The Fall and the Raising Up

I received a gift from a friend, to livestream the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra concert last evening. Daniel Raiskin the WSO’s Russian born Music Director opened the performance with an impassioned speech, via video, about the suffering of the Ukrainian people, the culpability of the Russian regime, and perhaps most surprisingly, the possibility of forgiveness. The message was poignant coming from Raiskin, whose wife had just made a harrowing escape from her childhood home in Ukraine.

For some, the idea of forgiveness is impossible to imagine. Some were even opposed to the content of the evening’s performance, which featured the work of Russian composers Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It is easy for us to fall into the temptation to demonize another through association. Yet throughout history, myriad examples can be found that prove this theory not only wrong, but atrociously harmful.

Recently, Carol Ann led a group of us in an exploration of the Islamic, Hebraic and Christian traditions and an exploration of temptation during the Christian Observance of Lent.

She left us with three questions:

• What is dead and what is asking for new life, and will I make the effort to change?

• When I am getting swept off my feet, can I stop, listen with Spirit ears, see with Spirit eyes, and wait for guidance on my next step?

• When I try to take charge and force my will, can I remember that there are consequences for my reactions and that I am not making space for creative action?

She also spoke of the power of forgiveness, and invited us to practice it first for ourselves when we acknowledge all the ways in which we fall to temptation and away from our humanity. With softening self-forgiveness, we make room for the capacity to forgive others. We recognize that we all seek miraculous solutions and we fall prey to shadow and bow to false idols. It is part of our human story, the rhythm of the fall and the raising up.

And so, I sit here in quiet, reminded of the concert last evening, letting the echo of the rise and fall of the music of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov remind me of this very human story. We are all Russian. We are all Ukrainian. We know that what we have is not working and that a new way needs to be found. As many great ones have taught us, the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.

May we all learn to see with Spirit eyes, listen with Spirit ears and become practitioners of the new and better.

Carole
Inscapes