Music as the Driving Force of the Protestant Religion

When we think of the birth of the protestant movement, we often refer to Martin Luther's famous Ninety-Five Theses which may or may not have been posted on the church door but which openly denounced the misuse and corruption within Catholic practice. His later vernacular translation of the Bible making it accessible for personal perusal and inquiry to anyone who had literacy and the financial means was another deciding moment in the eventual split from Catholic tradition.

Yet many are not fully aware of the role music played in this revolution. In fact, Martin Luther fervently believed that music was one of God's most precious gifts to humanity. He also composed various hymns and firmly believed that music ought to be a standard practice during sermons. Through music all the church members could unite to glorify God.

Luther was, in fact, obsessed with using music. He openly and adamantly complained about certain members that were refusing to sing or were not improving their skills; they should not be allowed to be part of the Christian body of Christ. In his view, every pastor should make use of spreading the gospels through songs. Again, it is significant that the lyrics contain religious messages, that they be based on the Holy Scripture, point toward or illustrate important aspects therein.

Today we know of the educational value of music. It helps you memorize parts through rhyme. It can be catchy so we hum it during the day, especially when involved in idle tasks. It also gives us an emotional connection to the subject at hand. Finally, it is a fun and popular activity for everyone.

It is a fact about human nature that one has more positive affect toward that which interests us and that we consider fun. Sermons then should not be dead-serious, some might even dare say dull and boring, but they should ideally have an impact on the congregation. The pastor needs to get through to the people in order to get his message across successfully. And what better medium to choose for gathering people together since in song all voices harmonize and lyrics can be memorized sometimes for a lifetime. To learn something by heart brings it so much closer to the heart indeed!

As such, Luther had his own reasons for choosing music as part of his “show” or service. Of course, the Catholic Church was no stranger to music. But instead of having monks sing in a foreign dead language, such as Latin, why not have the members sing themselves, each on their own in a language they speak in their daily lives. It just made such a stronger impact on them.

In a world before Rock 'n' Roll and Top Forty dance music, others may have been drawn to the protestant service simply out of curiosity or maybe just for entertainment. This situation gave the pastor a chance to spread the message and to catch more soulfish. No wonder then that the protestant religion spread like wildfire over the past centuries and became quite popular among the people.

Observations on Hockey and the Stanley Cup Playoffs

As a Canadian, I love my hockey and support my local team passionately. And the Stanley Cup playoffs are a time of excitement; it is the accumulation and climax of the entire season. This is what it all boils down to every year; it is “do or die” - well metaphorically speaking - for the competing teams that are on the mythic quest for Lord Stanley's Cup. And that particular Grail-like object is a fountain of pride and source of celebration not only for the team, but for the whole city, and from our Canadian view, even a rallying point for the whole nation.

But getting there is a grueling and sometimes even gruesome process. Players need stamina and willpower. It is not only about skills at this stage, but mostly about mindset in terms of discipline and work ethic. You must want it more than anything else. And that is what makes the playoffs so exciting, at least as long as you have a team to cheer for.

Hockey is not only about the teams and players; it is mostly about us, the spectators and die-hard fans who are glued anxiously to the screens (we can't afford the live games). We high-five each other and jump up and down when our team has performed well; we dissect, analyze and philosophize the game as if it were a political speech or a literary essay, and - we feel down in the dumps when our team has lost.

At this stage, there is equality to a degree rarely seen in everyday life. We all gather around to celebrate and share the passion regardless of education, profession, or social status. The bars are filled with all sorts of people, such as bums, intellectuals, and intellectual bums. It is a time when we are most united around a common cause, namely to celebrate or feel the pain together.

Strangely, it is often an emotionally draining process. Although I have not played myself, just worrying about the playoffs game after game, getting in there to egg on my team, I feel that I have also become part of the process, the ups and downs toward the rocky path of victory. Indeed, I have also worked hard and shared the load and deserve to bask in the light of glory.

It is very interesting how sports affect our psychology and to a large extent our confidence. When our team does well, we feel more positive and are more certain about ourselves; the opposite occurs when it comes to defeat. Hardcore fans might even dip into a brief state of depression when things are going horribly wrong.

Sometimes you can even use hockey terminology to explain your performance in life. For example, you can bounce back after a mediocre “play” at work. You can give it your all to achieve certain goals (no pun intended!) and not be discouraged or swayed by setbacks.

In the end, one can say hockey, especially during crucial times like the playoffs, becomes a metaphor. It is also an attitude, albeit a scrappy one that proudly faces challenges and shakes off negative experiences like flies; you put away a bad day, shake it off and fully focus on the new tasks at hand. You follow the sports formula: Step up and play better the next time around.

