Music

Sunday Singing: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

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“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” was written by the Isaac Watts of Wales, William Williams (1717-1791). He studied medicine, took up theology instead, became an Anglican Deacon and eventually a Calvinistic Methodist. He wrote in Welsh, so the Welsh translator Peter Williams (no relation) brought it into English. (Today, Williams is the third most common surname in Wales.)

The recording above is a modern arrangement, written by Jeremy Casella (guitar/vocals) and performed with Sandra McCracken (vocals), Paul Nelson (cello), Tim Nicholson (piano). This arrangement has held me over the years, driving home my need to release my fears to the Almighty.

1. Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
hold me with thy pow’rful hand;
Bread of heaven,
Bread of heaven,
feed me ’til I want no more,
feed me ’til I want no more.

2. Open now the crystal fountain,
whence the healing stream doth flow;
let the fire and cloudy pillar
lead me all my journey through;
strong Deliv’rer,
strong Deliv’rer,
be thou still my strength and shield,
be thou still my strength and shield.

3. When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell’s Destruction,
land me safe on Canaan’s side;
songs of praises,
songs of praises
I will ever give to thee,
I will ever give to thee.

Oh, to finally say goodbye
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears
Land me safe on Canaan’s side
Bid my anxious fears, bid my anxious fears, goodbye

Blogs, Socials, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Goofing, Non-fiction

Beautiful Summer, a Small Hotel, and Coffee Orders

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Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness everywhere.
Then, were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

— Shakespeare’s Sonnet 5, on the fading beauty of summer and distilling it into perfume to preserve it. Applies to making jams and canning vegetables too.

Sovereignty: Faith from Staton Island writes maybe her personality or being a first-born or Chinese heritage or being a mom has trained her expect to serve others all the time. “At church events, standing in line at Panera, on elevator rides with strangers, reading an email, as long as another person is in my physical or mental space, I’m “on.” Unless I’m completely alone, and sometimes even when I am, I can’t help being vigilant for needs I may be called on to meet, sensitive to what demands my presence may similarly impose on others.”

So, it’s a great relief to her that God needs nothing from us. “That he who made all things, owns all things, and doesn’t use his creation to supply his needs. Rather, he is ever the gracious Giver, ever the joyful Benefactor in our relationship, the Source of life itself.”

“If he needs nothing from me, I can pray— really pray, not worrying about my anxiety or anger or foolishness swaying his judgment or burdening his mind. I don’t need to hedge my request in polite, calculated consideration of his limited supply of patience and help.” (via Keith Plummer)

Lincoln: “Where did Lincoln stand in the vanguard of antislavery and abolitionist advocates, and did he change his views over time?” What can we learn from the many African-American visitors Lincoln received in the White House? Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church said, “President Lincoln received and conversed with me as though I had been one of his intimate acquaintances or one of his friendly neighbors.” (via Prufrock News)

Quaint Photos: “There’s a small hotel/ With a wishing well/ I wish that we were there together.” Here’s a photo essay of the Stockton, New Jersey hotel that inspired that Broadway song.

LOTR: You were asking yourself the other day what characters from The Lord of the Rings would order from a coffee shop, weren’t you? Kaitlyn has your answer. “Merry Brandybuck orders an Irish Cream Cold Brew with cold foam and cocoa powder sprinkled on top.”

Photo: Library (Allegretti Architects), Saint Joseph, Missouri. 1991. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Non-fiction

‘A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue’

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World Radio recommended a few pro-life books in light of the big news today, the chief of which is R.C. Sproul’s 1990 book, Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue, rereleased in 2010. George Grant said, “I was involved in the publication of R.C.’s book and wrote the foreword to the 20th anniversary edition of it. He was incredibly courageous in stepping out.”

From the publisher, “Dr. Sproul strives for a factual, well-reasoned approach informed by careful biblical scholarship. He considers both sides of this issue in terms of biblical teaching, civil law, and natural law.”

