#412: Pete Seeger: Forever Young

We have lost one of America’s great prophetic voices—a sort of secular saint.

When I was a kid my father belonged to the Colombian Record Club.  It had begun in the mid 1950s with the advent of LP vinyl records, and offered a new record each month.  If a member did not reject that offer, the record would arrive automatically two weeks later.  Sometimes, we just didn’t reply fast enough, or the offer got lost in the shuffle.  In such cases we would get a record we knew nothing about, or at least had no interest in.

In 1960, one of those records was “Children’s Concert at Town Hall,” featuring a banjo-playing singer named Pete Seeger.

   
 We had no idea who he was, and he played what I had always thought of as “hillbilly music.” At first, listening evoked images of the Appalachian back country.  But before long his clear voice, his compelling songs and even his plinking banjo had seduced me.  Little did I know that Pete Seeger had primed me for the folk revival about to explode upon me and most of America.

My first Pete Seeger concert was in 1962 at the old Boston Arts Festival, held outdoors in a makeshift fenced-in theater on Boston’s Public Garden.  The singer had just returned from a voyage in search of music in Africa, and shared many songs with us that today would qualify as “world music.” I remember being struck, at age 13, by several things: the immediacy of his stage presence, the rapt attention of his listeners, and his ability to engage us and the performance by getting us to sing along.

Over the next 50 years I would see Pete Seeger several more times: at Fenway Park in 1968, in the Victory Gardens on Boston’s Fenway in the 1970s, and a union-benefit concert in 1982 in Athol, Massachusetts.  By that time I would be grown, married, with two kids, and by that time Pete Seeger’s legacy would already be part of my life in more ways than one.

BOB DYLAN WITH PETE

The most obvious way was folk music itself.  My adolescence and early adulthood were profoundly enriched by the recordings and concert performances of Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, the Band, Jim Kweskin, Tom Rush, and Arlo Guthrie--all inspired by Pete Seeger’s work.

SPRINGSTEEN

CABREL

 Part of that enrichment, of course, included a socially significant subset of folk music: protest songs.   That tradition, linking music with social justice, extended to other prominent artists from the 1960s (Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs), and beyond that to the 21st century (Bruce Springsteen) and even abroad (France’s Francis Cabrel).

This link between music, art, and social awareness crystallized at the 1963 march on Washington, where folkies Peter, Paul, and Mary grafted urban folk onto the civil rights movement, and where Pete Seeger’s version of “We Shall Overcome” (which he first performed for Martin Luther King in 1957) became the movement’s national anthem.

And that song, more than any other, certifies Seeger’s status as the greatest song leader in American memory.  Pete was simultaneously so controlled and so charismatic that he could teach a song’s lyrics, leave the main tune to the crowd, and accompany them with two harmony lines--all it once, and with no accompaniment but his thundering 12 string guitar.  To hear Pete in action is to witness breathtaking genius paired with fervent conviction. I know no more powerful example of song leading than Pete Seeger's profoundly moving AND mobilizing, absolutely inimitable rendition of this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b24Ewk934g

Audiences were simultaneously galvanized and mesmerized. I recall the story from the Newport Folk Festival, back in the 1960s days when crowd control often broke down and rioting sometimes ensued. One night, in the middle of his concert, the lights went out in the stadium, but Pete kept them rapt and safe for more than 30 minutes in the dark.

And Pete Seeger’s skill as song leader did more than inspire audiences and social activists.  It also inspired an entire generation of sacred musicians, who launched the popular form we came to call “Folk Mass.” In parishes across America, song leaders playing guitars replaced choirs, or organ music, or no music at all.  Few of them possessed Seeger’s gifts, and many played faddish music that no one remembers, but it nonetheless marked a dramatic, even profound shift in Catholic worship.  In the best cases (of which they were thousands), it led to a substantial increase in participation in the Mass by Catholic congregations who were previously accustomed to mere passive observance.

