This post comes from different facets of my soul, beaming brilliantly together like a rainbow prism from leaded glass. And they are all facets of love.
All of us were brought to this earth with and from the love our parents had for each other. Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, reminds us where and when we were first taught how to love. (Remember Mr. Rogers’ quote? “Remember who loved you into this world.”) Some of us have to work through the mire of our parents’ mistakes in their attempts to love us in spite of their past; while others are given a rich childhood of loving parents with few foibles. I think most of us are somewhere in between.
My husband, Marty, and I were chatting last night and somehow, as God would have it, our ideas converged. Marty wrote a lot of poetry as a young man, and the poem we share here he wrote to his father. Though the song is not about being a father, I had been thinking about posting versions of this song by Gustav Mahler because it is so dear to my heart, and because the text seems appropriate for our times.
I first discovered the music of Gustav Mahler as a young student, and it shook me emotionally, viscerally. I met Marty in 1999, and he gave me a copy of his first solo CD, “After a Dream” when we were dating. I was already in love with him, but his arrangement and rendition of my favorite Mahler song pretty much sealed the deal. 😊 Later, he shared his poetry with me that he had written as a young man, at about the same age as I was when I discovered my beloved Mahler. Okay, now there was no turning back! 💕
In honor of Father’s Day, we have joined our creative forces to put together an homage from Marty to his father at age 19, enhanced by the song that we both love so much. The video begins with Marty reading that poem, and then you will hear him playing the Mahler song.
I hope this inspires all of us to celebrate the love from which we began -and has continued to sustain us - but most importantly, to share that love with others on this earth, who all began the same way we did. Jesus said, (John 13:34) “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Gustav Mahler was born in 1860 and died in 1911. This song was written in 1901. Mahler saw a lot of death in his life - siblings and children alike. He was born a Jew, converted to Christianity, and then at the end of his life he again embraced his Jewish heritage. This song comes from a set of songs originally for voice and orchestra, with texts by Friedrich Rückert.