#2 On María Callas & having too much, not enough or not at the right time
God sees us, folks. Trust His integrity. Also: Separateness, The Dopamine Hit sold to us as "love" and other oddities. Currently listening to: Paul Buchanan’s Mid-air
I’ve always felt intrigued by the Aristotle Onassis (I’m living in Buenos Aires, after all) and María Callas.
I watched Pablo Larraín’s film, “María” and I find it has stayed with me these past days, a lingering mind-sigh, if you will.
I once heard a female preacher say this: It will burn you, receiving what is intended for you before you’re ready.
I’m not much for preachers. My kind of Christianity happens outside Protestant churches.
During walks,
or listening to music,
during my quiet time where I study Theology,
or over coffee with friends who feel pulled in by “something beyond what I see” and want to discuss it with the sole Christian they know: me.
God is everywhere, all at once. Large enough to contain quasars and black holes and galaxies, small enough to fit inside the human heart and make us his abode.
Since this is the case, nothing is secular. It is all sacred, for God resides within me (as the Holy Spirit) and I take Him wherever I go. And also, it was all created through the Word -Jesus- and for the Word (John 1:1).
So really… Churches are beautiful works of art but we needn’t think God is solely to be found within their walls.
By all accounts María, seen from the distance of the casual observer, moves about the world triumphantly. A diva of the stage, glamorous, wanting for nothing, at the height of vocal and social achievement. Yet her life was one of abuse and neglect, be it via the men she chose to let into her life or by her family.
I’ve read about María’s life - and Onassis’ life. I also wrote an article discussing Pablo Larrían’s political film trilogy for an American movie magazine (I’m Chilean and so is Pablo).
You could say I feel close to the issue.
You could also say I was blown away by the film and by Angelina Jolie’s performance.
Larrían is a director of twilights. His type of cinema is not easy. Neither is it lovely, or noble or edifying. But it will make you think. The cinematography is stunning, the composition of each scene is perfect, but it’s ugly at it’s core - his political trilogy at the very least, was profoundly ugly. And that’s what used to make it an object of curiosity my brain wanted to tackle.
Nowadays I’d rather watch a documentary or something more nourishing for my spirit. I tend to stay away from cinema that would fill my mind with ugliness.
I’ll take comedies too, though American humor falls flat for me. I prefer the Brits, or Argentinian/Chilean humor.
(Last month, in an attack of escapism, I watched all the Mission Impossible films in two weeks.)
All of them.
I couldn’t tell you the plot of any one of them now, because at times you just want to be entertained by something that does not linger). But I’ll take Tom Cruise putting on face masks over art-house these days.
I sometimes wonder about the folks desiring fame -after all, in this world, prestige, money and fame foster a sense of awe, massage the ego and give you security and release from the bureaucracy of being human. The market dictates what success should look like.
María wanted fame. As a means of escape, as a means of building some semblance of self-love and acceptance. And in so seeking it out, and it finding her, she was consumed by it. And she lost her center.
God has a different story.
And that is why I love him so darn much. Because in God I find my own sync, my own beat. I have an identity that is incorruptible, complete and that gives me intrinsic value.
By the world’s standards I might not have accomplished much, but God measures things differently. With Him, it’s all upside down.
Yet there’s a center, in God we find our center.
So what if the world does not endow our creative pursuits with fame and fortune? There is Someone else watching, the holder of all the fortunes and He approves.
And He sees us.
Sees us.
Erich Fromm speaks of “separateness” as the force behind addiction, romantic pursuits, wanting fame, fortune and I could go on and on.
Separateness is merely this: We are born alone and die alone. Because you can never dwell inside of me, I am never to be fully known by you (and vice versa).
And this makes me separate from you and everyone else.
And therein lies despair.
Or a sense of “is this all there is?”
But God, with one fell swoop, destroys separateness, by making us his dwelling place.
This is basic Theology. This is basic release from the human condition.
And so we are seen.
And fully, absolutely, inherently known.
As an aside: Isn’t this what falling in love -mature love, not dopamine addiction- all about? To fully see this one person in the sea of billions of others? And to want to know this person (inasmuch as one can know another) and to witness their lives?
How can you say you love whom you do not know? But we call the dopamine hit “love” when it is anything but. It’s a lovely start (to feel butterflies in your chest) but it is not love.
