Bygones

     I dredged up my high school German to translate the words on a stained-glass window in a Protestant church called Martinskirche in Langenau, Germany. Just after Christmas in 2005, I was there to chaperone the Orlando Deanery Boychoir and Girls Choir on their Prayer for Peace International Tour. While the children rehearsed the evening's concert program, I studied the window in the 400-year-old building. A list of names cascaded from ceiling to floor. A date followed each name, 1916, 1917, the First World War, the "war to end all wars." Among the names were the words I translated as "They gave their lives for others."
     Nearby, more names were painted on a wall. This section was dated 1939-1945. A wreath stood in front with a banner that read, I think, "We remember our dead." In my mind, I had to peer around the horror of Hitler, but finally it struck me: these people reacted to the loss of their soldiers in exactly the same way we react to the loss of our soldiers. And this day, grandchildren of their enemies had come to sing to them. The choirs sang carols in German and traditional church songs in Latin. They sang American spirituals with contagious enthusiasm. They sang "Prayer for Peace," written especially for the choirs after Sept. 11, 2001. It asks God to protect us from evil and to strengthen us to stand for what is right. 
     The tour was meant to extend a hand of friendship to the people of the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria. It seemed to work. The audience of dignitaries at the Ambassador's Concert Series in Prague (where men with dogs and pistols swept the room beforehand) demanded encores. One was a carol in the Czech language. They sang along. At an informal performance in Munich, I saw a woman singing along with the lovely Latin round "Dona Nobis Pacem," which means "grant us peace." Another woman leaned toward us choir moms and said, "They are wonderful!"
     In Vienna on New Year's Day, an American deputy ambassador heard them sing on an outdoor stage and followed them to the cathedral where they sang for a mass. Afterward, he told them that his job was to present the best of American culture to other nations, and that they had done exactly that with their singing. In the Martinskirche, though, there was something more. A reporter who covered the concert for the local paper noted a "spiritual dimension" that made the performance "intensive and expressive."
     When I told the story of the window and the wall of remembrance to a friend at church, she said, "We all come together at the foot of the cross." That was it. In Langenau, they read the Bible in German, but they learn the same truths, and they serve the same Savior. In this place of humility, we could all recognize our own flaws and reach out to one another as human beings in the name of Jesus Christ, even if there had been hatred and destruction between us in the past. We offered our music, and we held out our hands.

Oh, That's Just Swell

One of these days, I'm going to get into a fistfight with a museum docent. I often find myself disagreeing with their analysis of a painting as I lurk on the edge of a tour group. (I never sign up for the tour groups, but I do sidle up to them out of curiosity.) At the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, one such group and I stood in front of the painting above, "Ground Swell," painted in 1939 by Edward Hopper. The docent asked whether anyone was familiar with Hopper's best-known painting, "Nighthawks." None of the group knew it, but I raised my hand. It's the rather depressing nighttime view from outside a diner where a few customers and staff are not looking at each other. One of those existential things. "Ground Swell" is in the sunshine, but it has its own grimness. Note the year, said the docent. 1939. War is in full swing in Europe. The US is not in yet. It wasn't a big leap to agree that the painting suggests rough waters ahead for these carefree young Americans. What kind of shape are the guys in? Buff! What are they wearing? White pants! What do the pants suggest? Blank stares. The Navy! Soon they'll be in the Navy! Um, OK. But white is traditional sailing attire, military or not. In my symbology, the white suggested the innocence of the young folks out for a day of fun. There's a little sad irony in the idea that these strong, handsome, untroubled young men may soon be tested (wasted?) in war. Each focuses on the buoy bobbing in the swell. Here's where I really had to bite my opinionated tongue. The docent quoted some art expert who said the buoy is shaped like an old-fashioned radio, the radio being the main news source of the day, through which came rumors of war. Sorry, but that's not the shape of any radio that ever stood in my grandparents' home, or turns up in photos of the era. The large wooden radio cabinets were either rectangular or shaped like an arch, a column with a curved top. Come on, experts, that buoy is a pyramid with the top cut off. No resemblance. My interpretation: the buoy is an elemental sort of warning. A disturbance in the sea tips it and makes the bell clang, but it doesn't spell out the nature of the problem. The sailors who hear it must listen, look, and try to gauge the threat. The posture of the men suggests they have heard the bell and are wondering, "Hmm, how seriously should we take this?" The woman lying so casually next to the mast seems calm. Perhaps she represents hearth and home, which the men may soon be called upon to protect. She's counting on it. Over all, I thought the docent and his expert were trying a little too hard to make the painting tell a story by assigning such specific meanings to elements. What does the coffee cup represent in "Nighthawks"? Anyway, I kept my mouth shut and sauntered away to absorb some nifty bronzes by Remington, St. Gaudens and freres. In the 1800s, the US had a booming production of bronze sculpture, but it faded away after the first world war. Who knew? Off to the museum cafe for a plate of Amish chicken salad. Honest. But with no bonnets or buggies in evidence, the chicken could have been a Presbyterian.