Life's most important task

This is a poem a german missionary of Catholic, Hermann Heuvers, has introduced in his autobio. Heuvers has stayed in our country as a teacher at a university pastoring a church from 1920s through 1960s. When he once returned to homeland, a friend of his gave this impressive poem to him. In 1977, while he served Mass on wheel chair, he developed acute heart attack which lead to death. 

It sure leaves a lasting impression on me. I was going to put this into the previous post titled "The beginning of real retirement". I was too shy or even scared to compare our lives to this way of in devout belief. 

It is still an excellent wisdom of life in old age. I would share it to you here, not in relation to the previous post. I still would spend or try to live the retirement ahead with the motto this poem depicts. This translation comes from a site by Nobuko Muth.

Quote~~~

 What is this life's most important task?

To grow old with a cheerful heart,

To be still even when I would like to be active,

To be silent when I would like to talk,

To have hope in times of frustration,

To carry my cross in humility and serenity of heart,

To put aside envy even when I see younger people walking God's path full of health and energy,

To humbly accept help from others when I would rather work for the sake of others,

So when I can no longer be useful for others because of frailty I need to gently and humbly accept the heavy burden of old age as a gift from God.

I have an aged heart that has been in use a long time and now God is giving it a final polishing so that I can return to my true home all shining.

To gradually release myself from the chains that bind me to this world is indeed a wonderful work.

When I cannot do things let me humbly accept these circumstances in humility.

However for my closing years God has kept for me the most important work of all, and that is:

~~~End of quote

This translation is ended abruptly leaving a few more sentences untranslated. I dare finish it in my way as follows;

My hands could do little to the others

Only I could do until the end of my life is to join my hands in prayer

Praying for God's mercy over to all the people I love

When I have done all I could do, I may hear God telling me in dying bed,

"Come here, thou, you will never be abandoned."

~~~

I have learned about this poem from my sister 4 years elder than me several years ago. As I and the folks are getting older, this beautiful verse hauntingly comes up in my mind. My sister and borther in addition to my wife and myself are stepping into the elderhood. May all of us spend the last chapter of our lives as this poem indicates.

The beginning of real retirement

It is the 72nd birthday for my wife today. It's been a year since she closed her business. Things are settled down and regular routine is formed for her as well as for me now.

Signs of senility are looming to each of us whether we are aware of that or not. It is a reality. She has worked hard as a wife, a mother and a doctor for decades. I owe much to her. I would support her from now on, even though it might be me who should ask for her care. Who knows?

Wishing her peaceful and healthy retirement days even if it is only a brief period of serenity.

We have celebrated this day with a piece of cake last night.

Always the same photo. In the honey moon in 1979.

  

Mahler 9th Symphony and Claudio Abbado

Before going to sleep, I have listened to this symphony for a few days. 

I have posted about this music 8 years ago; here.

Getting older, I feel the theme of this music is getting more familiar or pressing to me.

This is the performance I listen to; Lucern Festival Orchestra conducted by Clauddio Abbado. It was 2010.

Abbado has suffered from gastric cancer in 2000 and has survived it successfully. I wonder how he was doing at this time of the concert. Later, in 4 years from this concert, he has succumbed from the same illness. Was it reccurence or another illness? Whatever health condition he was in at this time, the issue of death must have occupied his mind, I suspect. Once, he used to tell death is existentially an aspect of life. 

In the end of this performance, he has set a time of silence in darkness for a couple of minutes. It seems he has casted a message from the nether world. Reading too much into it?

Cool breeze is coming into the bed room. In otherwise completely silent environment, I listen to this music at midnight.

Obon

As I repeatedly mentioned, it was the season named Obon in the mid August. A lot of people have returned to their hometown from big cities and have gathered with their folks. In a tradition of Bhuddism, they were accepting their ancestors at home. Bon odori, that is, traditional dance in Obon, was performed to welcome their ancestors. A lot of festivals were held for the same purpose. I believe only few people were commemorating Obon in this sense. Getting together with family members or old friends is itself a precious event in our life. 

 https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2286.html

Our family is not concerned about this event. I have been pulling the weeds in the farm and garden. Doing that, I was recollecting my parents, an aunt who has started a tuberculosis sanatorium at this place and the other people who have passed. There used to be a lot of pine trees in the sanatorium. Breeze has gone through those trees. As already wrote somewhere, such breeze coming through pine trees is my oldest memory in life. Now, as a typhoon has passed by, it is getting cooler at least at night. I was surprised to have cool breeze touching my face while working in the garden this morning. Fall is not far from here now. This is the way I am spending this Obon. 

