Is Modern Culture Losing Great Art? What Handel’s Messiah Reveals

Nathan (00:01)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.

Cameron (00:04)

and I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister.

Nathan (00:06)

We had a little conversation before this episode and I said, Cameron, are we going to be Americans and pronounce his name Handel? We're to go to Handel. Uh, what are we going to do? You can give us the correct German pronunciation, surprise of all surprises, Cameron April is the anniversary of the debut of Handel's Messiah in Dublin. So a couple of surprising things there. have a German composer living in England who debuts a musical masterpiece in Ireland.

Uh, 284 years ago on April 13th was the debut of this. And so this, uh, episode is recorded with an intended release of, um, April 14th. So you missed it by a day, but yesterday was the 284th. you're 1742 was the year that this hit the world and Cameron, you've heard this in person.

Cameron (00:59)

I have, yes. I was probably eight or nine years old. So I saw Handel's Messiah performed in its entirety in an ancient cathedral in Austria. that is a fitting. There's my flexed. Yeah, no big deal, but there's. yeah.

Nathan (01:12)

There's a little flex for the day. You know, no big deal. Wait, have a parallel. My wife

and I saw some of the original score of this in the British Library. It was on display in 2012, 2011 sometime. Went down to London and you see the work of a mastermind scribbled all over old sheets of paper. Yeah.

Cameron (01:25)

Wow, so yeah, you-

That's fantastic.

Yeah. So you saw my story and you raised it a little bit. All right. You raised the bar. See what you're doing there. It was, yeah. So that was, what was really fantastic about that was I would like to sometimes subject my young children to this as well. It was very long, you know, for an eight year old. Yes. With it. Yeah. So one with an intermission, but I do remind, I mean, all these years later, it made such an impression on me. It was spellbinding.

Nathan (01:33)

I'm trying to hang in here.

It's under three, just a little under three hours, something like that.

Cameron (01:58)

The music is of course, absolutely, it's heavenly. so I, yeah, were there parts where I thought this is dragging on and I was kicking my feet? I'm sure there were, but it, all these years later, it has, it's imprinted upon my consciousness in an important way. It was a mind expanding experience and also reminds us, I mean, I'll have more to say about this in a bit. I suspect this comment will get some reaction from you, but great art.

demands patience. And that was an early lesson for me in that. So it was great.

Nathan (02:34)

Well, so let me clarify a couple of things. So Cameron, our friend Seth ⁓ had sent a link to me, I think back in November of last year, Freakonomics Radio did a three-part multi-hour ⁓ kind of deep dive into the history of Handel and his other work and the Messiah in particular and the development and the reception of it and how it was used. And so if you want to nerd out on this listener, I would suggest looking up that Freakonomics Radio.

podcast and those interviews and go back. It's delightfully done. Really a lot of fun, but I was shocked to recognize that this was released at Easter, not Christmas. And we think of it so much with Christmas. And I think then there's another portion of just in that, you know, the rapid pace of things to recognize that the hallelujah chorus, a is like in the middle of this thing and isn't the isn't the end. And one of the, one of the

Cameron (03:13)

Yeah.

Nathan (03:30)

The people who was interviewed who conducts, ⁓ for performances of this, that it's one of the challenges is to not have people stand up and start to walk out at the end of the hallelujah course, because they think that's the conclusion. It is the conclusion to part two, part one is Isaiah part two, ⁓ concludes with the hallelujah course, the annunciation to the shepherds part three, then into kind of the theology of the resurrection and onward. ⁓ yeah, there's a lot to this thing. Like who knew?

Cameron (03:42)

That's it, yes. I think that's finale.

Nathan (04:00)

The whole thing was three hours long in a world in which like a 30 second YouTube video sometimes feels a bit much.

Cameron (04:07)

You know, it's funny when I was in high school, so this is what I'm going to rattle off here will sound like a Wikipedia fact, but it was, I came by it honestly. I had a friend, a very close friend of mine in high school became obsessed with Handel, which tells you a little bit about the kind of friends I was fortunate enough to have in high school, public high school. There you go, see? In public school, these people exist. So he was obsessed with Handel and I remember we would usually go on vacation with him and we'd hang out and he would...

