Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

My wife and got back a few hours ago after having the privilege of attending a 6 a.m. “Sunrise Service” at the church we attend in La Quinta, California, Southwest Church.

To use a “play on words”:

• We were able to watch the “sun rise” to the East.
• We were able to commemorate the “son rise,” a monumentally critical fact of Easter because we can have a relationship with a risen Savior, the son of God!

In some ways, I have hesitated to use the word play above because the word “play” carries the risk of de-emphasizing this critical reality.

So, if the word play helps to tell a monumentally important story, good.  If not, just ignore it.

Yesterday, on another Easter story, I read with interest a column that appeared in the Wall Street Journal written by Nicole Ault, an assistant editorial page writer.  Her column appeared under this headline:  “Easter Merits More Handel’s Messiah:  A Christmas favorite, the oratorio has more to contribute to Holy Week celebrations.”

Here is how her column started:

“We wouldn’t celebrate Christmas without Easter — Christ’s birth has no meaning if he didn’t rise from the dead — but Easter gets short shrift.  Not even a federal holiday, Easter season is marked more by tacky testaments to spring than any meaningful traditions.  It is also deprived of one of the most beloved works of sacred music: George Frideric Handel’s Messiah.”

Ault went on:

“To many Westerners, Handel’s “Messiah” is as embedded in Christmas pageantry as “The Nutcracker” ballet.  The 18th-century oratorio is performed in churches and symphony halls around the world in December.  And justifiably so:  Its jubilant account of the Nativity is Christmas music nonpareil.

“But the oratorio wasn’t written for Christmas.  Charles Jennens, the English librettist, wrote to a friend in 1741 that he hoped Handel would put his text to music and “perform it for his own Benefit in Passion Week.”  

“As it turned out, “Messiah” debuted in Dublin a few weeks after Easter in 1742, but for years in Handel’s lifetime and after it was performed around the holiday.”

The fact that Wall Street Journal editors gave space to Ault’s column is a credit to the Journal.

“Somewhere in the unbroken decades of performances since,” Ault added, “the Messiah became a yuletide industry while showing up much less at Easter time.  London, where Handel lived and is buried, has some performances for the holiday.  But searching the internet for a Holy Week performance in New York, Chicago or Washington, I found only one:  A sing-along at the Latter-day Saints’ D.C. Temple.  This is a pity, because “Messiah” captures the pathos of the battle with sin and death that represents Easter more than any springtime flower or garden rabbit.

“The latter two sections of the three-part work—with Jennens’s lyrics drawn entirely from Scripture — give an account of Christ’s sacrifice, victory and second coming.  Handel’s text-painting, guiding listeners’ emotions, is an excellent aid for experiencing the weight of the biblical narrative.

Ault ends her column the way I hoped she would:

“But besides testifying to facts that require faith, “Messiah” also bears witness to a hope that results from that faith.  The feeling is personal: “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” sings the soprano in one of the work’s sweetest solos, “yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

“It is also unassailable. Easter seals the promise of eternal life, revealed at Christmas but unfulfilled except through death and resurrection.  Thus, quoting the apostle Paul, “Messiah” can say what is ours to proclaim as well: “ O death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”

For my part, I love the Messiah and always stand when it is sung at our home church in Salem, Oregon – and that occurs in an annual Christmas Eve service.

I hope the Messiah could become part of Easter, too.  Very appropriate to celebrate the “Son Rise.”