My college years were deeply marked by this shift.  Each night at 11:00 PM, 100 or so students would gather for Mass in the campus chapel to sing along with Paul Quinlan, S.J. and his small ensemble.  Quinlan had set dozens of the Psalms to music in folk style, and the mimeographed lyrics served as our prime musical resource night after night.

 Less than five years after my first sight of Pete Seeger (which came just weeks before the opening of Vatican II in October 1962), Catholic liturgy was already transformed from a silence-bound, hidden, “sotto-voce” ceremony into a vibrant community celebration.  This was, of course, exactly what Pete hoped for his music in general, though he never had any direct involvement with church music:

At our college baccalaureate, Quinlan led the gathered graduates and families in singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”—Seeger’s poignant lament for war’s waste of life.  The selection was neither random nor political.  It was pastoral: we sang it in memory of the 17 alumni already killed in Vietnam as of 1970, with--we assumed rightly--more to follow.

Years later, as a parent, I was pleased to raise my kids in the “folk-mass” environment provided by Ken Meltz and Boston’s downtown Paulist Center.  For them, the first post-Vatican II generation, Mass was from the very start a communal exercise in active participation.

Seeger did not, of course, write much sacred music, yet ironically his two most famous works had sacred roots.  The Los Angeles rock group The Byrds scored a #1 hit by recording Pete’s “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which was based on the book of Ecclesiastes.  And Pete’s version of “We Shall Overcome” was adapted from a traditional gospel song, which itself was probably based on the old Latin (and Catholic) hymn “O Sanctissima.”

But as powerful as Seeger’s musical influence was, his cultural impact was far wider.  Whenever I struggled in my role as a father, I could hear Pete remind me that “parents have the most difficult and important job in the world.  But they also get the best pay: hugs and kisses.”

Beyond that, Pete taught me a number of valuable life-lessons. 

He taught me the value of participation--in public life, in liturgy, and in collaborative leadership.

He taught me the value of authenticity, displaying the same kind of natural humility that has made Pope Francis so instantly popular.

He taught me the value of healthy discontent--not as an ideological posture, but as an antidote to hide-bound conformity.  Here is how he introduces a final new verse of “We Shall Overcome”:

The best verse is the one they wrote down in Montgomery, Alabama: “We are not afraid.”And the young people taught everybody a lesson—all the older people that had learned how to compromise, learned how to take it easy, and be polite, and get along, and leave things as they were. The young people taught us all a lesson.

He taught me hope, if only because he chose a life of fearless struggle and was unrelenting well into his 90s.

He taught me the value of irreverence--how not to idolize authority.  In a real way, he was the wisdom figure behind the iconic 1960s bumper sticker “Question authority.” 

 Finally, Pete Seeger taught me the value of preserving one’s youth well into old age.  Against the old adage “youth is wasted on the young,” Pete refused to lament as he aged.  Instead, he recycled his own inner youth all through his life.  Even at 93, with his singing voice gone, his youth had not yet been wasted, as he proved in this “ageless” version of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezyd40kJFq0

“You’re never too old to change the world”

  © Bernard  F. Swain PhD 2014

#382 Spring Training—And a Catholic Spring?

On opening day of spring training this week, Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz pinpointed the significance of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation.

 He observed:

An organization, a team, is like the human body. If the head is right, the body is going to function right. But if the head is messed up, then the body is going to be all over the place.

Of course, Ortiz was not actually referring to the pope.  He was talking about departed Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine.  Nor was Ortiz explicitly quoting Saint Paul’s metaphor of the Church as a body where the good functioning of each part (especially the head) is indispensable to all the other parts and to the whole body.  But no doubt he has run across that metaphor during his Catholic upbringing--and no doubt the pope’s departure surprised him just like everyone else (certainly more than Valentine’s!).