Nathan (04:22)

Yeah.

Cameron (04:35)

He would rattle off to me what was going on in his mind. this was, he just said, you know, he was a real, Handel became a relative shut in as he was composing this. was subsisting on, you know, his servants basically would bring him food and rent, right. And it was, it was this fevered. Yes. This fit of just creative and of frenzy and you we might say inspiration. And so he's going and apparently one time the servant came down and Handel was just had his head in his hands and was just weeping.

Nathan (04:49)

he wrote this in like 24 days.

Nuts.

Cameron (05:04)

And he had just composed what we, you know, the most known portion of this whole, of the Messiah, which is that, you we think of the Hallelujah Chorus. It's sad the way, this is just a side note, Nathan, the way these things are cheapened in pop culture. You know, the Hallelujah Chorus is now used in many comedies, you know, to sort of signify, you know, some small triumph in life or something wonderful happens and then the cue the Hallelujah Chorus.

And it's understandable. It's a clever piece. Right. Exactly. And it's, you know, it's a clever piece of editing and it works well. But on the other hand, it's, it's a diminishment. You know, these are, this is, this is the work of it. You think of Handel with his head in his hands weeping, and then you think of it being used as a sort of, you know, a kind of a little cue the laugh track effect in a comedy. Yeah. But yeah, so quite a, quite an amazing story of how it came together as well.

Nathan (05:34)

Bruce Almighty type ⁓ celebration of divine power, yeah.

Yeah, comedy punchline. Yeah.

Well, and so the words obviously aren't original to Handel. mean, so there's King James and actually a large benefactor, kind of a Patreon of his work, had written this out and suggested kind of the organization of the biblical passages and the way that it would all come together. then, yeah, so it's not like he made up the word hallelujah. It's a pretty important theological concept.

Cameron (06:06)

Mm-mm.

Hey, another side note here. So

it's a commercial piece of art. Also worth bringing in. Yeah, we might wanna linger on that one for just a second because this is, yeah.

Nathan (06:27)

Yes.

Well, but this is interesting is that it

wasn't as smashing of a success right off the bat. It took a little bit of time and you want to talk about the commercial side of it. Apparently where it really gained traction is when it started being used as performances that were fundraisers for kind of the orphan in the down and out. And so you'd have kind of this elite upper class, you know, you is a philanthropic ⁓ venture. Yeah.

Cameron (06:36)

No, not at the time.

Mm-hmm.

Is that right?

So philanthropic kind of ventures. Yeah.

Nathan (06:58)

event

that you would come and you would, you know, make your outlandish donation to attend this thing. And then the proceeds of this, ⁓ performance would go to, you know, feeding the poor or something like that. So it, it, it kind of got its legs under it in that when it came back into the London kind of upper elite social life there. ⁓ so yeah.

Cameron (07:16)

⁓ Interesting.

I didn't know that. I just know that it's worth pointing that out because we hear it now and we associate that with, you know, this is high art. But it's true that it was also, I mean, there were commercial underpinnings there. This is true of...

Nathan (07:32)

Well, think about

it. was listening to it on Freakonomics radio and it goes through his ledger of like how he did and didn't have money beforehand. And then afterward, yeah, things turned up a little bit for him there. So it's, but this is life of an artist through and through. mean, he seems to be a decent fellow.

Cameron (07:34)

Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. yeah. Those commissions came in mighty helpful.

Yeah,

he does. That's the other striking fact here because I have, you like so many of us, many of the people I admire, whose artistic achievements I admire, they're just horrible human beings. mean, really, I mean, awful, mistreated everybody around them. And basically, so, well, I mean, so many of them, mean, you just, could, know, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, I'm naming all modernists, Picasso, you know, but you can go down the line with any, know, Tolstoy.

Nathan (08:05)

Tell us how you really feel.

