Augustana, Revisited

This evening I attended the Augustana Choirs and Orchestra Christmas concert. What's that, you well may ask, a Christmas concert in the first week of Advent? Madness! you may correctly observe. But it was an enjoyable concert, for the most part, nonetheless. There's a certain percentage of Christmas schlock that is required to satiate the blue-haired little old ladies, but fortunately there was some real repertoire as well. My favorite was Respighi's L'adorazione dei magi, part of his triptych on Botticelli themes. I do believe the more I hear Respighi the more I like him.

Returning to Augustana, whatever the circumstances, has always been pleasant for me: I feel at home there in a way I never will feel anywhere else. Notre Dame had its benefits, of course, but I never felt like a part of that community (if such a large school can be called a "community" at all). The arguments I heard — and took part in — there could interest me intellectually, but there was ultimately a disconnect somewhere: what is it to me, if the Basilica uses chant or guitars? It's not my Basilica. It was easier to take a step back and observe the pettiness and uncharity at Notre Dame. There's no less pettiness and uncharity at Augustana, of course — indeed, there may be more, per capita — but it is somehow more tolerable because it is a place I think worth fighting for; it is home. And home, for all its frustrations, is still preferable to anyplace else.