WHAT SEYMOUR BERNSTEIN TAUGHT ME ABOUT MY LAY CISTERCIAN WAY

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I actually know or have met the legendary Seymour Bernstein. I would never consider myself lucky enough to have a normal conversation with him. Mr. Bernstein is a gifted master teacher of classical music.

I, on the other hand, am just a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian trying each day to seek God as and where I find God with the sum total of who I am. It helps if I use Cistercian practices and charisms to help me peel off the barnacles of life on my hull, the ones that keep me from being who I am as an ever-grateful adopted son of the Father. While watching this YouTube on Mr. Bernstein’s critique of the great Glenn Gould, he made a statement that I have incorporated as an ever-deepening penetration of the complexity of my humanity. Listen to the same YouTube that I did. You might have to toggle over to Seymour Bernstein’s critique, for there are six masters who offer their thoughts about Glenn Gould. Mr. Bernstein’s critique is number 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgUnUd9oBSc

As is often the case with random connections with life’s fantasies, my Lay Cistercian Way assumes whatever I meet in daily life with the template of The Christ Principle, my source of interpretation of the early (as oppossed to my adopted life as the son (daughter) of the Father, is my encounter with being or non being. Mr. Bernstein’s video on YouTube was totally unexpected but had a profound impact on me, not from the viewpoint of music history or a master class, but of how I used it to grow deeper in Christ in my contemplative waiting. Mr. Bernstein said that, when he listened to Glenn Gould play Bach, all he heard was Gould and not Bach. I had to think on this for a long time.

As I applied to how I tried to listen with the ear of the heart (St. Benedict), I was nudged by the Holy Spirit to think that, even in contemplation, as good as I think I am, or it is, my default is listening to my interpretation of Christ rather than striving to filter our my human biases and listen to Christ as Christ is. To be sure, I am still in the midst of struggling with what that means or even if it makes sense in the crucible of time. It is for me one of the joys of being in the presence of Christ without any agenda and then growing even deeper.

I thank you, Mr. Bernstein, for opening up this nuance for me to consider. Bless you.

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