SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVES
  • Home
  • Lets Listen
    • Daily Lift
    • Radio Feature
    • Podcasts
    • For Kids
  • Lets talk
    • ...about healing prayer >
      • 7 Things I Wish Everyone knew...
    • ...about Christian Science
    • ...about Science
    • ...about Mary Baker Eddy
    • ...about Martin Luther King
  • Lets read
    • Lets read: TAKE 5!
    • Publications >
      • Articles
      • Poems
      • Healings
      • Sentinel Watch
      • Audio Podcasts
      • Religious Articles
      • For Children
      • Publications-German >
        • Artikel und Texte
        • Gedichte
        • Audio Podcasts
        • Für Kinder!
        • Heilungen
    • Posters
    • Lets be >
      • Lets be
      • Good Morning!
  • Lets connect
    • Annette
    • Annette's Practice
    • Practice Fees
    • Pay a bill
    • Contact
    • Site notice
  • Ideas
    • My favorite day
    • How are you?
    • Volunteering
    • Show Up - Every Day
    • How unrest ends
    • Know the image
    • Right Thinking
    • Spiritual practices
    • A word-A world
  • German Website
    • German Audio

       
Ideas



With Alice in the Wonderland of Joy

28/8/2015

 
Picture
There is healing and authentic inspiration hovering over Alice Herz-Sommer. She was for many years the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor, a pianist and educator from Prag. I know because 
at the time of her passing at the age of 110 I was in charge of a Beethoven cycle, giving a series of lectures in the Berlin Philharmonic. As the news of her passing broke in February 2014, I changed my lecture for that evening and spoke about Beethoven from the perspective of Alice Herz-Sommer. She had been inspiring not only my work as a musicologist, but even more so my outlook on life as human being. I am learning from her to distinguish between what matters - and what doesn't.

Alice Herz-Sommer was a renowned concert pianist, born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague during the Habsburg Empire, who was imprisoned with her husband and son Raphael and sentenced to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt (Terezín), where until 1945 about 140,000 prisoners had lived - 38,000 prisoners perished and about 90,000 had been sent to Auschwitz and other death camps. When her husband was sent to Auschwitz, she never saw him again, as many of her extended family and friends. But Alice stayed her course, persisting daily in productive activity to the best of her abilities, surviving with her son these horrific circumstances in such a graceful, powerful way that her son later would talk about his „happy childhood“. Every day. She is said to have spent her final days playing music by Schubert and Beethoven. Documentaries give you a first insight, it pays though to get to know her life and work on a deeper level. Here is a first peek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrXHcQyixTE

Alice Herz-Sommer often commented on what she called "a culture of complaint", marveling why it seems difficult for many to be consistently grateful for life. Her own life is a monument to the fact that joy is not the result of a happy life: Joy is the beginning, joy is the center, joy is life. Her hard, hard experiences with many losses along the way, including the passing of her own son a few years ago, had only the effect of deepening her respect for life itself. Music was her language in which to speak about it, joy was the method with which to lead her life - joy being an exhaustless resource. I trust that Alice Herz-Sommer might agree with the sentiment of the Psalmist, addressing Spirit, God: "Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.“

If a Holocaust survivor can teach us how to tap into the unfailing, bubbling well of joy - which always was and always is outside of the circumstances we live in, which is empowered by divine Love, the ultimate good, out of reach of any mortal constrictions - we can find inspiration and examine with forthright self-criticism what makes our experiences truly hard or difficult. Can we see where we stand, become soft and open for a little course correction here and there, and express a little more grace, self-discipline, and kindness every day? It helps to ponder this insight by Mary Baker Eddy , whose own graceful life stood the test of time:

„A radiant sunset, beautiful as blessings when they take their flight, dilates and kindles into rest. Thus will a life corrected illumine its own atmosphere with spiritual glow and understanding.“ 

Picture
Giulia link
28/8/2015 06:56:16 am

"Joy is not the result of a happy life" – I couldn't agree more. Complaining, just like being joyful, is an attitude. I've been in a hospital for several days years ago, because of a delicate operation, and I've then spent months without being able to properly speak and eat, at home. And yet, every time I look back at that time, so dense in suffering, emotions and lessons learned, I can't but think I was happy and I still am with regard to that experience. I learned to be happier in front of smaller things, for example, which makes daily life even a greater source of joy than it usually is. :-)

Marie
28/8/2015 07:26:26 am

I have not previously heard of Alice Herz-Sommer, but what an inspiration she is! I am so glad you introduced me to her.