WTS Books has a twenty-minute conversation on their product page, so if watching a video is what you’d rather do, check it out.

Also from World, Jerry Bowyer writes about abortion in the business context. “It would be good if our culture and our leaders began talking like it was a good thing for women to be mothers, too.”

Reading

On Reading Lists, Recommendations

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Patrick Kurp doesn’t find reading lists helpful. He recommends people cast around for what they want to read, not a list of what they should read.

Edward Dahlberg, on the other hand, enjoyed lists.

“Edward venerated the classics, and anyone who knew him was bound to have one of his book lists, most of whose titles are never read in the universities. . . . He thought it absurd that students be required to rush through their literature courses at the rate of a novel a week, and he always cautioned that you should not proceed with a book if you did not like it.”

Uncategorized

The Tolkien-inspired Artwork of Jay Johnstone Looks Like Religious Iconography

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In a two-part interview, T.Q. Kelley talks to artist Jay Johnstone about this Tolkien-inspired artwork, which takes after iconography and illuminated manuscripts.

“This came about because of a very bizarre dream in which I was in a Celtic Scottish church,” Johnstone says. “And I had seen a lot of what I believe to be Christian iconography. But on closer inspection, the iconography had such a connection to Tolkien’s work. So when I saw pictures of Jesus, they were initially presumed to be a Christian icon of Jesus, but I saw it as Aragorn. I looked at Moses and saw Gandalf. There was a great connection between the images that I saw and the beliefs that Tolkien had, and it came to me literally in a dream.”

“Isildur’s Bane” by Jay Johnstone
“Isildur’s Bane” — Artwork by Jay Johnstone

Pursue and purchase Johnstone’s works from his website.

Fiction

Coming in November: The Fall of NÚMENOR

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“HarperCollins is proud to announce the publication in November 2022 of THE FALL OF NÚMENOR by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by writer and Tolkien expert, Brian Sibley, and illustrated by acclaimed artist, Alan Lee with new pencil drawings and colour paintings.”

The above is from the press release. The Tolkien Society has a few more details. (via @TeawithTolkien)

Religion

Does Catechism or Revival Produce Better Fruit?

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What I remember of reading Jonathan Edwards’s account of the New England revival he witnessed is his deliberate skepticism of those of professed conversion. He saw people expressing themselves, claiming to be moved by the Holy Spirit, but only after he saw their piety during the week did he believe their profession. Bars closed. Reports of various vices ceased. New believers expressed a love for the Lord in their daily lives and helped each other more than ever–if I remember correctly.

All of this compelled him to believe the revival was a genuine work of the Spirit.

The 1801 revivals in this account Raymond Bost, encouraged by two Presbyterian ministers and scrutinized by a few Lutheran ministers, does not appear to be of the same caliber. The Presbyterians reportedly wanted to stir up the crowds and call it spiritual movement. Paul Henkel of North Carolina clashed with this trend and pushed for a disciplined catechism as a better way to produce genuine believers.

That’s an emphasis I’d like to see throughout the Americas today. Let us preach the word faithfully, catechize the young as well as young in faith with love, and put aside emotional displays as a reliable measure of faith.

Fiction, Reviews

That Hideous Strength – ‘The Educated Reader Can Be Gulled’

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That Hideous Strength is the third of C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy, the first two books being Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. One of my friends recommended it as a suitable stand-alone, and we read it together as a group. I have since listened to Out of the Silent Planet and understand the gist of Perelandra, but while they expand and explain That Hideous Strength, they each have somewhat self-contained stories. In fact, one of us noted you could strip this story of its fantasy gods and planetary symbolism and it would remain intact, lacking only a magical framework for the weird stuff. That framework is explored in the first two books and brought to bear in the third.

The story develops slowly to give us time to understand our central characters, Mark and Jane Studdock, both educated, progressively minded people. Mark wants to be an insider, an opinion-maker or influential voice within Bracton College. Jane wants to be her own woman–married, of course, but equal to and independent of her husband. In chapter one, we see her chafe at what her life, marriage, and career had become. Mark doesn’t begin to chafe at his circumstances until much later, when it appears his wife is a hinderance to his career as a high ranking official of the NICE (National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments).

