We want to know that our years have added up to something, that our work has made a difference, and that the people we love are better off because we were here. There is nothing wrong with wanting this. The trouble begins when we try to satisfy the desire by pursuing recognition, achievement, or control over how we will be remembered. These things can tell us that our lives are visible.
They cannot tell us whether our lives are meaningful. When Bach died in Leipzig in 1750, he was buried in St. John’s Cemetery. No lasting monument was erected, and the location of his grave was eventually forgotten. The man now regarded as one of history’s greatest composers was put in the ground without any of the recognition that we assume greatness deserves.
For decades after his death, much of Bach’s music received little public attention. Some manuscripts were scattered, neglected, or lost. Almost 80 years passed before Felix Mendelssohn’s celebrated 1829 performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion helped renew widespread interest in his work. By then, Bach was long gone. He never got to see even the beginnings of what his music would become across the globe and across generations.
But the markings he left on many of his manuscripts suggest that he had already settled the question of why his work still mattered.
At the beginning of a score, he would write the letters “JJ,” an abbreviation of the Latin Jesu juva: “Jesus, help.” At the end, he would write “SDG,” for Soli Deo gloria: “To God alone be the glory.” Bach’s practice reflected something the first disciples of Jesus had discovered under far harsher circumstances. They learned that the meaning of a life cannot finally be measured by its comfort, its recognition, or its length.