doug writes 

There are many suggestions around of what to do to pass the time and even improve ourselves during the lockdown. Many artists have placed plays and concerts on streaming services such as YouTube. I was pleased to see that The Globe and the National Theatre offer free plays – I loved Hamlet and One Man- Two Guvnors and I am now looking forward to Romeo and Juliet.

Musically too, there is so much to hear, and there can be such beauty. Along with yesterday’s comments there are many other fascinating and encouraging items. If you want some heavenly harmony, the album Fading by the Gesualdo Six is utterly beautiful, very spiritual and comforting, with a brilliant blend of old and new church music (downloadable – or samples - from Hyperion Records).

Absolutely brilliant too is the new album by the Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson, “Debussy Rameau”, which intertwines music by these two composers who lived two centuries apart. The music is excellent, and the sound quality is superb. It can be streamed, and if you don’t join a subscription site then Spotify plays it free provided you can endure adverts (which I can’t!). Olafsson is Gramophone’s Artist of the Year, and his Bach and Glass albums are also highly recommended to transport us to another place.

Olafsson said in a recent interview that he doesn’t think of classical music as old, it is contemporary for him. Although Bach and Rameau wrote their music centuries ago, they would never have heard it as we now do as the instruments available were very different and the situation in which the music was played was – simply – then, not now. He sees the playing of the music as absolutely contemporary as he performs and offers it.

It struck me that our faith needs to be utterly contemporary too, based as it is on past writings and experiences. What is this for us today, how do I live as a Christian now? We cannot live as though we were in the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages or indeed at the time of Christ. Indeed there would be some drawbacks if we did, judging by history. We are here, now, faced with a new global situation. On a personal level we can simply rely on God’s presence as ever, yet the way we see the world as inter-connected, as a global community, can lead us to consider how we foster a sense of caring among the nations, how we engage with the insights of science, how we see the love of God and love of neighbour expressed in this world where one community’s issues can affect everyone, for good or ill? And can we affirm that our faith is not bogged down in the past, backward-looking, but contemporary and engaged through prayer and action with the future of life on this planet?