Cameron (08:18)

Tolstoy's biography was brutal. my goodness. I remember reading that one of the most fascinating by Ann Wilson, the notorious Ann Wilson who famously savaged C.S. Lewis in an earlier biography. He since kind of revised his views a little bit, but his biography of Tolstoy, one of the most fascinating things I've ever read. I Tolstoy was monstrous to his wife. mean, my sister basically on the basis of what she was hearing quit reading Tolstoy.

I mean, that's, so I just, I can't tell you how refreshing it is to hear about an artistic genius who it turns out was a decent human being. I mean, it's a, the bar is really low. Just be, just be decent. Just don't mistreat everybody and sacrifice everyone you know on the altar of your artistic success. But it turns out he was actually, he seemed to be a good person. Wow. So, Hey, that's a big deal.

Nathan (09:01)

you

Yeah.

So what is it about that though? Cause I mean, it's, it's, it's almost like a, an excuse of like, Oh, well, they're just an artistic person. Why, why, why is it the personalities that are able to channel some of the most beautiful and creative representations of reality struggle with, I mean, the, drug use even like back through your, even your English bucolic pastoral writers were all on opium and yeah. And the whole, like, I mean,

Cameron (09:23)

Well...

⁓ Coleridge. Yep. Yeah.

Nathan (09:42)

just lives

that fell apart, died early, alcoholics, ⁓ relationships with women that were not healthy for anybody involved. mean, just go, but would have these like dumpster fires of lives for nine months and then snap out of it for three weeks. then ⁓ what's going on there?

Cameron (09:46)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, let me say something that might sound a little strange. I think there are a lot of people who would have made wonderful artists, but because they chose to prioritize their families or they chose to not be selfish, you will never know who they are. So there's a basic story of not that doesn't just include artists here, but just people who are wildly successful in earthly terms. So generally speaking, wild success in earthly terms,

is an extreme liability. You can be successful and be a decent person, but it's rare. If you're going to be wildly successful, usually you have to be very ambitious. If you're extremely ambitious, you have to drive over people and prioritize your own career and honing your craft. When you look at the lives of lot of artists, you mentioned

the alcohol abuse and self-indulgence that comes along. So with artists, I think the difference there, although I don't think it's much of a difference to be honest with you, because I think you see this in other people as well, and I'll say more about that in a second, but you have a tendency to be, you're driven very deeply by feelings. mean, art has to do with the exploration, and it has to do with feelings, but also feeling things very deeply.

Nathan (11:19)

Mm-hmm.

poetic representation

of an intense observation of reality.

Cameron (11:29)

Yeah, I mean, that's very much a, that's a very romantic kind of, that's how the romantic, you know, the, you know, I can't remember the precise romantic formula, but there's something that has to do with the intense, you know, feelings. And also in earlier years, there, well, there's persisted a belief that certain kinds of, that, you know, intoxication and drugs promote creativity, you know, whether it's, you know, a lot about the snake, not, not, I was going to say, you know, a lot about the snake, not from personal experience, but.

Nathan (11:53)

yeah, open up neural pathways through, I've

Cameron (11:58)

you know, psychedelics

Nathan (11:59)

read some things.

Cameron (12:01)

and mind-altering substances as an avenue to creativity. Now, side note, more and more studies have kind of confirmed that that really isn't the case. You don't necessarily have greater artistic expression as a result of dropping acid or doing magic mushrooms or whatever, but that myth persists. So you had a lot of, I think, a

sense of strong personal ambition. I want to make my mark in the world. I want to be remembered. People are going to know my name after I die. But again, this isn't limited. I don't want to just pick on artists here. Business tycoons fit into this category. Scientists fit into this category. But it's true that there is a tendency in artistic circles because self-expression is so much part of it.

Nathan (12:38)

⁓ yeah. Sure.

