Today’s hymn is a spiritual that has been arranged by many musicians since it gained common ground over 150 years ago. The words easily apply to Palm Sunday, as demonstrated by the Scripture read at the beginning of this video.
Ride on, King Jesus, no man can a-hinder me.
no man can a-hinder me.
In that great gettin’ up morning,
fare ye well, fare ye well.
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double. (Zachariah 9:9-12 ESV)
Our Lord comes in humility and cuts off the warcraft of his enemies. Should that apply directly to our public discourse, to our perception of the culture war?
Bach’s greater Passion has a lot of moving parts: two choirs, four soloists, a narrator, an orchestra, and an organist. And in last week’s performance [2019], there was also the audience, as Saint Thomas participated in the German Lutheran Good Friday tradition of singing congregational chorales surrounding the main musical event. Saint Thomas’s associate organist, Benjamin Sheen, played Bach’s prelude to Johann Böschenstein’s “Da Jesu an dem Kreuze stund” (“When on the cross the Savior hung”), and then the audience was encouraged to sing along in English.
Prayer: Can prayer make your anxiety worse? “My self-centered pity party lamented my situation always instead of rejoicing in the Lord always.”
Jesus: How is Jesus the Bread of Life?
Tapestries: Here is some beautiful tapestry work by Ukrainian artist Olga Pilyugina
Manhood: There’s a new book that claims it’s good to be a man, and it’s isn’t that the world still needs isolated rebels with personal agendas.
Photo: Rube & Sons Shell gas station, Kingston, New York. 1976. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
I don’t know how many congregations sing this gospel song by Connecticut Methodist Jefferson Hascall, but Hymnary.org claims it has been published in 183 hymnals since 1860. This tune is not the original, but the meter of the lyric is so common, you could sing it any number of ways. William Batchelder Bradbury gave us the current tune, entitled, “The Land of Beulah,” published in 1862.
1 My latest sun is sinking fast,
my race is nearly run;
my strongest trials now are past,
my triumph is begun.
Refrain:
O come, angel band,
come and around me stand;
O bear me away on your snowy wings
to my immortal home.
O bear me away on your snowy wings
to my immortal home.
Thursday was the anniversary of the completion of Paris’s iconic ironwork project, The Eiffel Tower, named for the owner of the company that proposed and assembled it by March 31, 1889. They were aiming to have it up for the 1889 World’s Fair to be part of the centennial gala of the French Revolution. Philadelphia held a similar one in 1876.
The architect proposed using large stone monumental pedestals at the base and glass halls on every level of the tower. It’s final, simplified design was constructed in 18,000 parts in Eiffel’s factory about three miles away. The measured every piece carefully and mathematically configured the lattice work to minimize wind resistance. Two and half million rivets hold together the 1083-foot tower.
Viewing the construction for a few weeks before completion, journalist Emile Goudeau wrote, “One could have taken them for blacksmiths contentedly beating out a rhythm on an anvil in some village forge, except that these smiths were not striking up and down vertically, but horizontally, and as with each blow came a shower of sparks, these black figures, appearing larger than life against the background of the open sky, looked as if they were reaping lightning bolts in the clouds.”
More on the 1889 World’s Fair from Marc Maison.
Beauty: Where would we be without beauty? It enlivens the heart; we value it, even if the beautiful thing isn’t useful–putting aside the inherent beauty of some useful, well-designed things.
Symphony: Robert Reilly says, “There is a steadiness in Haydn’s music, a sense of normalcy. At the same time, it is filled with wonder at what is—at its goodness.” Haydn was told his sacred compositions were too cheerful; he replied that his heart leaped for joy at the thought of God. As an example, here’s a performance by the Chiara String Quartet of Haydn’s “Seven Last Words of Christ.”
Sounds: Cambridge’s word blog is talking about rustling and howling type words.
Isaac Adams: “The race conversation often feels like talking to each other at the Tower of Babel. We may be trying to build together, but we’re frustrated and speaking past one another.” Adams’s book, Talking About Race, intends to inspire healthy conversations on this subject and bring us together.
Gene Veith: The popular Lutheran blogger is moving to a subscription model at $5/month.
Photo by Karina lago on Unsplash
Jeffrey Polet reviews Emory professor Mark Bauerlein’s second book on the “Dumbest Generation,” Millennials, whose poor education has underserved them. He says, they don’t have the “moral imagination” to speak to the real world. If only they’d read good books.