Many commentators have already noted that it’s been centuries since a pope resigned, and there’s almost no precedent for a pope resigning for the merely natural, mortal reasons of age, health, and frailty.  The pope is human, but many popes have been loath to acknowledge it, and many have even acted as though they were something else.

James Carroll has observed that Benedict’s resignation marks the symbolic shift away from the near- idolatrous divinization of the pope, just as Vatican II moved from seeing the Church he heads as a “perfect society” to the view of the Church as a “pilgrim people.”

But what commentators have generally overlooked is that Benedict’s decision is only the latest in a series of surprising decisions affecting the papacy over the last 50 years.  Taken cumulatively, these decisions have dramatically transformed the papacy in our time.  Indeed, a case can be made that the papacy has changed more in our lifetime than any other public office in the world.

To appreciate what this really means, we need to see Benedict’s resignation in the historical context created by his predecessors.

When John XXIII was elected in 1958, the papacy was an office marked by aristocratic grandeur and splendid isolation.  The pope wore elaborate robes and tiaras and, rather than walking the earth like mere mortals, he was carried aloft on a portable throne amid waving fans like a slave-borne Roman Emperor.  He never left Vatican City, but remained “imprisoned” there as a symbol of the Church’s besieged isolation from the hostile world outside.  And his rule was solitary too: the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1871 created the widespread belief that henceforth popes had no need of counsel from their fellow bishops or anyone else.  Indeed, that proclamation not only culminated Vatican Council I but convinced most bishops that it culminated all councils forever.

 
John XXIII began to change all that.  He divested himself of much papal finery, affected a simpler style, snuck out of the Vatican for evening walks in Rome, and convened Vatican Council II, calling 2000 Bishops to Rome to deliberate the future of the Church over four years, demonstrating that even the head of Christ’s Church could not operate alone.

John’s successor, Paul VI, continued that Council and expanded its agenda.  He adopted even simpler styles, including a good deal of modern art and architecture.  He traveled in Italy, then to the Holy Land, and finally to the new world, addressing the United Nations and saying Mass at Yankee Stadium.

 He was the first “pilgrim pope,” and he put the papacy back on the map.

The Smiling Pope

 John-Paul I lasted only 30 days before his mysterious, sudden death--but in that time he earned the label “The Smiling Pope” for his affable, gentle manner, thus moving the papacy even further from the stern “Papa” image of yesteryear. Even his name conveyed his desire to continue the transforming begun by his predecessors.

John-Paul II confirmed that name, then strode into the papacy like the actor he was, as if it were the world’s stage, and soon became the Superstar Pope, traveling to more than 100 countries, becoming the most visible human in history, and putting the papacy literally before the eyes of millions.  If John’s papacy made headlines, and Paul’s made the pope a world leader, John-Paul II made the papacy a presence to be reckoned with (as communist Poland, Fidel Castro, and even the Soviet Union soon learned). And, of course, he was the first non-Italian pope in centuries.

Then came Benedict (also not Italian), John-Paul’s chosen “watchdog” yet a quiet modest professor in his past life.  Despite his age and shyness, he confirmed the new papacy as a pilgrim office, traveling less than John-Paul but still drawing vast crowds. 

  He authored several encyclicals that present the basics of Christian faith, hope, and love in modern form, and wrote books on Jesus that he insisted were merely one man’s opinion. 

He earned his bad press with several PR gaffes (especially regarding other faiths) and with his belated response to John-Paul II's bungling of the priestly sex abuse scandal.  But the same time, he continued to transform the papacy into more and more of a human scale.  With him, the papacy seemed less like a monarchy and more like a ministry of service.

Such modesty also helps explain his resignation.  When John Paul II was declining with Parkinson’s disease, he deemed it the pope’s responsibility to offer his heroic suffering as a public model to the world.  But Benedict is not so ambitious or charismatic, and perhaps is more realistic.  Sensing himself incapable of doing justice to the office, he saw his duty in the very human act of accepting his limits, letting go, and letting someone else lead the Church.

