Saints and Poets

A few weeks ago I watched the movie Titanic on an airplane coming home from New York. Rather incongruous, this gigantic story on a tiny screen 35,000 feet in the air. Never a big fan of the film, but, too tired to read, I opted for the three hour distraction.

The proximity of my seat to the screen brought the epic tragedy into tighter focus. I found myself thinking about the desperation of the poor souls whose lives came to an ironic end that fateful night. I grew up with this story, frequently recounted by my mother, whose distant relative gave up her seat in a lifeboat for her maid in order to remain aboard to die with her husband. But that story was always told in conjunction with the one about the courageous musicians who continued to play until just before the ship sank.

I watched the James Cameron film and thought about this act of bravery and love. What else was there to do? With their own watery grave beneath their feet, these musicians performed a transcendent final act of beauty and mercy, serenading the passengers to their death. One witness reported that their final song was "Nearer my God to Thee."

In the Catholic church, there is the tradition of canonization - the elevation of an ordinary individual to the level of sainthood. Among the criteria for this recognition is proof that the person being considered for sainthood performed a miraculous act. As I watched the depiction in Cameron's film of these musicians aboard the sinking Titanic, I couldn't help but think that what those musicians did was nothing short of miraculous. Generous with their gifts and talents to their hopeless end, they kept playing.

Art and music as a transcendent force in the face of human suffering has always interested me. No story so clearly exemplifies this as the story of Theresenstadt (Terezin) - the town outside of Prague in the Czeck Republic, that was converted by the Nazi's to a Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust. Music and art thrived there in spite of inhumane conditions and near certain death. Children were encouraged by teachers to write poems and draw pictures of their experiences in order that they not be forgotten. They buried the poems and pictures throughout the town only to be discovered by survivors after the liberation. Theresenstadt housed many artists and musicians before their transport to Auschwitz. While hopelessness engulfed the ghetto, music brought a sense of humanity and joy. In the face of death, beauty.

Our capacity as human beings to create in the face of the greatest horror and tragic circumstances is one of our greatest gifts. These two extreme examples should provide us with an important lesson. Artistic expression should be nurtured, encouraged and valued. As the German playwright, Bertolt Brecht said, "In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times."
Or, as Emily in Our Town asks of the Stage Manager, "Do any human beings ever realize life as they live it every, every minute?"
"No. Saints and Poets, maybe. They do some."
The musicians aboard the Titanic. The teachers in Terezin. The writers. The artists.
Saints and Poets all. Their stories live on.