Questions ... So Many Questions
I am pleased to introduce you to my new T-shirt. It speaks volumes about what I am feeling, thinking, and experiencing these days. It also underscores how much I value the ability to question -- which I do not take for granted.
Two experiences earlier this summer crystallized my thinking on the matter.
First, I completed a week-long online course on Religions of the World through Road Scholar.
Our group of 17 inquisitive adults met for 4 hours each day, becoming familiar with some of the history and key concepts of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Along with key concepts, we also reflected on bigger questions, such as Why do religions exist across history and cultures? and What accounts for similarities and differences among them?
The instructor, Dr. Brian Carwana, is the Executive Director of Encounter World Religions, a Toronto-based organization.
Brian shared his deep knowledge of the history, beliefs, and practices of each religion -- but was also able to place each into cultural, political, and economic contexts. He offered many supplementary readings for those who were so inclined. I have long been fascinated by world religions, and this course whetted my appetite for diving deeper. I felt the same excitement as I did years ago when I inhaled Bill Moyers' PBS series in which he interviewed Joseph Campbell about his landmark book, The Power of Myth. That book opened my eyes to thinking about religions in a new way, and this course expanded my thinking further.
Several weeks after completing the religions course, my choir friend Randy told me about an online summer course being offered by Yale Divinity School: "Sounds of Death and Mourning: Requiems and Funeral Songs through the Ages."
When I learned of this course, I was very excited --- because I am quite fond of and fascinated by the Requiem as a form of music. (The Requiem originated as the Mass for the Dead in the rite of the Roman church; but Requiems continue to be composed as pieces meant for concert performance rather than as part of a religious service. The movements of the Requiem reflect the parts of the Mass for the Dead liturgy that are sung in a high or solemn mass, but many Requiems vary somewhat from the prescribed early form.)
I will spare you further details about Requiems (but am happy to discuss in more detail with anyone.) My main point is to share my excitement about the week-long online course I joined with 15 other eager adult learners and an outstanding professor, Dr. Markus Rathey, who is the Robert S. Tangeman Professor in the Practice of Music History at Yale University. His facilitation of the seminar was a master class in how to engage students by creating an atmosphere in which everyone felt comfortable participating. This would be a challenge for any instructor, taking a group of 15 strangers brought together for just one week for discussions of personally meaningful and potentially emotionally-fraught material. Although participation started off slow, by the end of the week, almost everyone was participating actively and showing willingness to be vulnerable. Professor Rathey invited this without specifically saying so, and he modeled it in his own behavior with the class. By the end of the week, we were all asking him when and what he would be teaching next. I would gladly take another course from him.
I have sung several Requiems (Fauré, Duruflé, Mozart, Howells, Brahms come immediately to mind) and have greatly appreciated others. They range from operatic ones stressing judgment and potential damnation to those focusing on comfort and peace -- so Requiems are quite varied in how they sound and how they feel -- enhancing my fascination with the genre.
One of our assignments for the week was to develop our own playlist of pieces we would like to hear as we are dying (our "deathbed playlist.") Such an innovative assignment! As we each explained our playlist to the other seminar participants, the central role of music in all our lives was on full display. No two playlists were alike -- music selections ranged from ancient to pop, sacred to secular, judgy to comforting. Although it may seem like a macabre assignment, it was not at all. Death will happen to all of us. Why not go out surrounded by music we love that is personally meaningful to us?
As my father passed in 2008, my sister and I were playing his favorite Big Band and crooner music from the 40s and 50s. As he took his final breaths, Frank Sinatra was singing "I Did It My Way" -- I am not kidding! It was perfect for my dad. Susan loved Irish music, and on her last day I had the Voces8 album "Enchanted Isle" on loop. At one point during the day, I wondered whether she could actually hear it ... but then, completing my own conversation, I said, "Even if she can't hear it, I need to hear it myself!" ... and so it continued, beautifully and comfortingly for both of us.
By the end of the seminar, we had shared personal stories and musical interests and had developed thoughtful relationships with one another. We will never be together again in that particular space, but it was a special week I will not forget. That course was one of the most intellectually stimulating experiences I have had in quite a while -- and just as with the world religions course, I wanted to engage more and learn more.
These experiences made me reflect on the meaning of "quality of life." Quality of life is one of those subjective concepts - each person may define it differently for themselves, and one's own definition of it may change over time. It's one of those things that you know when you see it.
For me at this stage of my life, quality of life includes being able to question, investigate, probe, and learn. (Indeed, question EVERYTHING, as my T-shirt directs.) Writing on this platform is also a form of probing, questioning, and debating ideas internally and with others.
More formally now, I would say that the love of learning and the ability to learn are necessary but not sufficient conditions for my definition of Quality of Life.
I will talk more about Quality of Life in future essays. But at this point, I wanted to convey my appreciation and excitement about being able to participate in such rich courses from the comfort of my home. Although COVID was a scourge in many ways, it did accelerate our facility with the technology used to offer high quality learning opportunities.
I would welcome your thoughts about how music might play a role in providing comfort during your last days or hours --- hopefully many years from now! I'd also be happy to write further about my experience in either course.
And as a little bonus, here are links to three of my favorite Requiems. I welcome your thoughts and nominations about others.
I'm very excited that our Hampshire Choral Society will be performing the Fauré this fall. If you're in the area, come hear us on November 23, 2025, at Abbey Chapel at Mount Holyoke College. If you're a singer, please consider joining us!
Thanks Hal, I do enjoy your substack postings. They are marvellous triggers for endless ruminating - very useful when you have dogs to walk, meals to cook, floors to clean. I thank you especially for reminding me of the habit I developed in our current tricky era for inventing my own T-shirt slogans e.g. 'Proud Snowflake' 'Woke Me Up Before I Go-Go (Nuts).' Stuff like that. Very enjoyable, a kind of protest but pretty spineless. I never printed one out and walked the streets wearing it. No doubt I feared being a laughing stock rather than an object of interest to security services. When I read the "Question Everything" on your T-shirt I thought what if I question that? So off the ruminations (dog walking, floor mopping) trundled till I reached a point where I remembered something Gregory Bateson (all round brilliant British egghead married to Margaret Mead, died 1980) said to his daughter when she complained about his view that the universe/existence whatever did not have a purpose and did not need one. He said "When you're in love do you ask why?" Question: does there come a point where for something significant and possibly beautiful to be the questions have to stop?