It is indeed humbling to consider how she demonstrated through her own difficult life that joy is independent of circumstance. It is a thing of Life.


Comments are closed.
    Picture

    Who is writing?

    ​Dr. Annette Kreutziger-Herr

    In my work as Christian Science practitioner and writer I draw on listening to God and listening to people.
    I strive to love deeper and work better,
    every day. Here I share ideas as occasion demands.
    ​

    Picture
    Picture
    I support the UN Refuge Agency. Want to join me?
    Picture
    ​​​I support
    "Sunrise of Africa".
    Want to join me?​

    Categories

    All
    Abundant
    Advent
    Affection
    Afghanistan
    Akhil Sharma
    Animals
    Apartheid
    Apples
    Atmosphere
    Beauty
    Bible
    Book
    Bread
    Children
    Christmas
    Competition
    Complaining
    Cows
    CS Monitor
    Daily
    Danger Zone
    Darkness
    Day
    Death
    Depression
    Discovery
    Dislike
    Doctrine
    Do It
    Doubt
    Dualism
    Effort
    Endeavor
    Envy
    Evidence
    Expectancy Of Good
    Fear
    Feeling
    Follow
    Forgiveness
    Forgiving
    Foxes
    Freedom
    Freshness
    Freshness Redemption Progress Movement
    Friendship
    Fruit
    Fruits
    Gentleness
    Getting Along
    Gift
    Ginger Rogers
    Global
    God
    Golden Rule
    Graduation
    Gratitude
    Happiness
    Harmony
    Healing
    Health
    Heart
    Help
    Home
    Humanity
    Humility
    Image
    Imperfection
    Intelligence
    Joy
    Justin Timberlake
    Kind
    Kindness
    Knowledge
    Landscape
    Learning
    Library
    Life
    Light
    Like
    Listening
    Local
    Long Time Exposure
    Love
    Man
    Martin-luther
    Mary Baker Eddy
    Maya Angelou
    Mentoring
    Mercy
    Mind
    Modesty
    Morning
    Music
    Negativity
    Nelson Mandela
    New
    One
    Oneness
    Opinions
    Overcoming-judgment
    Pain
    Panic
    Past
    Paul
    Peace
    Perfection
    Persistence
    Plants
    Platinum
    Pneuma
    Politics
    Postmodernism
    Prayer
    Psalms
    Public
    Purity
    Purpose
    Reflection
    Respect
    River
    Roger McGowen
    Ron Radford
    Rules
    Salt
    Sea
    Stars
    Still
    Study
    Substance
    Success
    Sunshine
    Supply
    Surface
    Tears
    Truth
    Unity
    Universe
    University
    Unselfishness
    Usefulness
    Visibility
    Who
    Wholeness
    Work
    Worry
    Yes

     My Archive

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014

    Picture
© Copyright 2023. All rights reserved. Content may not be used except by permission. Annette Kreutziger-Herr, CS
Artwork by Anna-Zoë Herr. Photography by Annette Kreutziger-Herr, Martin Speer, Anna-Zoë Herr.
  • Home
  • Lets Listen
    • Daily Lift
    • Radio Feature
    • Podcasts
    • For Kids
  • Lets talk
    • ...about healing prayer >
      • 7 Things I Wish Everyone knew...
    • ...about Christian Science
    • ...about Science
    • ...about Mary Baker Eddy
    • ...about Martin Luther King
  • Lets read
    • Lets read: TAKE 5!
    • Publications >
      • Articles
      • Poems
      • Healings
      • Sentinel Watch
      • Audio Podcasts
      • Religious Articles
      • For Children
      • Publications-German >
        • Artikel und Texte
        • Gedichte
        • Audio Podcasts
        • Für Kinder!
        • Heilungen
    • Posters
    • Lets be >
      • Lets be
      • Good Morning!
  • Lets connect
    • Annette
    • Annette's Practice
    • Practice Fees
    • Pay a bill
    • Contact
    • Site notice
  • Ideas
    • My favorite day
    • How are you?
    • Volunteering
    • Show Up - Every Day
    • How unrest ends
    • Know the image
    • Right Thinking
    • Spiritual practices
    • A word-A world
  • German Website
    • German Audio