Humility and Triumph

We did it … 33 cantatas in 2.25 days. It was at halfway through the 13th concert when I finally found Nirvana, slid into ecstasy when the power of love offered through cantatas 78 and 140 overwhelmed the pain wracking my body from the seating. For the first time I sat still through the concert like the rest of the Lutheran trained congregation, integrating pain with the greater presence of sublime music and words. Howard says I've earned an Eagle Scout Cantata Merit Badge - yippee, my first!

And speaking of words, as a Cantata neophyte yet well broken on Passions there is quite a difference. The latter is all story told through different perspectives while the Cantatas, like Bach's music leave much for interpretation and I like that very much. A lot of death contemplation and welcoming that works for me and many of the cantatas work very well with a non-dual perspective - a complete surprise. 

No wonder Bach was such a cheery fellow who managed to slip all of this in under the guise of Sunday church approved music of the 18th century. The guy still rocks big time. He's preserved in stained glass in Thomaskirche.