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America, Imperfect as We Are

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Darrell B. Harrison notes Douglass’s words on the Fourth of July, saying the great abolitionist had more to say.

“Notwithstanding his well-founded criticisms of the prejudicial climate and construct of mid-nineteenth century America, Frederick Douglass never viewed America as being unique in that regard. . . . ‘I admit that during many years to come the colored man will have to endure prejudice against his race and color, but this constitutes no problem to vex and disturb the course of legislation. The world was never yet without prejudice.‘”

America was not unique in its mistreatment of immigrants and minorities, and we should not allow people today to make us believe it was. In fact, the holiness of the Almighty may be the very impossible standard to which we are comparing ourselves–many making this comparison without Christ in view.

Music

Sunday Singing: Eternal Father! Strong to Save

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“Eternal Father! Strong to Save” sung by a congregation in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London

With this being a Fourth of July weekend, I remembered the strong hymn the Navy claims for its own. Hymnist William Whiting (1825-1878) was born in the London area and served for many years as the Master of the Winchester College Choristers’ School. This is the one hymn of Whiting’s that has won everyone over. The tune was composed by Englishman John Bacchus Dykes in 1861.

1. Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm doth bind the restless wave,
who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

2. O Savior, whose almighty word
the winds and waves submissive heard,
who walkedst on the foaming deep
and calm amid its rage didst sleep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

3. O sacred Spirit, who didst brood
upon the chaos dark and rude,
who badd’st its angry tumult cease,
and gavest light and life and peace:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

4. O Trinity of love and pow’r,
our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
from rock and tempest, fire and foe,
protect them wheresoe’er they go;
and ever let there rise to thee
glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Blogs, Socials, Fiction, Non-fiction

Debunking Electrifying Hobby, Oversharing, Blogrolling

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I subscribed to a video service in order to watch a movie last month, and since then I’ve tried to catch a few more in the package before cancelling. So far, it’s been a buy-one-get-four deal.

This week a couple of us watched the original Top Gun for the first time. I’ve heard it’s a frequently quoted movie. It can’t be more than any other well-received flick of its time. Only a couple lines stood out to me from the scant story that links the flying together. But the flying is cool. Dog fighting is cool. Faux drama about possibly running out of gas so you shouldn’t try to help a couple teammates return alive is not cool.

The F-14 Tomcats they fly in the movie have co-pilots, radar intercept officers (RIO). From what you see on screen, they appear to be only a second set of eyes, so I had to look up what they could do in the air–navigation, radio, electronics, and some weapons. Dave “Bio” Baranek, a Top Gun himself, has a book on it.

I don’t plan to watch it again, but then I rarely rewatch anything anymore.

Both sides: “The American body politic, Mamet tells us, is fundamentally diseased, and is slowly being consumed by an ideologically radical political class which, left unchecked, is sure to consume it.” A Playwright’s Life – (lawliberty.org)

Banned by YouTube: Ann Reardon has many great videos on cooking and other videos that debunk “life hack” videos that purport to demonstrate a cool, new time-saver, often food related. Her recent video exposing the dangers of fractal wood burning (“34 deaths”) was removed by YouTube, because somehow the artificial intelligence judged the debunk to be more dangerous than the how-to.

Star Rating? Tyler explains the reasons he doesn’t like Goodreads.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A book that changed the world.

Social demands: “Learning to say ‘no’ can be difficult; learning to not reveal one’s conscience on every single issue that hits the news can be even harder, especially in a society where it is seen as good and noble to have a ‘take’ or a strong moral stance on practically everything. . . .”

Stormy Sea with Sailing Vessels by Jacob van Ruisdael

Feature Photo: Christie’s Restaurant sign, Houston, Texas. 1983. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Cocktail Time’: A Novel about the Novel ‘Cocktail Time’

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“There’s nothing like getting married. It’s the only life, as Brigham Young and King Solomon would tell you, if they were still with us.”

When Lord Frederick Ickenham is inspired to humble his friend, barrister Sir Raymond Bastable, by knocking off his hat with a Brazil nut, he cannot know Bastable will go on to write the best-selling novel Cocktail Time in response. But then he does suggest the idea to him the next day in the vein of, “This would be the thing to do, but you could never do it, could you? Of course not.”

Bastable takes that suggestion as a gauntlet thrown and channels all of his anger about modern young men of mid-1950s English society into a novel bitterly entitled “Cocktail Time,” because that’s all today’s youth are good for. And, boy, does he put passion into it. He compares it to Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor, a romance banned as pornography in fourteen U.S. states. If the voting public knew he had written a novel like this, his hopes for a political would be over, so it has to go out under a pseudonym.

As soon as you start hiding things in a Wodehouse novel, you’re in for trouble. Cocktail Time is the third of four books starring the fifth Earl of Ickenham, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, or Pongo Twistleton’s Uncle Fred. It’s jolly fun. Will the world learn who really wrote Cocktail Time? Will Bastable’s sister Pheobe be able to do anything with her social blight of a son? Will Johnny Pearce, owner of Hammer Lodge, work out his money troubles, particularly being able to show his housekeeper the door? You’ll have to find out yourself.

It helps to have read more about Uncle Fred prior to this, because while this gently aged fellow takes up a slingshot (or “catapult” as the English say it) and knocks off the hat of a proud, old stuffed shirt he has long known in chapter one, without having read previous stories, you wouldn’t know how Uncle Fred is capable of impersonating just about any type of person alive and perhaps also parrots.

At the start of chapter eight, after introducing Carlisle, a con artist who would cause trouble for the weaker minded of the cast, Uncle Fred shares a cab with him on their way to the same residence, and I immediately felt the marvelous potential of the two professional impersonators together. The sparks flew.

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.”

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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)