Cameron (12:52)

to really focus intensely on the self and the feelings and to go chasing after experience and just try to feed that appetite in an effort to, you and also artists. mean, I'm going to pick on writers because I just am more familiar with writers, but I think somebody, don't remember who it was who said this, but once said, if you're friends with somebody who's a writer, it's all over for you. Just meaning they're going to...

something that you've done that's intensely personal and private, it's going to find its way into their books. Because they're always stealing and pilfering. And I remember David Foster Wallace said writers are just, are a group of oglers. We're just always lurking. We're always watching. And so there was a lot of that in the

Nathan (13:25)

He's gonna show up somewhere.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, you know for

sure when you read some sort of really intense prose, where you're like, this author had sometimes sat on a park bench and watched people very intently. I mean, they're writing about nuances of facial expressions of loved ones meeting and you know, this is just the kind of the bus station kind of observations of life. But, so take this back then in that Handel is not writing new words or new content. What is the, what's the connection between

I mean, it's just scripture. I say just air quotes there, but in a sense of does that have something to do with why 284 years later? it, is it simply the genius of the music or is there a broader spiritual profundity that's brought into reality through the intersection of these two things?

Cameron (14:27)

Well, we as modern people make the mistake of thinking that we're just obsessed with novelty. And so we think originality means everything has to be, you know, the place I point to for this, Nathan, where I kind of roll my eyes and I'm going to step on some toes here. just know I am. And I'm sorry if I am stepping on your toes, but people who think that, you got to write your own vows, they write their own vows at their weddings. But the belief there is, you know, well,

Nathan (14:45)

No he's not.

Yeah.

Cameron (14:54)

In order for this to be really honest and authentic, it has to come from our heart. Yeah, no, not necessarily. In fact, your own vows are probably going to be, let's face it, pretty superficial and corny. I've heard people's vows, they're terrible. It's done for you. And those cherished words are there and part of the institution of marriage now because ... There you go, yeah. But so if you look at

Nathan (15:14)

But now we have AI agents to help us with these things, so they'll get better.

Cameron (15:20)

If you look at the world of poetry, mean, now the reason a lot of people don't read poetry these days is because it's all sort of free verse word salad to a lot of people. can't, but yeah, but that's a different issue. I'm talking about modern poetry has a reputation for being kind of, it's not just word salad, but for the uninitiated, it's quite opaque and it's hard, it's impenetrable. Whereas if you looked at earlier versions, like say the sonnet.

Nathan (15:29)

but you also can't speed read it. You can't skim it.

Cameron (15:49)

The sonnet has a set form and you can, and, but see, here's the beautiful thing. If you have a set form that far from, yes, it's, it imposes constraints upon you, but then you're liberated because within that framework, you can do whatever you want. have an anchor. So if you read Shakespearean sonnets, for instance, nobody would read those and say, that's not very original. How formulaic. No, they would say, wow, this is.

Nathan (15:49)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (16:18)

This is taking a form, the sonnet, just absolutely giving us a magnificent expression within that. So similarly with music, not everything has to break conventions and have completely new words in order to succeed artistically.

Nathan (16:37)

Well, okay.

Yeah. So interesting. ⁓ I was listening to Ross Douthless interview with Ben Sass on being called to dying well, which by the way, fantastic interview. If you can, Ben Sass looks horrible. I mean, his skin's peeling off his face. ⁓ but really good thought, but he, you remember there's a spot in there where he talked about when there was a time in which say you have like three TV stations, you know, or then you moved to four and he said, was

Cameron (16:47)

Very moving, yeah.

Looks pretty awful.

I grew

up with two in Austria, so.

Nathan (17:06)

Yeah, so but he

said was he so he asked a question he said I love Lucy was not important content But he was shared content So he said when you got to work the next day People like pretty much everybody that you knew at least had a general idea of what was going on on the digital online information space Because it was limited so he's like it wasn't important, but it was shared and I think in modern poetry and modern art Everything becomes so niche

Cameron (17:30)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (17:36)

that you don't have this broad sense of shared public art and reference points that something like Handel's Messiah still pulls at us because it does have that global, universal, timeless attachment to it. That there's a way in which our appreciation of it and our sharing of it also connects us not to history, not just to scripture, not to a musical era, but to each other. I mean, how weird is it that you had a high school friend who's obsessed with this?

in the early arts. There is a cultural significance to this thing.

that transcend like it's it it isn't niche i guess still which is amazing when you think about how much stuff is being produced

Cameron (18:24)

There's a writer I like on this and his name's Lewis Hyde. He's an anthropologist, but he calls this the creative commons. Now he has mind great works of art down the years, everything from Huckleberry fan to Handel's Messiah. So he's not thinking about I love Lucy necessarily, but that's right. We have lost largely that kind of shared conversation centered around pieces of art or pieces of entertainment because everything is just so customized now.

