I sat down wondering what I’d write and the Requiem Mass, Dies Irae, “voca me”, call me,  sprang into my head, particularly the verse talking about the enslaved or sentenced “addictis”, Mozart fans will recognized the tune in my head.  But it is not about the Dies Irae, the day of wrath – Judgement day – that I am thinking.  No, not at all.  I am thinking about the people who we humans struggle to help, the convict, the homeless, the addicted, the poor, the refugee, the other.  I am thinking about the yellow paper given Jean Valjean as his passport in Les Misérables, though his time was served, identifying him as a dangerous criminal whose original crime was to steal a loaf of bread to feed his sister and her family, identifying him as a person to be shunned even though he had honest money, a person rendered anathema by deeds past, extirpated from proper society. 

I am thinking of the Bishop in that same Novel whose selflessness creates a conscience in Valjean and turns his bitterness into responsibility for others.  I am thinking of Philo of Alexandria (Jewish Philosopher b. ca. 20 BCE, d. ca. 50 CE) who wrote “And he was a wise man and spoke truly who said – ‘The greatest cause of all iniquity Is found in overmuch prosperity.’” (On Abraham, tr. Younge, XXVI)

I am thinking of Verna in the Netflix series “The fall of the house of Usher”, Verna being an anagram for Raven, Poe’s Raven, telling characters that if humans would simply take the money spent for one year in entertainment that we could solve most of the world’s problems, but this eternal temptress knows we won’t, which fascinates her all the more.  In an almost oxymoronic twist, at the end, the Usher’s lawyer, Arthur Pym (played by Mark Hamill) is the only one to refuse the offer of the temptress.  He has a line he will not cross, and goes to jail to end his days, the only one of the inner circle to truly have had ethics. While the series and its juxtaposition of ethics and morality to what is good and noble is delicious, I’m afraid none of us hear the truth that is so clearly stated.  We are grown enormously apathetic and even selfish.

This post is organized in terms of what came to me, the music of Dies Irae and in particular stanza XVI.  I’ll pull it all together in the end.

Irae – Wrath

One must put in effort to avoid incurring or being inundated by Wrath in our society.  Everyone seems to be outraged about something, and the words chosen in most media reports are inflammatory and are rarely balanced and objective.  It is almost as though we avoid fear by joining the fray, by projecting anger against others rather than trying to help for fear that we will fail.

Confutatis Maledictis – when the cursed have been silenced

Throughout human history, humans have worked hard to silence, suppress, oppress, and exploit people of lesser social standing, people with some stigma such as a prior conviction, and so forth and so on.  Those people, who are usually the very lifeblood and backbone of the society without whom it could not function, have a muted voice.  The are viewed as somehow cursed, deserving their mean estate, with an imperative to keep them there. 

After all, the Spartans were scared to death of the peasant class, the Helots, and while Plato and Aristotle and others provide wonderful thinking, they don’t think about the enslaved and peasant class at all, those folks don’t fit on Plato’s Gold/Silver/Bronze scale we find in his Republic.  Part of that is the wrong thinking that blood-lines produce great leaders if properly cultivated, that is, inbred.  Another part is thinking that these folks were somehow not cared about by the gods or were suffering punishment for some sin.

What our society needs to be brave enough to do is listen.  Here ancient literature may also be helpful, Isaiah 1:18 in particular “Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” 

It takes a voice to argue, and it takes people to really hear the other parties and begin to understand.  What we generally do, methinks, is abdicate any responsibility for our societal ills to some enigmatic entity such as “the government” or “points of light”.  We don’t want direct involvement.  I’m with most people, I do give some support here and there, but other than the person on the street corner, it’s not very direct.

Yes, many of the people whom we seek to help are dangerous, interact with criminals, and cause much harm.  This is perhaps the hardest part of advocating for change, the truth part. 

Some of the harm done becomes endemic.  We tend to think of children as somehow immune to the activity of adults, but this is not so and what we like to think.  The truth is that more harm is done than therapy can fix.  Psychological trauma, studies I read indicate, can indeed change physical development of the brain.  Studies continue to link psychopathy to a generic predisposition for certain deficits in empathy and risk taking aversion as well as extreme narcissism, somehow triggered or exacerbated by environmental factors.  Sociopathy, in studies, may be the result of non-genetic environmental causes, but both result in differences in brain tissue, most often related by studies to the Amygdala, and / or the Hippocampus, and / or  the Anterior Insular Cortex.   Indeed, standard diagnostic advice, from what I read, disallows a diagnosis of the personality disorders associated with psychopathy and sociopathy before adulthood is reached largely because children often display low empathy or extremely narcissistic or ignoring risks, who does not think they are immortal when young, while their brains are still developing, a process that appears to complete at or near age 25.