Multiculturalism didn’t multiply heritages and enhance each one; it left the students with no heritage at all, no relationship to past greatness.” As witness to this claim Bauerlein offers Malcolm X, who, he avers, would have scoffed at the denuding of such a wealthy heritage. Instead, Malcolm X transformed his life when his prison cell became a refuge from the world, allowing him to read day and night, thus awakening “the long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” It was by placing himself in the horizon provided by the great works of the past that Malcolm X was able to turn his life around and give it purpose.
The “Dumbest Generation” has finally grown up – Acton Institute PowerBlog
Here’s a hymn I hope all of us know well. “For All the Saints Who from Their Labors Rest” was written by the “poor man’s bishop” William W. How (1823-1897) to an original tune composed by the great Ralph Vaughan Williams.
1 For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
2 Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;
thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
thou, in the darkness dread, their one true light.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
3 Oh, may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old
and win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle II
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
I may have some entertaining posts for you soon. The links below have a couple bits of entertainment, but the rest are about matters to grave to laugh over.
Hunter Baker: “We cannot extol being a ‘wise Latina’ in one instance and then remain ambiguous on what a woman is in the next instance.”
Old Books: A collector talks about the books of William Strunk, Jr.
After Gettysburg: Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station
Maria Stepanova: The Russian novelist, poet, and publisher has written about the war and her country. “Dreams about catastrophe are common in what was once called the ‘post-Soviet world’; other names will surely appear soon. And in these recent days and nights, the dreams have become reality, a reality more fearful than we ever thought possible, made of aggression and violence, an evil that speaks in the Russian language. As someone wrote on a social media site: ‘I dreamt we were occupied by Nazis, and that those Nazis were us.'” (via Books, Inq)
Podcasts: I think I told you before how good World’s Effective Compassion podcast series is. The third season on prison ministry has just concluded–ten compelling episodes. Next week World will begin a true crime series on the horrible story of Terri Schiavo.
This episode of the Hillsdale Dialogues with Hugh Hewitt and Larry Arnn is provocative in clarity, especially if you’re inclined to believe the ill-considered conclusions Tucker Carlson has drawn lately (see the comments here). How closely will Zelensky follow the footsteps of Churchill?
Photo: Hanks Coffee Shop sign, Benson, Arizona. 1979. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Anthony Sacramone reviews an episode of a recent TV series about a high school history teacher who became president that stars the lawyer-turn-comedian who is the current president of Ukraine.
“In short, no one believes what is in fact the truth: A common man without guile or political experience is now the most powerful person in the country, thanks to a popular assent collated by the internet, the same medium that brings you cats falling off pony walls and Russian disinformation. Can you blame them?”
He says it’s funny, endearing, and probably has more heart than many comedies.
In April 2019, when Zelensky won national election, the BBC summarized his victory.
With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.
“I will never let you down,” Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.
…
Experts say his supporters, frustrated with establishment politicians and cronyism, have been energised by his charisma and anti-corruption message.
May the Lord give him many years to fulfill this promise.
Understanding C.S. Lewis’s worldview, not as merely Christian with a British spin but as devoutly medieval, will help new readers grasp and enjoy his work. Lewis would hate social media and maybe every Internet. He disliked the mechanistic world and preferred organic nature. (I’m seeing this unfold in That Hideous Strength, which I’m reading with friends over several weeks.)
As an educator, Lewis the scholar sought to restore to students a medieval mindset capable of what Baxter calls “the right sentiments of praise and admiration for creation.” As we have lost our appreciation for that “slow, contemplative, symphonic world” that was the medieval cosmos, so we have lost our delight in the kinds of books medieval people loved, books that held up other criteria besides mere originality.
C.S. Lewis Was a Modern Man Who Breathed Medieval Air… | Christianity Today
This may be my favorite hymn for as long as I can remember. The original Irish words are attributed to the monk Dallan Forgaill in the poem, “Rop tú mo Baile.” They have been used in Christian services in Ireland for several hundred years. The folk tune, “Slane,” may go back to the 4th century. Both the words and tune are said to have been inspired by St. Patrick’s protest of King Logaire of Tara’s order forbidding any fires until after he lit the sacred fire of the spring equinox. Patrick ignited a fire for Easter on Slane Hill as a way of saying Christ is the king of heaven and earth.
I appreciate the group Celtic Worship for including the oft-skipped third verse in this hymn.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power