And there are zero signs of that slowing. In fact, yeah, anyway.

Nathan (21:42)

Okay, but did

you choose at eight or nine years old to go listen to Hondo? You did not, bet.

Cameron (21:48)

No, and I remember

coming across an article in the New York Times book review or something basically where the guy was saying, should subject your, you should, if you're a dad or a mom, you should annoy your kids with the old music that you like. So I actually do that. mean, my kids, Dylan can identify a Miles Davis song now because I, or some other songs where yes, I have kind of.

Nathan (22:08)

Well, I'm just, yeah.

Cameron (22:16)

When we're in the car together, I don't play kids bop. That doesn't exist in my house period because it's trash. But also I won't, can you play, you know, something from, know, demon hunter, you know, or, or, you know, whatever latest kids craze, you know, is out there. Sometimes I'll do it, but every, but mostly no, you're in my car. So you're going to hear, you're going to hear real music. Sorry.

Nathan (22:39)

So

your taste in, I was getting back this idea of everything being customized, but recognizing that sometimes your tastes are insufficient. You need to be pushed in, I mean, I think that is often what the educational.

Cameron (22:45)

Yeah.

No, your tastes are terrible when you're,

no, when you're young, look, when I was a kid, I thought great cinema was Mack and Me. And if you know what Mack and Me is, this was poor man's ET. It's one of the, it is certainly one of the worst movies ever made. It's terrible. there is a Mystery Science Theater version of it and it is amazing. I highly recommend it, by the way. But it was just, and every week my parents would,

Nathan (23:04)

Thank

There is a Mystery Science Theater version of this.

Cameron (23:19)

Really? You want to get Mack and me again? Yes, I want to Mack and me. Don't you don't you want to get ET or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids? No, Mack and me. mean, so I'm grateful for having.

Nathan (23:29)

Mac and me

was high art and mac and cheese was a high fine dining experience.

Cameron (23:33)

Well,

the film is basically just nothing more than one big long advertisement for McDonald's and other brands. your sensibilities do need to be refined and shaped because yeah, you're not born with great taste. You're born with terrible taste. I if I'm to look to myself as any kind of example, and I don't think I'm very special. I I remember there's a big kind of movement right now gaining.

Traction where a lot of people say, you know, I don't like critics, you know I like I prefer to go to letterboxed or rotten tomatoes because these are people who actually care about You know whether a movie is fun and an entertain entertaining critics really are kind of destroying movies Absolutely not good critics are there to show you what what actually can challenge you and again back to great art and I'm not saying all movies need to be you know artistic feasts, but I'm saying

Serious art demands patience. It will make demands of you. Yeah.

Nathan (24:33)

I want to go back to that. want to go

back to that. Because when you said, yeah, when we were talking about being challenged, is there such a thing as being challenged quickly? I mean, we live in a time in which a three hour movie seems like it's forever. It's hard to get a kid to sit through that. Go back to a massive coral piece. Something's been lost.

Cameron (24:48)

Yeah.

Yes.

something's been lost, but it doesn't, but you can get it back again. But it will take, yeah, you can get it back again. I mean, that's the good news. But it will take a little bit of work. You're going, I mean, it takes the same amount of work as anything, any undertaking that goes against the grain of culture. So long form art of any kind, whether we're talking about a book or especially a big book or...

Nathan (25:03)

I think so.