And so, five popes later, we find a radically transformed papacy.  Gone is the ever-present papal “We” in favor of the simple “I”; gone are many of the regal trappings in favor of simple white overcoats and the popemobile. Gone is the stern dictator who can govern without consulting his own bishops; gone is the splendid isolation in favor of the globetrotting leader who commands media attention wherever he goes.  And now, gone is the lifetime office that seems immune to the limits of human living.

Why does all this matter?

Because it turns out that the new papacy aptly fits our times in a way that could make Benedict’s successor--whoever he is—more effective.  And ironically, my early reference to baseball is relevant here too.

For just as American sports have witnessed a culture shift to “free agency” that forces successful managers to become “players’ coaches,” so too the culture within Catholicism has shifted.  I made this connection six years ago, when baseball’s Opening Day came during Holy Week.  I wrote: “we Catholics have entered deeply into the era of faith's free agency.”

You see, back in the day when Ted Williams was baseball’s highest paid player, he and every other player were mere wage-slaves because of baseball’s “reserve clause.” Starting out their careers, players became the “property” of one owner, and remained so unless traded or released. If unhappy with the owner’s offer, their only option was to take it or leave it—that is, play for “short money” or retire.

Then came Curt Flood’s 1970 court challenge to the reserve clause, and the players’ wage-slavery gave way to free agency. In the new era, everything changed. Players with enough service automatically qualified as free agents at the end of their contract, and could negotiate a new deal with any owner they chose. This remarkable shift transformed the face of all professional sports. The upside, of course, is that professional athletes are now “free,” not owned. No longer obligated by law to one owner, they can choose their own team.

Why do I tell this history here? Because the transformation in sports echoes a similar transformation in our Church. In a single generation, Catholics have embraced “ecclesial free agency”—that is, they now can choose their own parish, their own church, or their own faith. They can even choose no faith at all.

Where sports had Curt Flood, Catholics had John XXIII. The renewal he triggered at Vatican II (1962-1965) ended the old “shepherd and flock” system where Catholics sheepishly obeyed whenever the clergy commanded.  In those days, any priest knew that he could get people to obey him by pushing the magic buttons of Guilt, Fear, Obligation, and Duty.

Vatican II--The Pope Consults his Bishops

 Once Vatican II’s renewal took hold, all that ended. Most priests stopped pushing the magic buttons, and those who continued to push them soon learned they didn’t work anymore. While my parents’ generation believed a single missed Mass meant the fires of hell, my daughter could calmly declare to her grandfather, “I can do God’s work in my own way. I don’t need to go to church for that.”

In other words, we Catholics have entered deeply into the era of faith’s free agency.  And free agency alters the role of our leaders in both sports and Church. Today, a professional coach may be judged by whether the players “allow him” to coach them—that is, he must earn his authority and their confidence. More and more, the same is true of the Church, where lay people may (or may NOT) “allow” clergy to lead them. The bottom line, as David Ortiz instinctively knew: no organization can survive unless its leaders have a reliable way to motivate the members—and the Roman Catholic Church is largest organization of all!

Small wonder that putting together a winning strategy for motivating “faith’s free agents” looms as the single greatest challenge facing the Church, not just this season, but for many seasons to come.

For spring training 2013, the Red Sox have a new manager.  And for spring 2013, Catholics will have a new pope.  And just as sport’s free agency means a manager must be the kind of “players’ Coach” who can motivate players to follow his lead, our next pope must be a “people’s pope” capable of inspiring Catholics to follow him. And there is hope we’ll get that “people’s pope,” thanks to the way the papacy itself has been transformed by the last five popes--including Benedict’s decision to become the first living “Ex-Pope” in centuries.

The papacy, which long seemed to be the stern face of God the Father on earth, has come instead to be the human face of the Catholic Church—personifying, in this retiring old man, the 1.2 billion  of us sharing life’s journey in faith.

© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2013