“Climb every mountain” has been on my mind these last few days. I was smiling and singing it as I drove between Urmston and Altrincham last Sunday. The seed had been planted by John Poskitt and Graham Harrison who had heard reference to Oscar Hammerstein II’s childhood and upbringing at what was described as a Unitarian Sunday school in New York and how this was a great influence on his life and work. So, this week I’ve been climbing every mountain myself and explored Hammerstein and the influence of Universalism, a faith based on hope, exemplified in songs such as “Climb every mountain” “You’ll never walk alone”, “Cockeyed optimist”.
Here is an example of religious influences in the following quote by Hammerstein
“In art the goodness of the human spirit must be fighting for its life. People must leave the theatre the church, or the lecture hall, with a deeper faith and higher interest in human kind, than they brought in with them”.
His optimism grew from his sense in the joy of living. He engaged with what was beautiful in the world and encouraged those who engaged with him to see it too. He was not denying the troubles of life, just pointing to life’s beauty. He sang the joy of living in all its mystery. In so doing he was preaching the Gospel of Hope, the Universalism of his childhood.
Again as he wrote:
“I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.”
Or in this song from “Oaklahoma
Oh, what a beautiful mornin',
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin'
Ev'erything's goin' my way.
Hammerstein’s father was from a Jewish family and was prominent in New York theatre. His mother was from a British liberal protestant family, I suspect Unitarian. As a child he attended “The Church of the Divine Paternity” in New York. This is now the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York and part of the Unitarian Universalist denomination. The Unitarians and Universalist became one denomination in the 1960’s not long after Hammerstein’s death due to stomach cancer.
He carried his spirit of Universalism with him throughout his life and work. It was how he engaged with life. Foundational to him was the following “The Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and salvation by character”. Now of course this is old fashioned language today, man in those days meant every human being, not just males. The God of love that he believed in, loved all equally. You will find Universalist themes throughout Hammerstein’s lyrics; themes such as hope, compassion and the potential for human goodness, were threaded throughout the lyrics of Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific and the King and I. It is incredible to think that this joy filled musical theatre was some of the most powerful social commentary of its time.
Just think of the following from “South Pacific” reflecting on the internalised racism of Lt Cable and Nellie
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
Hammerstein’s work revealed his Universalism so beautifully; these musicals are a wonderful exploration of his theological depth. In his work you see the Universalists belief in the possibility for change, for hope, for human progress. You see God at the heart of this, a loving God who accepts all, a Divine Unity; you see the possibility for redemption and the restoration of the soul, as well as his belief in the social Gospel and in the assertion of human unity. Perhaps we ought to re-examine some of these musicals in these divisive times. They are filled with joy too, something we all need.
Hammerstein was hope filled, he believed in the God of love and that this love is what ought to be at the heart of what we do. He wrote constantly about love, in its many and varied forms. He also sang about never losing sight of what is wholesome and beautiful in this world. Something I’ve focused on much in recent weeks. As my friend has as she’s been climbing every mountain. The hills are alive with the sound of music. May it fill all our hearts.
Hammerstein faith was about how we engage with this world. It was a conversation fuelled by hope and possibility and beauty, despite the very real troubles we all face. It is important how we face and greet life. The conversations we have with life and the conversations life has with us.
Another friend sent me a message this week. She had been reading a book I gave to her as a present several years ago. It was a funny exploration around the origins of words. The book is “The Etymologicon” by Mark Forsyth
The word was “Ciao”, a greeting that has become universal through the world over the last hundred years. It came from an old Venetia dialect word “S’Ciao” which was translated as “I am your slave”. Clearly it has rather unpleasant origins. That said in time this meaning evolved to mean “I’m at your service” or “I am here for you if you need me”. So, “Ciao” became a way to express deep respect, loyalty and trust. It became a universal phrase that encompassed everyone in spite of social standing. It was a greeting that expressed deep devotion and love. Maybe Oscar Hammerstein ought to have turned it into a song. I would love to sing it, “Ciao baby!”
I received another message from another friend this week. She is back home visiting family in Transylvania. It brought to my mind those beautiful and soulful people and their lovely phrase, which like “ciao” is both a greeting and a way of saying goodbye. The phrase being “Isten aldjon”, meaning “God bless”. I love that both “ciao” and “Isten aldjon” are ways of saying hello and waving goodbye. There is something loving, respectful and beautiful about them. They are lovely ways of beginning and ending a conversation. It matters how we greet the world and how the world greets us.
As I have lived through this week I have been noticing how I engage with people and life. What my conversation with everything is and its conversation with me. Like the spring weather it has been ever changing. Sometimes four seasons in one day.
The poet philosopher and former marine zoologist David Whyte sees our lives as focused on what he calls "the great conversation" we have with ourselves and the great mysteries of life which surround us. He calls this “the conversational nature of reality.” Like Whyte I have come to believe that the essence of any real conversation is attention. It is about paying attention to that space where we meet life and life meets us, I suspect that it is in this space that God truly comes to life, or at least this is what my experiences teach me. This is a song I love to sing, the joy of living in all its mystery.
I love the way that David describes the conversational nature of reality, that we are constantly in conversation, whether we are speaking or not, so long as we are alive, awake and fully engaged.
This is beautifully illustrated in his poem “Everything Is Waiting for You?”
After Derek Mahon
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
I love the way that Whyte, through is words, encourages us to “feel the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice.” He insists that the frontier of this profound reality of the world can be and is found in “the intimacy of your surroundings,” in “the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom.” The key is in this line. That, “Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.” That it is about being alive to everything and allowing everything to be alive to you. This is more than just being mindful, it is about being in conversation with everything and everything with you; with everything in you and you in everything.
Everything is waiting for you. Everything is waiting for all of us. The conversation is reality. The beauty and profound nature of reality is everywhere, in everything, even the kettle boiling as you make that cup of tea for a guest. All we have to do is bring our attentiveness to the frontier between self and the rest of creation, and then enter into conversation with it. We must come out of abstraction and back into the world.
The spiritual life is about living more spiritually alive, in this life. It is about increasing our sensitivity to life itself. It is about being increasingly affected and then becoming more effective in life.
I have come to understand that at its core the spiritual life is about relationships; relationships with life, with each other, with ourselves and with God, whatever we understand God to be. And how do relationships develop? Well through conversation, through sharing ourselves with each other, not by losing ourselves, but becoming ourselves through our conversations with the other, lower and upper case. We relate through conversation and thus we grow spiritually, through relationship.
We have to believe we belong here of course, that we do not reject our humanity. Everything is waiting for us. More than that everything needs us to engage in the conversation of life. Life needs all of us. Everything is waiting for us.
Everything is waiting for us.
So I invite you to join with me in the conversational nature of reality.
When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart,
And you’ll never walk alone!
You’ll never walk alone.
Life is alive all around us and within us. We are part of it, and we play a crucial role within it. May the love that is God come alive with in us. Let’s climb every mountain, who knows what we will find at the summit.
For the hill’s are alive with the sound of music.
My heart wants to beat
Like the wings of the birds that rise
From the lake to the trees.
My heart wants to sigh
Like a chime that flies
From a church on a breeze,
To laugh like a brook
When it trips and falls
Over stones in its way,
To sing through the night
Like a lark who is learning to pray!
I go to the hills
When my heart is lonely;
I know I will hear
What I’ve heard before—
My heart will be blessed
With the sound of music,
And I’ll sing once more.
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"
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