Patriotic music by Beethoven

This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer with the arrival of Memorial Day. For me, the holiday always brings to mind warm mornings spent toting my trumpet from cemetery to cemetery to play taps and marching with the band in the VFW's small parade in my hometown. Besides veterans, high school musicians may be among the most likely people in the country to observe the holiday properly for a moment at least - not simply going shopping or lounging at the beach.

This week's prelude will sound to the congregation like "My Country Tis of Thee." But I will actually be playing Beethoven's piano variations on "God Save the King." We don't get to hear much of Beethoven's music in church. He was a transitional figure from the classical, enlightenment period of the late 18th century toward 19th century romanticism. Furthermore, he lived at a time when he could make a career as a piano virtuoso and composer, no longer as reliant on employment as a church musician as Bach and other earlier musicians had been. For all these reasons, he composed very little that is appropriate for church music, so I like to take the opportunity to play this particular piece on patriotic holidays from time to time.

I know that some members of our congregation have been directly affected by our ongoing military engagements around the world, and I know that our prayers are certainly with them, our military and government leaders, and veterans on this holiday.

Andre Gide weighs in on Memorial Day

Pastor Ferro left an insightful comment on an earlier entry, sharing a fact that I didn't know about the text of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. All my life, I have proudly sung "let us live to make men free" in verse 3, thinking that Julia Ward Howe was a genius and feeling inspired to go be a better person. It borders on disappointment to know that isn't the original text!

In our comfortable daily lives, we are rarely in physical danger. Not too many of us risk our lives for our freedoms (any of our many freedoms - religious freedom being just one of the many we enjoy). I wonder if that's part of the reason the LBW changed the text. In our society, our biggest challenge can be living the Christian life in the face of daily temptations, including the temptation to hide our light under a bushel basket.

Andre Gide wrote one of my favorite lines on this topic in his novel The Immoralist. "To free oneself is nothing. The truly arduous task is to know what to do with that freedom." Taking up a cross, in other words, can mean more than physical harm or death. When the battles are over, the workers, the inventors, the artists, and even the bureaucrats have their own work to do and their own sacrifices to make.

John Adams wrote, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." On Memorial Day, we do remember the many heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice. I think we also honor them every other day of the year by the way we study and live.

So which text is better? Which one better captures the spirit of Memorial Day? As always, I encourage you to share your thoughts by leaving a comment!