{"id":39309,"date":"2017-01-21T13:38:32","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T20:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=39309"},"modified":"2017-01-21T13:38:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T20:38:32","slug":"the-ecstasy-and-the-agony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/01\/the-ecstasy-and-the-agony.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ecstasy and the Agony"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gause, \"Hofball in Wien\" (1899 or maybe 1900)<\/a>
\u201cA Court Ball in Vienna,\u201d by Wilhelm Gause (1899);\u00a0Wikimedia Commons pubic domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Returning, just now, from dropping a son off at the Salt Lake City airport, I tuned in (as I typically do while driving) to KBYU-FM, which specializes in classical music.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a substantial portion of the drive, they played, first, Johann Strauss\u2019s Emperor Waltz<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(the Kaiser-Walzer<\/em>) and, then, Beethoven\u2019s Egmont Overture<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve loved the music of Johann Strauss for as long as I can remember. \u00a0But, this time, as I listened to this\u00a0often-magnificent Strauss piece I found myself envisioning the elegant men and women of 1889 dancing to it, and the sudden thought unexpectedly came to me of how vivid and very alive they once were in that glamorous period of fin-de-si\u00e8cle<\/em> Vienna \u2014\u00a0and that they\u2019re all gone<\/em>. \u00a0All of them. \u00a0Dead and, overwhelmingly, long forgotten.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I can easily imagine notion that, when people die, they cease utterly to exist and are lost forever to a universe that, after all, cares neither\u00a0for them nor for anything else. \u00a0But that thought strikes me as inexpressibly sad, and I can\u2019t imagine how anybody, even if convinced that it\u2019s true, could find the idea good news.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flawed and limited though they were and we are, human minds and personalities are the richest and best aspect of this world in which we live. \u00a0And the death of any one of them impoverishes us and the world. \u00a0It\u2019s not a matter of fearing death. \u00a0It\u2019s a matter of loving life<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As John Donne famously put it,<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

No man is an island,\r\nEntire of itself,\r\nEvery man is a piece of the continent,\r\nA part of the main.\r\nIf a clod be washed away by the sea,\r\nEurope is the less.\r\nAs well as if a promontory were.\r\nAs well as if a manor of thy friend's\r\nOr of thine own were:\r\nAny man's death diminishes me,\r\nBecause I am involved in mankind,\r\nAnd therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;\u00a0\r\nIt tolls for thee.<\/pre>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once I was in that vein, the Egmont Overture<\/em> also led to reflections about mortality and about the hope granted by the gospel of Christ.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wrote about this \u2014 and, specifically, about the utterly heartrending life of Ludwig van Beethoven \u2014 in a 2012 column for the Deseret News<\/em>:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.deseretnews.com\/article\/765590762\/Beethoven-is-a-study-in-hope-healing.html<\/a><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Returning, just now, from dropping a son off at the Salt Lake City airport, I tuned in (as I typically do while driving) to KBYU-FM, which specializes in classical music. \u00a0 For a substantial portion of the drive, they played, first, Johann Strauss\u2019s Emperor Waltz\u00a0(the Kaiser-Walzer) and, then, Beethoven\u2019s Egmont Overture. \u00a0 I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Ecstasy and the Agony<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Returning, just now, from dropping a son off at the Salt Lake City airport, I tuned in (as I typically do while driving) to KBYU-FM, which\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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