Donald Reeves, Peace-Building, Bach’s Music & Repairing Democracy

In yesterday’s DM, I paid homage to my friend Donald Reeves who was a no-nonsense critic of injustice and of religious tiredness.  In the previous two DMs, we meditated on Otto Rank’s cure for ailing democracy, paying more attention to what he called the “irrational” dimension to life and creation and human nature.  This includes art and music as well as anger at injustice.

Donald loved music and was a musician who studied and played Bach on the organ even in his home.  After his 18 years at St. James, Reeves took early retirement in 2000 and set up “Soul of Europe” with his partner, painter and author Peter Pelz.  Their non-profit organization promoted inter-faith with three faith traditions in Bosnia—Muslim, Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic–following the awful wars there.  It was to be “a sign of Muslim-Christian collaboration.” 

The Soul of Europe sponsored the rebuilding of the Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka in Bosnia which the Serbs had destroyed in 1993.  They invited survivors of a killing camp who were Muslim to work with Bosnian Serbs on building a memorial for those murdered there.  Though he wrestled with cancer, he threw himself into this ambitious—some said ‘crazy’—project with his customary energy and flair [and] won the confidence of all the political and religious leaders there bringing them together for regular consultations. 

His peace-making in war-torn Bosnia was inspired by Nelson Mandela who said, “if you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.  Then he becomes your partner.”  Reeves says, Peace-building is a vocation; not so much a goal to be pursued as a calling to be heard….[It] suggests a shared future into which former enemies walk together towards a horizon striving for community.

Donald knew from experience how art as meditation feeds one’s prophetic vocation.  He tells us what Bach meant to him and his peace-making: 

The thing about Bach’s music is that it anticipates.  It’s always anticipating, always moving forward, never stops, never goes backwards.  The work I do shifts between peace building and the music of Bach.  We have to deal with all the difficulties that we find.  You have to have that strength of energy to move forward and rejuvenate—that’s hope and that’s what the music does for me.  It really heals the spirit and makes me feel I want to carry on this work of building bridges, creating peace.  Peace building is in Bach’s music.  There is an enormous ache, a great longing for union with God, for union with the whole of creation where heaven and earth can meet.

I highly recommend an article published in Resurgence magazine entitled, “Donald Reeves explores how the complex music of Bach inspires his peace-building work in Bosnia.”* Says Donald: Playing the music changes the way in which I see the world.  It redresses the balance from a less bleak view of human affairs to a more sane and hopeful perspective….Bach’s organ music is immeasurably life-enhancing; saturated with intimations of hope. 

Donald died on Halloween.  I think that was an appropriate day for him to die, on the cusp of All Souls and All Saints feast days but with a twist of humor and festival and dress up to it.  He was a prophet for he stood up and interfered (Rabbi Heschel’s definition of the prophet is one who interferes) with complacency and passivity of so much institutional religion to make life happen.  He led the move from religion to spirituality and creation spirituality in particular.

His books include For God’s Sake (1988), Making Sense of Religion (1989) and The Memoirs of ‘A Very Dangerous Man’ (2009).  Those looking to revive and reinvent church can do no better than to follow his lead.

Thank you, Donald, for your leadership, your humor, your courage, your daring, your integrity, your prophetic vocation generously—and joyfully–lived.  And your vision and living and sharing of creation spirituality.

*Donald Reeves, “Music for Peace: Donald Reeves explores how the complex music of Bach inspires his peace-building work in Bosnia.” Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine, March-April 2011.

Stephen Bates, “The Rev Donald Reeves obituary: Progressive Anglican clergyman radicalised by an urban ministry social project in Chicago,” The Guardian, November 13, 2024.

“Donald Reeves, radical Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, called a ‘dangerous man’ by Mrs Thatcher,” The Telegraph, November 15, 2024.

See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.

And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

And Fox, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life.

And Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.

Banner Image: “I call to you, Lord Jesus Christ” BWV 639 from the Orgelbüchlein, Johann Sebastian Bach. Wikimedia Common

Queries for Contemplation

Does the example and teachings of Donald Reeves about the importance of art as meditation (and the “irrational” therefore) assist you in the prophetic struggles you undergo?

Recommended Reading

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox.  He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.

Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
How do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? Fox defines prayer as a radical response to life that includes our “Yes” to life (mysticism) and our “No” to forces that combat life (prophecy). How do we define adult prayer? And how—if at all—do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, originally published under the title On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style, Prayer introduces a mystical/prophetic spirituality and a mature conception of how to pray. Called a “classic” when it first appeared, it lays out the difference between the creation spirituality tradition and the fall/redemption tradition that has so dominated Western theology since Augustine. A practical and theoretical book, it lays the groundwork for Fox’s later works.
“One of the finest books I have read on contemporary spirituality.” – Rabbi Sholom A. Singer

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.