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Music

Sunday Singing: Fierce Raged the Tempest

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“Fierce Raged the Tempest,” sung by the Lloyd Family

I can’t recall ever singing today’s hymn, but its tone and message would fit my congregational singing habits. “Fierce Raged the Tempest” was written by Englishman Godfrey Thring (1823-1903) and appears to be found in only a handful of hymnals.

1. Fierce raged the tempest o’er the deep,
Watch did Thine anxious servants keep
But Thou wast wrapped in guileless sleep,
Calm and still.

2. Save, Lord, we perish, was their cry,
O save us in our agony!
Thy word above the storm rose high,
Peace, be still.

3. The wild winds hushed; the angry deep
Sank, like a little child, to sleep;
The sullen billows ceased to leap,
At Thy will.

4. So, when our life is clouded o’er,
And storm winds drift us from the shore,
Say, lest we sink to rise no more,
Peace, be still.

Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction, Uncategorized

The World Never Stops Changing for Good and Ill

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I didn’t mention the death of art and theater critic Terry Teachout on January 13, because I didn’t feel I had anything to add. I interacted with him as a minor player in the early blogosphere, and I enjoyed seeing his enthusiasm over his one-man play, Satchmo at the Waldorf. Richard Brookhiser summarizes him in National Review this way:

He specialized in omniscience. There was a bit of boy-from-Sikeston-keeping-up-with-the-city-slickers in that. But the main source of his appetite to taste, learn, and enjoy was his love of all the arts, and of the wonderful sparks cast off by human minds generally.

(via Prufrock)

Ted Gioia tells a heart-warming story of being a recipient of Teachout’s “generous spirit.” “The last time I saw him was in Santa Fe, where the opera he wrote with composer Paul Moravec made its debut. His career seemed to know no limits—which was fitting, because that was true of Terry himself.”

Let me share a few other things with you. Let me know if you’ve heard these before.

America: Chinese-born Aaron Tao writes of American greatness and his appreciation for his parents immigrating to Ohio. “As I grew up, my parents gradually revealed more details of their former destitute life in Maoist China, which made me grateful that I never had any experience remotely comparable here in the United States.”

In New York, an immigrant from Hong Kong is now rallying people against Democratic policies. “The atmosphere at schools here is more and more like China’s cultural revolution that encourages students to cancel teachers and parents, all in the name of equality,” he said. This is only one example of Asian Americans vocally supporting better communities.

Strangers: The world is ever changing. J.A. Medders, recently the author of Humble Calvinism, shares this about his first book.

In the replies to this tweet, people mention Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp, whose endorsements are far more troubling. But faith is a living habit, not a single accomplishment, and some will enter heaven with clothing caked with the mud of the world.

Identity: Gina Dalfonzo talked to Alan Noble about his new book, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World.

Dalfonzo: I’ve seen some vigorous pushback against your book’s title on social media, much of it from Christians—even though it’s taken from a Bible verse (which, as you note, was later incorporated into the Heidelberg Catechism). Where do you think some of these visceral reactions are coming from? Why have so many Christians bought into the idea that we actually are our own?

Noble: Some pushback to the idea of belonging to God comes out of a deep belief in self-ownership and self-sufficiency. But my impression is that most Christians who struggle with this concept have experienced abuse. Sometimes abusive people and institutions have used the idea of belonging to God to control and harm people.

Soft Porn: Francine River’s early book Redeeming Love has been made into a movie. People I know have praised it. My wife is not one of them, and because of her comments, I’ve thought about reviewing it here, expecting to rip it apart. But this book is not burdened with a lack of reviews, and do I really want to put myself through it when I’m not doing all kinds of useful things. World reviews the movie, saying fans of the book will probably enjoy it, but there’s a lot of vice, pushing the limit of its PG-13 rating.

Photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash

Bookselling, Fiction, Publishing

Winnie-the-Pooh is Now Public Domain

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Every year creative works slip into the public domain for use in Geico ads and local craft fairs. This year, the first story by A.A. Milne of his delightful bear in the Hundred Acre Wood has become public domain.

Johnathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today spells out what isn’t public domain, which is every Disney created and other Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

“Milne actually wrote four books based on the character and books 2-4 have not lapsed into the public domain. This means that many of the characters from the series, most notably Tigger, have not lapsed and will not for a few more years. In fact, the image of Pooh wearing a red shirt was not published until 1932.”

Music

Sunday Singing: Rock of Ages

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“Rock of Ages” performed by James Ward

I’m sure you’re familiar with Augustus Toplady’s hymn “Rock of Ages,” written in 1776. I don’t know how many believers are singing this hymn with James Ward’s arrangement, written in 1985. Ward lives in Chattanooga and served for many years as the music director at a church in my denomination. This arrangement is printed on the page opposite of the traditional Toplady tune in the Trinity hymnal, which is the hymnal PCA congregation use.

If this is a new tune for you, I hope you enjoy it.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy riven side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure,
cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r.

Continue reading Sunday Singing: Rock of Ages →
Blogs, Socials, Religion, The Press

What is Truth? What is Comfort? Blogroll Links

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A college professor told me he gets the most response from his students by exposing them to the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. It challenges contemporary assumptions and calls out our faith.

“What is your only comfort in life and death?

“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.”

Here’s some other reading from this weekend.

Reaction: Kevin Holtsberry reviews the novella Trust by Italian author Domenico Starnone. “I enjoyed the story as a mediation on the way we create stories and perceptions of ourselves and our lives, about who we are and why we do what we do, etc.”

Paul Auster: Locked in a room, unsure of many people and things, the writer in this Auster novel wrestles with the difficulties of knowing and telling the truth. (via Books, Inq.)