Like so many things, inaction perpetuates the problem from generation to generation.  Yet action is dangerous and often unwelcome.  It is a conundrum.

Flammis acribus addictis – Sentenced to acrid flames

Like it or not, we inherit the world created by the generations before us.  This should not be a surprise, yet we seem to struggle to accept this fact, even in admitting that we have work to do. 

Ancient literature tells us that this is so, if we but place the context within society and not divine retribution: Exodus 37:7 “Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”, Numbers 14:18 “The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” And Deuteronomy 5:9 “Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me…”. 

We know this in part to be true in our society, especially in broader sense of our failures to address bad, even evil practices in our societies that cause generational reckoning of the entire society rather than that of the generations of a family tree.  Again, we should not be surprised, this has always been the case.

But to be realistic, when society errs, as it did by enslaving people, and by making prison a punishment without redemption post incarceration, and by racism, and by misogyny, and by taking on enormous debt, and by myriad other wrongs done, we do create a situation that other generations must reckon with and, in essence, pay for, don’t we?  Surely, we have and do.

Perhaps we find ourselves listening to Rowan Atkinson’s father of the bride speech.  He salutes the charming, witty, wealthy (let’s not deny it), virile Martin and poses the question “why the hell did she marry Gerald instead?”.  The choices made are not ours, but we are where we are and the world that humanity has created.  Do we play the father of the bride and get sloshed and critique, or do we try to do something positive about our situation.

A friend once asked me what one does when the needs are greater than what we have to give.  This person, in my view, was a stellar example, having adopted a child that turned out to have muscular dystrophy, terminal muscular dystrophy, and having cared for him wonderfully.  His answer to “why me?” was always “why not me?”   Yet, the enormity of our problems, our inheritance, bewildered even this saintly man.

The first step we need to take is to accept and embrace our inheritance for all of its flaws and problems.  No, it’s not our fault, but in denying our problems we incur blame for not doing what we can to make the world better.  It does the body no good if the arm is unwilling to use a cane when the leg is not working well.  Shall we walk together, or shall we lay down and complain that our leg is not working properly.  Actually I do a little of both from time to time, but the point is that we must proceed forward somehow and stop assessing fault and blame.

But to be clear, one action must be to find a way to stop the cycle of stress and environmental trauma that studies say impact the physical brain structures from generation to generation.  It is not merely that the seed sown is bad and results in a bad crop.  No, it is that the nurture of the plant results in different, permanent, structures making the problems nearly impossible to deal with.  We must collectively face this.

Voce me cum benedictis – call me with thy blessed

In this final verse of the stanza, the congregants on behalf of the deceased (this is a Requiem Mass) who has believed beg them to be called with the others who are blessed, the saints as it were, to the general resurrection and blissful Kingdom of God on the last day. 

Thinking of Verna above, the last stanza of Poe’s “The Raven” seems fitting:

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Can we accept what we see around us?  Can we pronounce Maledictis, Anathema, cursed, on the present that we have created and hope that it just goes away?  Can we allow the croaking “nevermore” of the raven to keep our souls floating on the floor?  Can we watch Rome burn while we wait for more proof that it is afire?  Can we ignore the plight of people living on the streets, of presently 5,000 immigrants being stopped at the border every day, coming for a better life?

We have, we do, and we shall.  Oddly, those three tenses are what, in one word, the divine name means, the tetragrammaton YHWH – I was, I am, and I will be.  Do we think that we’re gods that we ignore the plight of our world?

What we desperately need is for ourselves to be a blessing to the generations after us.  Society has always admonished us thusly, for instance Genesis 12:1-3 promises Abram (later: Abraham) that his descendants will be blessed and be a blessing to others – “and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”.

Can we, in all of our bitterness, our cynicism, our disappointment, our pain, our remorse, find a way to collaborate and change for the better? Institutions aren’t going to do it for us, that much is certain.  We, the people, must compel institutions to do what is necessary, must compel our government to do what is necessary, and must participate as best we can. 

Then, at the end of our days, then we can say Voce me.

Conclusion

Confutatis maledictis,

Flammis acribus addictis,

Voca me cum benedictis

Stanza XVI of Dies Irae in the Requiem Mass

When the wicked are confounded,

Doomed to flames of woe unbounded,

Call me with Thy saints surrounded.

or, more literally:

Once the cursed have been silenced,

sentenced to acrid flames,

Call me, with the blessed.

