is it me or my cello?...

Christopher Pearse Cranch was a Unitarian minister, musician, writer and painter.  He writes this upon first hearing the great German cellist Gustave Knoop in 1842...

"There is one instrument, which in the hands of the master whose performances upon it I have repeatedly listened to, has been like a new revelation in music to me. It is the violoncello. Did you ever hear it? But even if you have, and in the hands of the best amateur, you can have no idea, nor can I give you any, of its wonderful power when touched by Knoop, said to be the greatest artist on this instrument in Germany. If you would hear the very soul tell all its deepest, most inner feelings, if you would listen to language as from another world and from some matured spirit in a more exalted and perfect state than here below, go to hear Knoop. You will feel as if he were drawing out of you your very soul."

Knoop himself was, apparently, willing to do anything for his "art."  This from a History of the Cello...

"Meiningen possessed a very distinguished Violoncellist in Gustave Knoop, who was born at Gottingen in 1805, and was member of the Meiningen Court orchestra. He must have been, in regard to beauty of tone, a successful rival of Romberg. It is related of him that he only married in order to get into his possession a valuable Violoncello which belonged to his wife ; that soon after the wedding he set out on a journey with the instrument, and did not return home again."

Blessings

already yours...

In reply to what can only be called an unbridled fan letter from Chrisopher Pearse Cranch, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

"My dear sir, I recognize with joy your sympathy with me in the same tastes and thoughts, in the kind, though extravagant expression of your letter.  If my thoughts have interested you, it only shows how much they were already yours."

Blessings

kept the waters pure around him...

After several days with Rufus Ellis, I started this morning "The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch."  This is a description of his father, William Cranch (July 17, 1769 – September 1, 1855) a Mass. Unitarian, who was appointed by his uncle John Adams a Judge of the DC District Court, and later by Thomas Jefferson Chief of that court

"I don't believe he ever spent an idle hour in his life.  His life was uniform...His great idea was duty.  His recreations were music, chess, study, contemplation.  He prayed much when alone.  He repeated old poems to himself in his walks.  But for ten hours every day for sixty years he was in public and working for the public. He was working for the right, and antagonizing the wrong, and he kept the waters pure around him."

I like that...Blessings

Lutheran party crashing...

For the past week or so I have been in South Dakota with the children helping to celebrate my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary.  We held an open house at the Lutheran Church where I spent my high school years.  A result of a merger by three small area churches, English was not introduced until 1917 (Norwegian being the language of the church until then.)  Other innovations did not work out so well.  This from "The Centennial Directory of the American Lutheran Church" (1982)...

"During the next fourteen years (following 1900) some progress was made.  The pastor purchased a red Buick which he used when weather permitted.  He was not always well versed in its operation, as on one occasion when attending Ladies' Aid we were startled as he stopped the car by running into the house."

Blessings

only be still...

This from Rufus Ellis...

"If we will only be still, no matter what befalls us, He will speak or come in silence to our help, and fold us forever in His arms."

Blessings

a blessing is in it...

This from Rufus Ellis.  A message that I have come to believe deeply but remember sporadically...

"THE BLESSING OF OUR LIFE.
"A Blessing is in it. "Isaiah

 "A BLESSING is in it," — covered up out of sight, to be waited for with patience, to be sought with diligence, missed by most persons, found by a few, strangely withheld sometimes, and ever brought to us in what looks like the very opposite. A blessing is in our life. You say, This is a duty, a very hard and a very solemn duty; yes, but " a blessing is in it." You say, This is a trial, a thorn in the flesh, a real grief, a life-long disappointment, no light and momentary affliction; yes, but "a blessing is in it." You tell me that man's life is weighted with cares and troubles, consumed with labors and watchings; yes, but " a blessing is in it." You say that the end hastens on, one end for all the living, one death which all must die; yes, but blessed are the dying, and blessed are the dead. When God commands, it is because He proposes to bless. When God afflicts, it is because He proposes to bless. With the righteousness of His kingdom peace and joy are ever bound up. We can hardly say that we know Him as we may and ought to know Him, or have got beyond the elements of religion, until with an increasing sense of obligation there comes an increase of the light of life, and with every fresh anxiety and sorrow a sweetness and gladness and repose of heart which had never been felt before. If we find and experience all that is hard to do and hard to bear, while no joy fills the soul and no brightness comes into the face, we miss what God provides; for true religion opens its most searching discourse with beatitudes, and teaches in the first sentence of its sternest catechism that man was created not only to obey God, but to enjoy Him forever."

Blessings

we are not Puritan enough...

Despite yesterdays's questioning of his Christian status, Rufus Ellis was  a "conservative among the liberals."  This from an unpublished sermon...

"We are not Puritan enough. We excuse when we ought to reproach ourselves. Are we waiting for God to bring into judgment our compromises and conformities and insincerities, — waiting for the refiner's fire and for the fuller's soap, bowing the head like a bulrush, instead of breaking every yoke? — only sorry enough for our sins to confess, but not sorry enough to forsake them?"

Blessings