The Call to Remember
by BROOKE JOYCE, Professor of Music and Composer in Residence
Isaiah 65:17-18 (NRSV) 17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
A
s I began preparing for this chapel service, I became fixated on verse 17, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” At first, I was reminded of Julian of Norwich, my fourteenth century theologian friend whose writings have been a source of inspiration and wonder for me over the years. She writes that God will do a great deed, that the world will be mended, and that no matter what challenges we face, we will not be overcome. That sounds like a new heaven and a new earth. But then there’s the second part of verse, about former things that shall not be remembered or come to mind. After speaking with Pastor Amy Larson and reading earlier passages of Isaiah, I understand that “former things” refers to the sins of those who followed false prophets and worshipped other gods. From verse 11-12: “But you who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny; I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter.” In the words of a nun I interviewed a couple of years ago, “God is pissed and ready for retribution.” If these former things shall not be remembered or come to mind, perhaps 32
Agora/Fall 2021
SEPTEMBER 10, 2021
Isaiah is inviting us to let go of our guilt, to not dwell on our past shortcomings. But should we also forget the lessons we hopefully learned? What, exactly, is worth remembering? I’ve been thinking a lot, recently, about what we remember, and what we take with us. I think about Afghanis, fleeing their country with practically no possessions. I’m reminded of our former colleague in the music department, Michael O’Brien, who asked his ethnomusicology students what music they would take with them if they had to Brooke Joyce flee their homeland, probably never to return. other relatives whom we visited more And what about our own histories? frequently, and I think this part of the What parts of our past do we seek to refamily simply fell off the radar. I’m sure member, and which parts do we actively this happens in many families. But I forget? I recently traveled to my parents’ can’t help but think that had my family hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin. chosen to stay connected to this part of During that trip, my sister and I met our family tree, it would not have been my mother’s cousin for the first time, difficult to get to know those folks and a person from a branch of the family the stories they knew. We just made we barely know. As it turns out, the other choices. We chose not to rememancestors of that branch of the family ber. are all buried in one section of the same But that choice, I’m coming to undercemetery in West Bloomfield, Wisstand, is a form of privilege I enjoy. consin, and just up the road, in an old, What if my family history wasn’t overgrown cemetery barely visible from available to me? What if it had been the road, are even more distant ancesdestroyed, or stolen, or lost? What if I tors, the ones who came to Wisconsin wanted to remember, but couldn’t? from the Pomerania region of Germany in the early 1800s. But most shocking to In my role as a music teacher, I often me was the discovery that my greatthink about what music and what musigrandfather’s farm, on the north end of cians I should encourage my students the town of Berlin, Wisconsin, is still to remember. Over the past couple a working farm, and that the original of years, I’ve made a concerted effort farmhouse, built in 1911, still stands, to include the music of more Black virtually unchanged. Americans in my music courses. Florence Price, for one, was the first woman I don’t think there is any significant of color to have a work performed by a reason why I didn’t know about this major American orchestra, the Chicago cousin or my great-grandfather’s farm Symphony, in 1933. She wrote four until recently. My mother was closer to symphonies, but only three of them