When I was a stock-boy at age 10 (think 1970’s), everything came in paper boxes and bags.  Yes, some things had plastic shrink wrap around them, notably models in the hobby shop where I worked, but most everything else was in a paper box or paper bag.  Then there was an uproar about paper consumption and damage to forests, and everything went plastic, and of course plastic turned out to be cheaper and stronger, and impervious to shipping issues (or getting the virtually impenetrable containers open! – a plot by the scissor mafia?).  Paper cups became plastic cups.  Plastic became ubiquitous, and it still is even though we know that it is responsible for grave environmental damage and the stuff seems to last forever.  Paper’s biggest fault was getting wet and also being tasty for cockroaches.

To be clear, we used a lot of paper.  A LOT of paper in my day.  Newspapers where everywhere, printed every day, and business was booming.  The internet drastically reduced paper consumption, but plastic is still here.  And paper litter?  Well, most of it simply went away after some time, some rain, and some stress by being run over or ripped apart by animals – it is ultimately biodegradable you know, unlike the virtually immortal plastic.

There was also a deposit on bottles – bottles were glass then, or a metal can – no plastic containers or at least very few – even water for water coolers came in glass.  We returned our empties to the grocery store and kids scrounged for bottles and cans that had a deposit that were litter to pick up pocket change.  An actual profit motive to pick up trash.  Imagine that.  Now everything is one time use throw away and, aside from paper, very little that claims to be fit for recycling is truly fit for that purpose.  But we put it in the recycle bin and, well, it’s not our responsibility anymore, is it?  Yes, it is.

Perhaps a large part of our problem is that we fear making more mistakes.  I mean the plastic saving trees thing didn’t work out so well, and, well, the catalytic converter converts automobile emissions from carbon monoxide (not a greenhouse gas) to carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas).  However, it is far better to breathe carbon dioxide than carbon monoxide because the latter can slowly kill a person without them knowing what’s happening (like falling asleep in a closed garage with the engine running).  With carbon dioxide at least you know you are suffocating.  Still, for climate change, this was a wrong turn. 

Then again, in my day, there just wasn’t the kind of travel, the number of flights per day as there are now.  You’d think with the internet there would be less, but affordability has increased travel.  And the ton after ton of exhaust from aircraft.

One must wonder if I conclude or just rant.  There is a point – we have to try to make things better, but to do this, the best option is to try multiple strategies in different places, each fit to that place, and see what works out.  What we must not do is find a universal solution, like plastic, and double down on that solution when it is clear that it doesn’t achieve our goals.  And, yes, some things we like to do need improvement, massive improvements, like travel.

That said, our ultimate goal must be to decrease the number of suffering people in the world, and to prevent the cycles of poverty, crime, abuse, and addiction from adversely impacting the brain development of young people.  This is a very tall order, and thus far almost nothing works.  We use the term homeless but that’s far from the mark because many of the people are stuck in a cycle of mental illness from which drugs provide the semblance of escape while actually making their problems multiply.  We have insufficient treatment facilities to address each person, and each person does not want treatment because they’d rather be where they are, completely free, and with the easy availability of whatever drugs they want.  Yes, this costs money, yes some “boost” – steal – to make money, others become sex workers, others work a job – but our society shuns people who have criminal records or have no mailing address.  Can we at least find a way to shelter children from this life?  A way to break the cycle? Then again, institutional abuse could be worse than the situation.

Likewise, our prisons tend to be graduate education for criminal activities moreso than they are training for life after prison.  Somehow we value punishment more than improvement.  Some folks in prison need to stay there.  Some folks need help.  Sometimes it seems to me that we release the former and keep the latter.   How can we be a blessing if we don’t help those in need?

Could we start again please? 

That song from Jesus Christ Superstar, after the arrest of Christ Jesus, floods my mind.  Would that we could, but we cannot.  No, the past is past, it is dead and must be content to stay dead.  I cannot be changed albeit our tales corrupt the truth quite often.  The past tells us what we did wrong and what, so far, seems to be right.  Now is ephemeral and ends as soon as we say the word.  It is to the future that we must tend, all of us.  And to each other, as best we can.

You see, the day of wrath, Dies Irae, we keep bringing it on ourselves, it is our wrath, not His.  It is we who curse people to acrid flames.  We must humble ourselves before each other and truly understand that we can improve and we must improve. 

Then perhaps we can be a blessing to each other, and to this world.

Thanks to Wikipedia, which organization I financially support, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_irae