If you know anything about the story, you know something of the trouble caused by NICE. They aim to rewrite the world. They bring Mark in initially to write stories for distribution in diverse publications in order to smooth the way for them, and it takes him a while to understand the point.

PanBooks cover of "That Hideous Strength"

“Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.”

In his preface, Lewis frames his story as a “fairy tale,” and “a ‘tall story’ about devilry”–a fictional take on the thinking that went into another of his books, The Abolition of Man. If you have not read that book, taking it up before reading That Hideous Strength will likely help draw out its meaning and dramatic imagery.

You could say this book is about marriage, because that tension between Mark and Jane runs throughout. You could say it’s a book on the gloriously mythological roots of Great Britain; Arthur, Merlin, and Atlantis all figure in heavily. But the main theme begins with the quote above–that educated people will believe anything.

Experts, who may be rather immature human beings while still highly skilled in their field, can and do cause great harm to society. They acquire authority and use it for their own ends, perhaps compassionately to a point, perhaps with good intentions, but those ‘who know best’ will eventually force the best down our throats in the name of progress.

This danger could come from many sides; many people and institutions undermine the values they profess. Every one of us must seek the light while it can still be found.

Photo by Niklas Weiss on Unsplash

Music

Sunday Singing: This Is My Father’s World

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“This Is My Father’s World” performed by Keith and Kristyn Getty

This marvelous testimony to God’s sovereignty and creation of all things comes to us from Presbyterian Maltbie D. Babcock of New York (1858-1901). It was published after his death in 1901 to a traditional English folk tune arranged by Franklin L. Sheppard.

1 This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas–
His hand the wonders wrought.

2 This is my Father’s world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

3 This is my Father’s world:
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!

Blogs, Socials, Reading, Uncategorized

Deep Words, Cultural Bubbles, and Reading

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D’you mind if I jabber about words a bit? No? Thanks.

Are gulch and gully related? A gulch is a “deep ravine,” derived from Middle English gulchen “to gush forth; to drink greedily.” A gully is “channel in earth made by running water,” possibly a variant of Middle English golet “water channel.”

Douglas Harper of the Online Eytmological Dictionary notes there is no relational root between these words, except for the sound. We seem to associate gul with the rush of liquid or swallowing, such as gullet.

Is there any difference in the meaning of these words? If someone described a large ditch beside a country road as a gully, would there ever be a reason to say, “That’s more of a gulch”? Webster’s defines ravine as “a small narrow steep-sided valley that is larger than a gully and smaller than a canyon and that is usually worn by running water.” A gulch is a “deep cleft,” often with water or notable for being dry.

So, uh, yeah. You firing up the grill this weekend?

2021 e-reader roundup: Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Paperwhite reviews – Six Colors

Revisionism: China is preparing to teach their Middle Schoolers that Hong Kong was never a British Colony. “Hong Kong has been Chinese territory since ancient times,” says one new textbook seen by the AP. “While Hong Kong was occupied by the British following the Opium War, it remained Chinese territory.”

Culture: Your local niche is not the whole culture, Yair Rosenberg wrote earlier this year. Most people “just consume culture that they like and go on with their day. If someone can’t appreciate popular culture in this way, they will have trouble understanding why most of it is popular with its audience. This doesn’t mean we cannot or should not consider other issues—like the politics of certain creators or creative choices—when evaluating art. We should! But if a critic allows those to dominate and color every piece of commentary they write, they will gradually become alienated from the very culture they’re attempting to cover.”

Watergate at 50: “Chuck Colson certainly earned his early reputation as Nixon’s ‘hatchet man,’ a tough, ruthless, and loyal operative. . . . Everything, however—and I mean everything—changed in the wake of Watergate. “

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash