Texts:
Ps. 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God: the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (NIV)

Ps. 97.6 "The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory." (NIV)

Rom. 1:20 "Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made." (NRSV)

Place Written: Washington State, USA

Sermon Title: Cosmic melody & Seagull symphony

Sermon Purpose: It helps to become Mahler scholars with the innocence and faith and love and hope of children, children of the stars: let us call such kids of the Galaxy, "Mahlerettes".

Sermon Theory: We in WNRF, Ideal Profit etc. are forming a choir of the future, for the music of the future; A Cosmic Choir of Earthly and Heavenly Love. We are learning to sing our song together.

Sermon

Dearly Beloved,

We are working together on high things: Cosmic songs, symphonies, astronomical orchestras, galactic amounts of grace.

Being a cautious chap, I think it prudent to say WHY.

To paraphrase Plato's Socrates, when we get shoes fixed, we look for a cobbler; for a haircut, we go to a barber; for a sea journey - a navigator. When we want birdsong, we look for a seagull...or maybe a nightingale. [Seagulls don't sing, they pierce with the heart with their cries.]

And so on.

To understand the heavens...we go to an astronomer, an astronaut, a cosmologist.

People come to me for sacred cosmology.... because I am a sacred cosmologist; it's what I do. It's what I trained for. (Or maybe to be a space chaplain) Apart from being a minister and musician, I did my Ph.D. in London University's King's college on theology and cosmology; I upgraded the 'Anthropic Cosmological Principle" (I see the book of that name by John Barrow & Frank Tipler, Oxford UP 1982) to become the Christian Cosmological Principle. My Ph.D. thesis - which apparently gave one examiner a backache on account if its length - is a matter of public record.

Haiku for cosmic musicians

Who tells cosmic tales,
songs ...without pretentiousness?
Sacred cosmologists.

Mahler too was a sacred cosmologist.

[My memory of Mahler 2 at RFH as described to our friend Stephen]
By Aziz

It’s Aziz here. Here I find an opportunity to share some of the magical moments I had with Dr. Kirby in London. Before meeting in London we had many years in close touch by correspondence. In London for the first time in 2001 I met Dr. Kirby. It was such an amazing event of my life. It was so generous of him to have me as his guest to experience everlasting Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony (#2). (Royal Festival Hall) London. This is the first ever touching experience of my life. I went and the impact was spellbinding. It really mesmerized me in various aspects. And I believe that’s the point from where my personality started to groom especially my spiritual growth. In the music concert program I sat along him on his right hand side. Music was fascinating and soothing but I couldn’t understand the words they were singing. So here comes Dr. Kirby! He wonderfully led me to the words and I easily got what they were singing. It has an indomitable impact on my life, soul and spirit. I always find myself in another world… in another world of consciousness whenever I imagine and remember those magnetic moments of my life and Mahler's spiritually enriched music.

Mahler did not stop at his 2nd symphony, but, like Beethoven and Buckner and Schubert, wrote seven more. Mahler's Symphony No. 8 "Symphony of a Thousand" is emblematic of cosmic music, the cry of a universe giving birth to its love-mature.

The Eighth Symphony was written in an extraordinary burst of creativity, in eight weeks in the summer of 1906 (it was orchestrated the following year).

Let us dare to be inspired by Mahler's great vision of a singing world.

It helps to become Mahler scholars with the innocence and faith and love and hope of children, children of the stars: let us call such kids of the Galaxy, "Mahlerettes".

Our warranty for become Mahlerettes (a word I have coined for our purposes, not to be confused with Mahlerites, see the Chicago Mahlerites webpage, nor with [drum] majorettes) is this Mahler statement:

"Imagine that the Universe bursts into song. We hear No longer human voices, but those of planets and suns which revolve."

Gustav Mahler, in a letter to Mengelberg.

Now let's obey the Maestro, and let our little cosmos=community become a home of great Song...the Song of the Stars.

"The entire audience rose to their feet as soon as Mahler took his place at the conductor's desk; and the breathless silence which followed was the most impressive homage an artist could be paid...And then Mahler, god or demon, turned those tremendous volumes of sound into fountains of light. The experience was indescribable. Indescribable, too, was the demonstration that followed. The whole audience surged towards the platform."

Alma Mahler. (Mrs. Gustav Mahler)

"I confess that for the first time I understood the music of Mahler to tell myself: here is a great composer."

Otto Klemperer. (Conductor)

Alma's description of the audience is the story of a COSMIC LITURGY. Apart from the eight soloists, there was an orchestra of 171 (including 84 strings) and a chorus of 850, for a total of 1029 performers - hence the sobriquet Symphony of a Thousand given to the work by Emil Gutmann, the impresario responsible for the premiere.

We in WNRF, Ideal Profit etc. are forming a choir of the future, for the music of the future; A Cosmic Choir of Earthly and Heavenly Love. We are learning to sing our song together.

With a song in my heart

Richard Kirby

9:52 am Saturday Feb 12th 2005: Edmonds, WA.

Sermon word total: 824

Meditation seed thought: Let us dare to be inspired by Mahler's great vision of a singing world.