Love is a creature of time, and patience, absolute benevolence, compassion… putting the object of your affection before you. Love is service. Imagine the joy in that? To truly, truly love and serve another? To witness their lives? To be someone’s haven.
And this is also the Gospel. The Kingdom of God is an ever-growing event that involves spilling out to others and welcoming others in.
It’s all connected really. In my mind, love of Creator and love of a signficant other go hand in hand.
There is nothing we need to hide from God.
He sees our dark and our light.
And his answer to our broken humanity? Love.
We are loved.
If María knew she was loved, perhaps not by the human hearts she so desperately sought approval from, but by the Maker of life itself, her story would have different words; her skies, different colors.
She would have been known. And seen.
And that would have been enough.
I find peace in knowing that One greater that all things not only resides within but knows my times. And the road I’ll be taking.
When my mind goes towards what I lack, what I want… and the lament for not being able to get said thing (or state) begins to sting, it is then I talk to God. And trust His integrity.
I believe Faith is trusting God’s integrity.
He knows what I need and he knows the timing.
Currently listening to: Paul Buchanan’s Mid-Air.
It isn’t every day that one has a musical epiphany. I always say that the music that made you is found at thirteen (or twelve, in my case). The one big musical boom, the one that shifted your paradigm.
This is what I thought the rest of my music-loving years entailed: the lack of epiphany.
Yes, there were and will be New bands (by new I mean post 2000’s) that would capture my fancy and will certainly capture it in the years to come, but nothing life-changing.
Until The Blue Nile and Paul Buchanan.
I’ve said before that Paul’s voice is the stuff of legends. I believe I have a built-in receptor for baritones. I feel their deep resonance in the belly. This does not happen with tenors.
And the feeling is like warm coffee. Which is one of my favorite things in the world (I pride myself on being a coffee connoisseur, going as far as to take coffee courses).
Paul Buchanan, David Sylvian, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance, Mark Hollis, Colin Vearncombe (died so tragically young), Frank Sinatra are some examples of baritones with a beautiful color to their voices. And Paul’s voice is possibly my number one on that list.
When you hear him sing “I know now, love was so exciting”, he sounds so much like Sinatra, it’s uncanny (Tinseltown in the Rain is the name of the track). And no one phrases quite like Sinatra.
And yet, there seems to be a lovely humility to his artistic expression. Who he is shines through. Like a friend with no pretense. This is the mark of a truly great artist: humility and closeness.
I guess some geniuses are like this, they go about their days without being fully aware of how they touch lives and the extent of their artistic genius. God bless and protect this man.
Strip Paul of all the accompaniment and sit him next to a piano, just him and his baritone (and some lingering synth in the guise of strings and horns that give it an ethereal quality… Some playful guitar and harmonica, too - God is Laughing, Deluxe Edition) and lyrics that contain discourses on living with our humanity, being broken but also whole…
The sound that flows seamlessly from track to track -as though it were conceived as a suite- breaking your insides, yet strangely healing you at the same time.
And the denouement in Fin de siècle -which is all piano and strings and elevation. There is no other word to describe it. Such beauty. And such hope in that track.
After Dark is the second half of the denouement. The perfect ending to this tour de force. As though all we have heard up until this point brings this quiet realization, this understanding. And therein we find peace.
Paul sings, Evening falls on me now.
Enter synth in the guise of faraway horns.
And I found myself nodding in agreement.
There is beauty to be found in twilight.
An experience, not so much an album, and it will shake you.
It certainly shook my heart, belly, sinews, marrow.
No one returns from the Mid-Air suite unscathed (in the best possible way).
It touched me so much that this happened:
Yes, I got it framed.
The only other band I had a small little postcard of (at seventeen) was Depeche Mode -and that was back in 1994.
I never collected posters or worshipped teen idols or anything of the sort. It was all about good music: complex, memorable melodies, and lush, layered arrangements for me (which is why I could never quite fathom punk for instance).
This was the by-product of growing up with a melomane father.
His music library consisted of eight hundred vinyl records. I know because I catalogued them the year before he passed. I was sixteen. This was 1993.
Sitting on the living room floor, records strewn all around me and Dad watching with a huge grin, remains a treasured memory.
Snapshots
And here goes some snapshots of Buenos Aires life.
My class, the teacher and I got to go into the Congress, a cousin came over and visited.
Joy.
Blessings!