Cameron (25:26)

a longer movie, it didn't even have to be a longer movie, just a challenging movie. A film that maybe is slower in its pace. I think of a film like Tokyo Story, which by wide consensus is considered, it is a masterpiece of cinema, but it is really slow. It's very subtle and it doesn't have a lot of ⁓ different shots and frames. It's a lot of very...

very stationary camera work. So it makes demands on you. It's undeniably a great film. And when you watch it, I don't know anybody. And I know, I mean, I'm talking about people who are not artsy kinds of people who, you know, berets and frequent coffee shops. I'm talking about normal people. I don't know any of them who have actually sat through it and not thought, wow, that was really powerful.

Nathan (26:19)

So.

Cameron (26:20)

somehow has made me a little bit of a different kind of person having seen that. But you go on a journey to do that and there's some sacrifice involved. I'm talking about watching a movie for goodness sakes, but...

Nathan (26:25)

Yeah, well...

You can hang in there. There is something too, there are certain things that if we can't process them, it says more about us than it does about the work itself.

Cameron (26:33)

Yeah.

Well, Nathan, mean, another one, think a paradigm example I often go to, it's sort of got a little bit more popularity these days. Book talk and some of these things kind of launch these things back out there. I'm saying things a lot. But East of Eden. I know quite a few people who are not habitual big readers who read that book and all of them, it was a mind-altering experience for them. None of them said,

man, what a waste of time. really regret reading that. They all have said that was so powerful. And it's really changed the way I look at life. mean,

Nathan (27:24)

So let's let's let's talk about this because does good art always do that in the sense that you look like that's neat on I go It to me there is something about art that binds me to the present and does have that challenging Element to it that does change the way that you walk and think about life on the other side of having bumped into it

And I don't I mean there's a lot of stuff that you can just enjoy for the the aesthetic of it But then there are things like that that you run into you're like, huh?

I don't know exactly what that means, but it's going to be a burr under my saddle. mean, and make a change.

Cameron (28:06)

Well, let

me ask you some questions because that's an interesting binding you to the present. Especially, so that's an interesting phrase, especially when we connect it to works of art that are older. So maybe expand on that for a second because I think that's really interesting.

Nathan (28:17)

Mm-hmm. ⁓ yes.

Because it's, it's, it's so, ⁓ shout out to Doug, who wrote me a very fascinating email this morning about AI and digital artwork and so forth. And he said when this is jumping categories, but he said he's trying to help younger artists think about what's foundational and what's transitional.

So the transitional stuff will change through technology and technology is always transitional, but what's the foundational thing underneath this artwork that there really is a there there. And then we can use these tools to amplify it, but the foundational element is the unchanging bit of it. And so I think when I come back to ⁓ an East of Eden or a, I don't know what paintings I would put in here or something that when I say it binds you to the present, I'm meaning it more in the sense that it's

It's old, but it's touching on a foundational universal. and so I mean, we're Isaiah, hallelujah, annunciation to the angels. mean, the, ⁓ it's, it binds you to the present because there's something foundational. The that's, that's, ⁓ kind of eternal, not eternally, but it's, ⁓ consistently present to the, to the experience of being human.

Cameron (29:15)

It's universal. Yeah.

Okay. All right. I can work with that. most, are, that's good.

Nathan (29:42)

This is I have a degree in physics. So my artistic ⁓

Analysis of what I think is going on might not might not have the proper vocabulary work away

Cameron (29:51)

Well,

most of what comes out down, well, most of what shows up in the artistic, most artistic artifacts are ephemeral and completely forgettable. And this is since the dawn of civilization. I mean, there's so much we don't remember because it was ephemeral. We would say in a modern phrase, product of its time, you know, and now it's remembered no more. But what survives the ravages of time, what

manages to survive and it's a very strained, this is an overgeneralization, the stuff that's strong enough to survive the ravages of time has happened upon some essential or vital element of human experience. And all art, think, I'm willing to make a big broad statement and you can take it with a grain of salt, I might be wrong. I think all art essentially, if it matters to us, is about some aspect of what it means to be a person.

