I'd like to reflect more on the Christian themes in Czeslaw Milosz<\/A>'s poetry. Good places for me to jump off from are two articles in the November 2004 issue of First Things<\/EM> (a contrarian, often cranky, usually intelligent journal): FT November 2004: The Witness of Czeslaw Milosz<\/A> <\/P><\/LI> FT November 2004: More On Milosz<\/A>: <\/P><\/LI><\/UL> While glancing at these pieces, I came across mention of J. S. Bach<\/A> in Bach, Hitler, and the People Called German<\/A>: <\/P> And when I have some more time to look at minority dissenting views on global climate change, I can start with FT November 2004: Strange Science<\/A>. <\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’d like to reflect more on the Christian themes in Czeslaw Milosz’s poetry. Good places for me to jump off from are two articles in the November 2004 issue of First Things (a contrarian, often cranky, usually intelligent journal): FT … Continue reading
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\nAnd of course there is no Germany without Johann Sebastian Bach, whose music was, says Ozment, in sharp contrast to that of the Enlightenment, and especially of the French Enlightenment. \u201cWhat distinguished Bach\u2019s work and made it lasting was the musical-emotional demonstration of humankind\u2019s need for transcendence and majesty, yet utter inability to encompass and master either.\u201d The Enlightenment believed in man\u2019s ability to resolve the riddle of history, both to mock and to play the gods. \u201cBy contrast, Bach\u2019s music reasserted the dialectical character of reality and the bipolarity at the center of the human heart, each mysterious and complex beyond all human fathoming. . . . The alternating loss and restoration of harmony left the auditor with an intermittently pleasurable, but never final or secure, sensation of reconciliation, which was also the intention of the juxtaposition of Law and Gospel in the Lutheran sermon: oneness only in division, righteousness only in sin.\u201d <\/UL>
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