Two indices notebooks

I have a couple of notebook, tired and almost worn out, in a book shelf. Before I started using PC logging, I had sorted out after call signs with QSO data / their handle and had recorded them in either index notebooks. One for one or two letter suffices, the other for three letter suffices.

I had pretty good memory when I was young and it was not any sweat for me to recall someone whom I met before without those gadget. However, getting older and memory not reliable all after having made hundred thousands QSOs with the states, I decided to make those index notebooks. It was around '80s.

I was not very punctual keeping the records in them. But I guess I have recorded most of them from '80s through '00. They were taken over to the PC logging in '10s. PC logs are much more handy to record the content of each QSO. There was a space to remark about them in it. It helped me lot to recall of them. 

I could have digitalized the QSOs before PC logging was started. It was, however, too much work to do that. I have given it up. I feel fondness to those old fashioned notebooks. At present, whenever I see any call signs/names which look familiar to me, I look up for them in these notebooks. Unfortunately, it is quite rare for me to find their call signs for now. "My days have already gone", I am convinced. 

Turning the pages of those notebooks, I always find a lot of old familiar call signs. I could remember some of pleasant chats with them. It might only mean I was young enough to remember them. But it also means we used to have enjoyable chats those days.

It may be not my business but I sometimes wonder what those enjoying digital modes or contest style QSO would feel for his hobby in the past time when they are in the end chapter of their lives. I would keep these old notebooks until the end of my life.

Classical music

This story tells us a few important things.

Quiet environment and, with string instrument, appropriate reverberation are necesasry to have classical music appreciated by people.

Even more importantly, we should be psychologically ready to listen to it. A person, a passionate lover of classical music, with the history of severe depression used to tell me that she has lost will to listen to it, however she used to love it in the past. It is a process that requires our psychological energy to devote ourselves to classical music. To those who are too busy or are occupied by the other things, classical music won't smile. At first sight, classical music, especially that of Bach, sounds unfriendly to us. However, when we are willing to know of it, it always respond to us with prosperous gifts.

This story seems to have occurred in reality and was reported on a major paper.

Quote a post in Facwbook; 

 “ In Washington DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After about four minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.
About four minutes later, the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
At six minutes, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
At ten minutes, a three-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.
At forty-five minutes: The musician played continuously. Only six people stopped and listened for a short while. About twenty gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
After one hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.
This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.
This experiment raised several questions:
In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made…
How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?”
The Love Rabbi-Yisroel Bernath

A small resolution

Getting older, I have been aware of losing knowledge of vocabulary and grammar in English or even in Japanese. It's just an aging process, I know. I wanted to resist that process by some means, even if it is destined to be defeated. Trying to read in English even oftener than before. But it is not so effective so far. 

The other day, I happened to listen to a radio program of Korean language lesson. It offered a training to repeat some sentences in Korean on a rap music. On the rap's rhythm, it sounded lively and attractive to me. Is it a popular method for language learning? Pronounciation as well as intonation sounded clearer with that rap dependent method. Articulated practise may help to master foreign language. Music or other experiences involved with our emotion, I know, could leave long term memory. Korean is an attractive language for me since I have a few Korean friends like Lee HL1DC. But I am a bit too old to start with a new language from scratch. 

Song and foreign language...it won't take me too long before "German for Matthew's Passion" has lit in my mind. I have learned most of the lyrics in German. It starts with the idea that the song of Solomon was realized in the life of Jesus. Toward the death of Jesus on Golgotha, the story will be intensified. With the words "Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachtani?" that is "Mein Gott, mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?", Jesus died. It is the climax of this Passion. Then, recitatives and aria/choral calming down us ensues. It is worth learning again in German. 

I have a novel in German I would like to read in original language some day. It is "Unruhige Nacht" by Albrecht Goes. I might have written about this poignant and impressive story before. I still have a copy of this novel. Maybe, learning German again, I might challenge it someday. 

Even though it is often quite questionable if such a resolution may last long enough with me, I decided to learn German again with the text of St. Matthew's Passion. Making a note like I used to do in school days. I brought out this old German Japanese dictionary, which I learned with in my school days, from the college to the medical university. The cover is almost torn out. The biggest issue is that the fonts are too small to read with my old eyes. I have ordered a new dictionary. Everything is ready. Never ending study. I am excited to start it. No goal to be achieved but the process of learning itself is the goal.