Bach in Space

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian philosopher and peacemaker during that country’s independence movement in the 1940’s, was asked by a Western interviewer: “Mr. Ghandi, what is your feeling about Western culture?” He replied: “I think it would be a good idea.” But an American, Dr. Lewis Thomas, medical doctor, oncologist, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, Dean of Yale University Medical School, essayist, author of several books including ‘Medusa and the Snail’ and ‘Lives of a Cell,’ sees things differently. In the mid-‘70’s he addresses the interesting issue of how Earth might best represent herself in a competition with other civilizations light-years away in the cosmos. He writes: “Perhaps the safest thing to do . . . is to send music. This language may be the best we have for explaining what we are like to others in space, with least ambiguity. I would vote for Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again. We would be bragging of course, but it is surely excusable to put the best possible face on at the beginning of such an acquaintance. We can tell the harder truths later.”

And we here on earth, at Calvary Presbyterian, have the once-in-a-lifetime privilege of presenting the greatest composition of the greatest composer during the six Sundays of Lent. What greater bliss!?!?