No matter how seemingly abstract or bizarre or outre or avant-garde, it's all about what it means to be a person. so that's the universal. Those are where the foundational elements lie.

Nathan (30:58)

Yes, but yeah,

but it's it's it's more than so you have a Michelangelo a statue of David Which is a artwork about what it means to be like there's an ideal to the to the physique of the human but And I mean and that's a huge like how many people as they progress through their artistic like being able to paint the human body ⁓ Writers being able to describe the human body. There's that but then you think of a a henry nowin's

Cameron (31:06)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the ideal human specimen.

Nathan (31:26)

book, The Prodigal Son, on his kind of like multi-year fascination of just being sucked into Rembrandt's portrayal of the Prodigal Son, there's a, it is a question of what does it mean to be human, but it's wrestling with concepts of forgiveness and the Imago Dei and repentance and love and affection and forgiveness. That's a, that's a whole nother layer level and layer of the, of the spiritual ⁓ ruminations on what it means to be human. And I think Handel's Messiah fits into that.

idea of what is the foundation or the root of the concept of hope? Where does joy manifest itself in the narrative arc of history? Those are the types of questions that come out of, I guess what we would crudely call classics.

Cameron (32:14)

Yes, they're all and also that the kind of values and I think, you know, that that come up on a deathbed. You know, when you're on your deathbed, you're not thinking about product placement or or what the what the latest, you know, part, you know, speech was of the young people or the or or TikTok dances or anything. You're you're you're everything has been kind of burned away and the.

Nathan (32:42)

Spoiler

alert, the ending of East of Eden.

Cameron (32:44)

Right, and so all of the essentials are what are there now. The questions of love, questions of hope, questions of joy, questions of despair, questions of forgiveness and reconciliation. All of those most fundamental foundational aspects of humanity. So great art, the classics, that have captured that in some way.

Nathan (33:11)

What about let's talk about worship here. I know we're running on a little bit, but the Hallelujah chorus is a meaningful piece. It's not the conclusion, but it's in there. Hallelujah Hebrew for praise the Lord. I think it shows up around the beginning or the end of Psalm 102 beginning of Psalm 103 depending on how you which manuscript you use whatever shows up 23 times in the Imperative form. It's a command to praise the Lord

only shows up four times in the New Testament, all in Revelation chapter 19, which are largely celebrations of God bringing about justice. It's very odd. Go back and read the context of hallelujah in Revelation 19 and it's basically like, the Lord destroyed all the enemies, hallelujah. And so there is a sense of ⁓ an exuberant praise of divine justice that's embedded into this term. ⁓

Cameron (33:45)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (34:05)

But when we sing and we're making music together, congregationally, and you're with a group of people, ⁓ there's a participatory nature to art as well. That a hymn is a deeper sense of shared art, I guess, ⁓ than a fancy new song that only two or three people can sing vocally. ⁓ There are forms of art that are intended to be common because they're intended to take

more of us along on the journey within them than for us to stand back at a distance and just observe. And so the participatory nature of some of the, why do people like Amazing Grace? The hymn. Probably not because it's like, man, those are really brilliant, clever, know, rhyming schemes or, you know, I love the beat, you know, that funky jazz riff in the middle there. I mean, in some modern songs try to spruce it up a little bit.

Cameron (34:47)

Mm, yeah.

Nathan (35:03)

They love Amazing Grace because of the ideas of the profundity of the concept that's embedded in the hymn and because it's universality. Everybody's heard on the bagpipes at least once and the sense of like it's commonly known so people enjoy singing together because we commonly know it.

Cameron (35:17)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. The famous, well, I'm saying famous and you make fun of me. The famous in my household anyway was Nicholas Woltersdorf's insight on this. He came up with the phrase art in action, but he started as, the epiphany happened when he was listening to an NPR program on work songs. These were songs sung by people, whether were basket weaving or...

Nathan (35:23)

There's something there.

you

Art in action.

