I am listening to Mozart’s Requiem this morning. Two things about that. First, a requiem is a Mass delivered in honor and remembrance of the dead. Second, Mozart’s Requiem is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. As a massive choral work, it weaves together a vast tapestry of instruments and voices that wraps one in an otherworldly cocoon. It simultaneously dives deep and lifts upwards. As a Mass, it is a celebration of things at the very edge of our existence. Unfortunately the genius composer died before completing it. Fitting.

We finished our remarkable 2500 mile road trip around this great western part of our country Friday night. I dropped Diane off at her sister’s in Yuma, AZ, before returning home on my own for a few days. My thoughts went to the last week or so.

Traveling those many miles on both interstates and backcountry two lane roads, one sees a lot and has time to take it all in.

How does such boundless beauty reside alongside such utter depravity?

I seem to be aware of them both, each day. Interestingly, as I observe the way things are and the way people respond to these things, it seems a good conclusion to divide people into two camps with respect to human nature. On the one hand are the eternal optimists. I have written about them before. These are the “if only” people. As in, if only we could engineer income equality or if only we could eradicate racism, sexism, private property ownership, overconsumption, etc… we could live in peace and be freed from violence. Star Trek: Boldly go where no man has gone before. On the other hand, we have the eternal pessimists, the “we’re doomed” people. As in, the future is Mad Max, Zombie Apocalypse, Blade Runner and so forth.

I wonder.

Within the last two weeks, we stood on the rims of deep canyons and gorges, formed by rivers over many millions of years. We snowshoed to the edge of a precipice (Diane sharply told me to stop) and marveled at the vista of the Colorado Rockies in winter spread out before us. Two days later, we traveled south down the spine of those glorious mountains as snow-covered 14,000 foot peaks succeeded one another and we could only feel gratitude.

When not in the mountains, we put in mile after mile in the vast expanse that is the world outside of metropolitan California. There, it is mesas and prairies and deserts where the motion is largely of clouds and our fellow travelers, most of whom are trucks, carrying the stuff we rely on and frequently take for granted. The sky goes forever as does the landscape. Hundreds of miles can pass by with the occasional town or settlement breaking the vast expanse that is the antithesis of bustle and stresses of normalized modern life. Each of these settlements offered promise at some point and maybe still does. I think about these spaces and the people who have traveled them through the centuries and still do so today.

Last Tuesday, we visited an operational pueblo outside of Taos, New Mexico. Some of the buildings have been there for one thousand years. No power or plumbing. Tribal members who reside there get their water from a stream that flows through their ancient village and they hunt on the hillsides and forests of the large mountains that are the backdrop to their community. This is not what one thinks of when we think of typical reservation life. The inhabitants refer to themselves as Indians and they have social and governmental structures that are in some ways no different from the ways their ancestors conducted themselves countless centuries before. Leaving there, we stopped alongside the highway to visit a settlement of homes that could have appeared on one of the planets in the Star Wars movies: Largely built of recycled materials, each home was a self-sustaining habitat/biosphere. The engineering was remarkable as was the attention to beauty and a willingness to live as “carbon free” as possible. Out in the middle of the vast New Mexico topography, with snow-capped peaks giving relief to the limitless terrain, they aptly named their community, Earthship. A large display in their fascinating little visitor’s center said that if only all of the soldiers in the world put down their weapons and took up shovels to build, we would be saved.

And, so it happened again. Another angry boy/man and life is torn apart. As a high school principal, having sat in a Taco Bell booth at the request of my good friend, the principal of Santana High School in Santee, CA, as she informed the couple that their son had died a few minutes before by gunshot at the hands of another student, I do my usual flashback when these things happen. I see the trauma, the crowds, helicopters, SWAT vehicles, endless lines of news vehicles with the raised dishes, ambulances, tears, broken people slumped on the ground, people searching for loved ones. Evil has its day and we all wonder how this is possible. If only …

So, I listen to this music in honor of the dead, as a way to make sense of this life, where beauty and depravity live in such stark contrast. Our hearts and minds search for answers and meaning as we feel our emotions swing to and fro. We go from celebration to grief in this seemingly never-ending journey. We strive to take it all in and to manufacture a coherent life.

The pragmatist in me is always searching for solutions but the older I become, the more convinced I am that the solutions we normally discover are fleeting and only leave one feeling at least slightly discomfited. No answers fit completely.

No, I am not optimistic in the face of all of this. Nor, am I pessimistic. As I’ve said many times, I find that I am now a realist who hopes.

I cannot let the evil that is everywhere for the looking diminish the beauty of the music or the things I have seen these past two weeks. Nor, can I let that beauty obscure the fact that we live in a broken world, desperately in need of redemption.

Joy and sorrow. Two distinct human expressions, more similar than they are different. Taken together, they define us and we should consider what that means. Should we lose them and devolve into a darkness that allows for neither one, we give up what is best about being human.

As I finish this reflection, the Requiem has ended and the playlist has continued into another Mozart composition, the perfectly sublime Piano Concerto No. 21. Wispy white clouds are gliding across a powder blue sky outside our front picture window, the green and colors of our garden in the foreground.

I will meet this day as I hope to meet every day. Expectant, ready and hopeful.

God, please grant me the eyes to see others as you see them, to love others as you love them, and to serve those in need. Please forgive me as I fall so far short. Thank you for your gifts of love and grace. Amen.