COMMUNITY AS A RESISTING FORCE FOR FREEDOM *JOHN RAPSON* Assistant Professor of Music Westmont College The man who cannot be alone, beware of community. The man who cannot be in community, beware of being alone. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (from Life Together) Each September, at the assemblage of summer-drenched music students, I lecture on the diligence that is necessary in one's cell for a contribution to be made in the recital hall. I wax prolifically, if not eloquently, on Bonhoeffer's warnings and seek to dispel the false dichotomy of spending time with one's friends at the expense of confronting oneself in the practice room. Or I turn to the musical truism that "a composition is never completed until it is heard" to encourage those retreating souls who never intend to make the intrepid step toward the exposure of the stage. Occasionally, I must confront those consumed with star status to recognize their commonality with the real persons in their audience. More typically, I must convince those consumed with evasion to recognize the worth of their contribution to an audience that wants them to succeed. Our individualism is defined by community. Thus, the authors of Habits of the Heart sought to show us. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Matt. 22:39 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Gal. 5:13 We walk a paradoxical line in the Christian life which consistently requires that we give up our lives in order to gain them. Our desire is to know Christ, whereby we know true freedom and identity as individuals. Yet, it is by means of loving and serving others that this freedom and identity is to be gained. While love of self and assurance of freedom seem to be prerequisites, there is no reality of such without the bounds of mankind and the church. Furthermore, we are called to please men (Rom. 15:12), but not merely please men (Col. 3:22). Identity with Christ becomes the crystalization of self within the bounds of community rather than identity with the community as an end it itself. We are heirs within a community when united with Christ (Rom 8:17) yet separated as a community without Christ (Rom. 3:23, 24). Membership with the club is not enough. Membership with Christ in the context of the club is true identity. The cohort from Habits of the Heart bemoans membership that has no language to substantiate its identity and freedom that has no context. There is no freedom without a resisting force. Igor Stravinsky (from The Poetics of Music) When I walked away from the Faith and Learning seminar at Seattle Pacific University (summer, 1985), I was determined to employ some of the strategies of Lloyd Averill. His plethora of goals, in a model for liberal arts syllabi, included the following: 1. To discover and clarify what I care about. 2. To sense my contribution to a greater community. I decided that in Principles of Music (the first course in the major) I would introduce compositions as inductive teaching devices. I also decided that various aspects of these projects would be collaborative in nature, encouraging students to share knowledge rather than hoard it. These are hardly unique methodologies, nor do they guarantee positive learning. Certainly we are all aware of the pitfalls of group projects and/or inductive study. Revelation came when actual performances of these compositions were scheduled outside the classroom.1 Deadlines were met. Hours were invested with less than usual complaint. Joy, empathy, and encouragement were shared and not solely expected from the professor. Moreover, the students came to class with questions of how one might get such and such a sound or get from this place to that. They decided they knew what quality was and were asking me how to get it. What a reversal from the expectation of the professor to determine quality and the chafing that came with teaching technique and craftsmanship.2 Grading was decided with group input, though it was secondary in the students' minds. They cared more about how their work would turn out and whether others liked it or not. The work was of a uniformly higher quality and more sensitive than any other exercises assigned before. When testing time arose, students reported that they had spent less time cramming the antecedent night and experienced little consternation regarding the outcome. Apparently, knowledge had genuinely been internalized during the projects and required less disinterested memorization. In addition, the response of those who heard the performances was one of gratitude and enthusiasm. As a result of this windfall, I'm experimenting with other performance projects in upper division courses as well as courses for nonmajors. Community, of course, cannot be the only resisting force and I've struggled with flops alongside the successes. Even more sticky is the process of translation and debriefing. To understand one's freedom or the nature of its contribution, let alone the spiritual implications, requires difficult verbalization which is often strained by idealism. And it takes valuable time, but it must be done. Students need a vehicle to figure out what happened and what they were thinking when it did. Dialogue can move one beyond "others liking it" and beyond learning content, towards a reality of offering and worship. Visions can be developed for pursuit past the classroom. Martin Buber taught us that when we say "What can I do for you?" we still treat others as objects. John Perkins, from The Voice of Calvary, adjures us to be willing to live among the poor rather than to bring a strategy for their liberation. Leonard Verduin suggests that God has given His image to mankind, not individuals.3 The subtleties we use to communicate about service and to encourage service become central to the selves we attempt to shape in community. We can direct attention towards the humility of the old French proverb "to understand is to forgive" or end up conceding knowledge as a means to self-empowerment. The line is a fine one. Our college chaplain recently remarked that "service is a lousy goal." Ultimately we will fail to provide a substantial language for individualism if our students don't recognize our own delight in the Lord. Our models fall short if the first commandment is not as apparent as the second. Who we are when we are alone will betray who we are in community. Notes 1. Much of the risk on my part was using such a technique for a beginning course. I had to come up with projects that were commensurate with student capabilities and performance places that were appropriate. Expectation that was too high or a patronizing audience would surely bring demoralization. Among fifteen compositions in the semester, I decided on the following five projects for outside performance: a. A Gregorian chant that would be sung by the class members to teach the church modes and the traditional parts of orthodox liturgy. Performance was set in a local Episcopal church. b. Unaccompanied dances for violin to teach the different elements of the Baroque suite and introduce diatonic counterpoint. An upperclassman then rehearsed the works and they were performed as a suite in a student recital, and at a retirement home. c. A chorale that was set to a pre-existing hymn text and was then taught to the student body as part of a college chapel service. d. A lead sheet based on a traditional blues structure or AABA song form to teach melodic formulation and chord progression. The pieces were then rehearsed by the college jazz ensemble for improvisation and subsequently performed in various concerts off campus. e. A graphic score for "found" instruments to teach principles of orchestration and general structural techniques. The work was then taught to pupils at a local elementary school using hubcaps, bottles, woodblocks, and the sort. 2. Robert Pirsig has suggested, in his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, that we all know what quality is once the "scales are dropped from our eyes." I had never, until this point, found a model where students would ask me how to get it, much less even care about it. 3. This concept came from Verduin's chapter "A Dominion-Haver" in Somewhat Less Than God. It gives me pleasure that a student suggested this to me when she learned I was participating in this conference.