Cameron (35:51)

going about various shared work tasks. And it occurred to him, the disparity between him sitting in his home on a Saturday in Michigan and listening to these songs in a contemplative manner rather than a participatory manner. And he realized that these songs as forms of art don't come into their own through disinterested contemplation. Cause that was a big trope at the, well, it still is. I think a lot of people in the West think of art in terms of

Nathan (36:15)

Mm-hmm. yeah.

Cameron (36:18)

They think of it, you say art, they think of an art gallery. You're strolling through there, contemplating the different pieces of work, even though when you walk into, if you look at ancient art, a lot of these are objects of worship. So the way we stare at them in contemplation would have been foreign to the people who made these. These were tools for worship rituals. They weren't for you just sitting there, wow, look at that. Right, yes. So yeah, I mean.

Nathan (36:43)

Cultivate the spirits through your widget.

Cameron (36:47)

So he began to realize, wait, what about a hymn? Does a hymn come into its own through disinterested contemplation? No, absolutely not. Amazing grace comes into its own when people gather together and join their voices to worship the Lord. And he said, if somebody tells me that a hymn is not art, I'm...

I'm just going to tell them that they're crazy because this is clearly art, but it's art that demands action in order for it to be fully realized. Also, we don't have time to do this, if you look back to, I mean, we think of Homer's Odyssey and the Iliad and we have them in written form, but these began as oral. Yes, oral traditions, but people were gathered together. was very much about action.

Nathan (37:34)

Tales, yeah.

Cameron (37:40)

It was very much also about instilling a kind of martial spirit in the people who were listening and all. mean, this was intended to do stuff and it was more participatory. It wasn't disinterested contemplation.

Nathan (37:49)

but I don't...

Yeah, but also it's that that is a form of art that is teaching an ethic and a virtue and the concept of honor My wife just finished rereading Iliad and was saying like it's wild like even like you have two people who kill each other and then they all both sides stop and mourn the death of the other and have you know, this kind of celebratory funeral of honoring the life of the of the honorable Opposite and giving gifts to each other at the as though it's a wild whole like okay these people

Cameron (38:02)

It was forming citizens. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (38:22)

literally killed each other but respected and honored one another and gave gifts to the families and the soldiers and they took pauses from the battle in order to, I mean, it's, there's a lot that's being communicated in something like that.

Cameron (38:23)

Mm-hmm.

So this has been kind of a long and meandering conversation on Handel and artistic creation and what we remember. But I think also this can, my hope would be at least for this conversation, Nathan, is that it serves as a bit of an invitation to us to break away from the immediacy of so much of the entertainment that's out there right now. I'm not saying throw away all entertainment, I'm not a killjoy, but I'm just saying.

to sometimes go and enjoy works of art that make demands on us, that force us to pause, to slow down, and yes, maybe take a couple of hours to get through them. And yeah, to be formed in that way. And also pieces of art that are part of the commons, the creative commons, something that's shared by all of us. Not I Love Lucy.

maybe necessarily, but maybe East of Eden, maybe Handel's Messiah, maybe War and Peace if you're really ambitious, Nathan was really ambitious recently, or Middlemarch, or a Shakespearean sonnet, this will help you and you'll grow as a person, yeah.

Nathan (39:49)

I think it's a good goal. What?

So, ⁓ after listening to the Freakonomics radio version, our kids listened to all three parts of it because we were listening to it. We were traveling in the van together. And then on a December morning, ⁓ the fire going list, you know, building puzzles. Everybody's running around and we listened to the entire thing. I'd be good for you this year. Find, find a, ⁓ yeah, some version of the entirety of handles Messiah and whether it's a long car ride or, ⁓

quiet morning at home, work your way through it. Be good. Think through it. And the whole point of this is, is that we're talking about it in April. So you don't have to wait for Christmas. If it's post Easter, it's fine. You can do this at any point, but ⁓ go back and enjoy something old. It will put you in touch with something that is very real in the present. And I think will give you a joy and a hope and a vision for how to live well as you go forward. And that's art worth thanking the Lord for.

Cameron (40:30)

Yeah.

Nathan (40:50)

You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.

Cameron (40:58)

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