And yes, after all, it builds not only character but also community; hockey news becomes the next-day topic at work, on the bus, in the elevator. For a brief time, the community is united around a common purpose, to support their local team and to take the goals alongside with the hits, the good with the bad.

Expressions of Individuality

In one of my darker and more discouraging moments the following bleak thought crossed my mind: “Being yourself may be the most elaborate fabricated lie in the history of humanity.”

Individuality has been a modern Western concept contrasting itself self-consciously from what is known as a collective society. The ancient Greeks may have given us the founding blocks, but they still had a more integrated view of the self since it was embedded in the fabric of family and ancestry. William Shakespeare was one of the strongest proponents of individuality by creating characters of flesh and blood with their own unique and life-like characteristics.

Although the idea of individuality spread like wildfire in Europe, it was mostly in the New World that it became a defining trait of society. The American dream was based on individuality, including the myth of the self-made millionaire or the “rags to riches” fairytale. The focus had been on the self, while the goal was to develop your talents in order to be the best you can be in your field. Even the American political system seems to have championed the notion of liberty supporting and encouraging all its necessary characteristics and byproducts, such as free speech, free press, in short, the freedom to voice your personal opinion.

You may have the freedom to be yourself, but how do you know for sure that you are being yourself and not somebody you are told to be? Can you be in fact anybody other than yourself? It would seem that in order to be yourself it is necessary to accentuate what it is that sets you apart from others and hence to differentiate yourself from who or what you are not.

If that were so, then we should see an utterly diverse society, not only ethnically of course, but in terms of different points of view. Yet in reality this is not what society looks like; it is not a cacophony of voices. In fact, our society is surprisingly homogeneous for a world full of free individual beings. For example, in the US, there are only two political parties, in Canada three. Can they really reflect the many conflicting views of each unique being? Why are people easily categorized and compartmentalized considering that each has an individual voice?

One problem may be exactly what I have stated previously, namely that it is all a blatant lie. And when we look at it, just believing that you are free does not necessarily make you free. Is a prisoner who feels free really a free person?

For every society and culture to function and to survive, you need to accept or embrace its basic premises. This is achieved by internalizing these concepts through what sociology calls “en-culteration.” From childhood to adolescence, we are drilled and grilled on how to behave and lectured on what is (morally) acceptable and what is not. There are various sources at work, which means that there is very little room for escape.

We are faced with these ideas at home through our parents, at school and university with our teachers and to an extent even our peers, and finally in our free time through the media, which includes popular music and commercial movies. My question is this: With all this bombardment and overload of information, how can you even remotely be able to find and become yourself?

In fact, some people have suffered and continue to do so. They have been labeled pejoratively as “different,” “weird,” “bizarre,” and have been and are being ostracized. This happened simply because they were “themselves.” It has ranged from issues of sexual orientation to different ways of thinking and alternative lifestyles. A homogeneous and functioning society needs to separate itself from such people as they deem them as dangerous parasites detrimental to the health of the social body.

Hence, in order to be accepted or rather to “fit in,” you need to sacrifice certain parts of yourself. You need to adjust. Or else, you will not be able to find a mate. Your family will turn their back on you. Your teachers will fail you and nobody will want to hire you. You will die penniless and all alone in the filthy street gutters.

So what does it mean to be yourself? It would mean perhaps staying true to your personality, living the life you love, expressing yourself freely. But can you do that without experiencing opposition or even offending people? Because one way or another certain people will always be offended.

There seems to be enough factual evidence against expressions of individuality. But I do not think so, at least not in its ideological sense. I think for any person to be themselves, it is necessary to have critical thinking skills. Being yourself is not just about always doing the opposite of what others are doing.

Being yourself may mean trying to find a system among all the conflicting chaos within ourselves. It means conscious or rational selection. So a person with the urge of killing others, a “natural-born killer” so-to-speak, is not himself because he is acting out his emotions. Being yourself often involves discipline. For example, you really want to pay attention or focus on something but your mind keeps wandering. There seem to be two different selves at war with each other. Which one do you choose?

Though there is nothing inherently wrong with distractions (but a lot wrong with killing fellow beings!), you probably would like to pay attention in that given moment. The same applies when it comes to either acting out aggressive impulses or maintaining calm. These are all in fact transitory purely emotional states and not so much character traits.

You may then be yourself by staying true to your core values, your essence. I think deep down all of us share the same goals. We want to be loved and we want to be happy. There may be differences in the methods and the forms of expressions we use; we may even have different definitions of what love and happiness is for us personally. But it is basically what each one of us is aiming for in this short life.

And as the ancient Greeks would say, our quest for the common good is the main aim in life, be it from a spiritual or humanitarian angle. It is merely that each of us will take our own unique paths as singular as the lines on the palms of our hands or the tip of our fingers in order to get there.