Jew­ish Book Coun­cil has released its list of win­ners of the 2021 Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards. The winner for fiction is Joshua Cohen’s The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ulti­mate­ly Even Neg­li­gi­ble Episode in the His­to­ry of a Very Famous Family. (via Literary Saloon)

Writing: What could happen if you committed to writing at least a little every day?

One Nation Under the Pope: Some politically and theologically conservative leaders today dislike the secular government we have in America and would like to unite the country under one holy, Roman high priest.

Glynn Young: A grassroots level summary of a major problem with journalists and how the Internet changed the news.

Photo: Main Street, Columbus Junction, Iowa. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The Press

cracking Down on Journalists in Cuba and Hong Kong

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Communists need their people to toe the party line without question, just like INGSOC does in Orwell’s 1984.

In Cuba, the island nation that could be a paradise, 66 protestors arrested for their actions last summer were tried in December and are still awaiting their sentences. A few who were also arrested for unauthorized use of speech have been sentenced to 15-30 years in prison.

“It has never been easy for journalists to work in Cuba,” Juliane Matthey, press officer for Latin America at Reporters Without Borders, said. On the organization’s 2021 list ranking countries on journalistic freedom, Cuba is the 9th worst, not taking last summer into account.

The Communist Chinese continue to bully journalists in Hong Kong. Stand News was the largest free news agency in the country until Dec 29, when police raided their offices. “The online media organization, which had operated for seven years, took down its website and social media accounts and dismissed all staff.”

Music

Sunday Singing: Wide Open Are Thine Hands

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“Wide Open Are Thine Hands,” sung by the Norsemen Quartet

The words of this hymn are attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), an influential abbot who wrote many meditations. I found that attribution questioned by Garcia Grindal on her blog dedicated to hymns. She says Arnulf of Leuven, Abbot of Villers-la-Ville, (1200-1250) is the author of the original poem, and it sounds so much like Bernard who could blame us for misattributing it to him.

Dr. Charles Porterfield Krauth of Martinsburg, Virginia, a Lutheran scholar and musician, translated the poem into English.

Wide open are Thy hands,
Paying with more than gold
The awful debt of guilty men,
Forever and of old.

Ah, let me grasp those hands,
That we may never part,
And let the power of their blood
Sustain my fainting heart.

Wide open are Thine arms,
A fallen world t’embrace;
To take to love and endless rest
Our whole forsaken race.

Lord, I am sad and poor,
But boundless is Thy grace;
Give me the soul transforming joy
For which I seek Thy face.

Draw all my mind and heart
Up to Thy throne on high,
And let Thy sacred Cross exalt
My spirit to the sky.

To these, Thy mighty hand,
My spirit I resign;
Living, I live alone to Thee,
And, dying, I am Thine.

Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction

Podcasts on Building People up or Tearing them Down

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A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.

– Love’s Labour’s Lost

I’ve talked about podcasts before, and I hope you don’t mind me recommending a few in the way of writing about what I’m listening to now. And I’d rather do that than play with the cat.

World News Group is releasing the third season of their podcast Effective Compassion, a set of features reporting on ministries to the homeless or other at-risk populations. This season, debuting in a few days, will focus on prison ministries. You can hear a preview today.

Dr. Anthony Bradley is posting a new set of episodes on a variety of topics, but his main focus has been manhood and the making of men. His first episode this season is a talk about the benefits of college fraternities with the president of Chi Psi fraternity at Clemson.

I recently learned of a podcast dedicated to reading books the two hosts will probably hate, called 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back. The most recent show discusses at great length a marvelously atrocious fantasy that one could easily assume, they suggest, was written by an eight-year-old. There’s no way to overstate how bad this story is, even after hearing of the assault by sword-wielding octopuses and sharks with teeth and noses as sharp as swords. How could it be bad with all of that? I listened to about 90 minutes of it before giving up and trying another episode about a much older novel with very manly men who cried a lot. Yes, I laughed. I’ll probably listen more, but I can’t take too much mockery of really bad writing. It wears me out. (Maybe I’ve seen too much of bad writing; that’s not something I want to say out loud.)

Another new podcast focuses on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The MLK Tapes questions the official narrative of who killed Dr. King and points to the many strange details that also occurred that day. It’s significant that the King family do not believe James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King, and since he was not put on trial at the time, a jury was not presented with evidence either.

Let me end this post by noting an upcoming book from the three men behind the enjoyable, long-running podcast The Happy Rant. Releasing this August will be a book that purportedly reads much like the podcast listens (wait, much like listening to the podcast … reads–nevermind). Ted Kluck, Ronnie Martin, and Barnabas Piper chat about Christian cultural topics and generally poke fun at themselves. It should be a fun read.

Photo: Mother Goose Market, Hazard, Kentucky 1979. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

What If Almost Everyone Had Super Abilities Except You?

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One of my daughters has become interested in select manga and anime, and she’s gotten me reading a series of superhero fantasy called My Hero Academia. It may be the number one manga series currently being published. The next book to be released in English is Vol 30, so it’s got legs. Having read the first 10 volumes, each collecting six issues, I’ll vouch for it. It’s top-notch. Author Kohei Horikoshi said he had hoped to get through 10 volumes, and there he was at #10 running serious, long-term story arcs and fans eating it up.

In this world, almost everyone has extraordinary abilities, special powers, or, as Horikoshi calls it, quirks: creating specific elements (I wonder if anyone can brew coffee or tea out of thin air), strength, speed, talking to animals. One of the top 5 heroes can manipulate any organic fiber at will, so garden-variety burglars could find their clothes suddenly binding them to the spot. Of course, most people don’t have superhero-level quirks and others have demented skills that perhaps encourage them to pursue the darkness. The greatest super, the symbol of peace in the world, is called All Might. He beats down bad guys with a smile.

The focus of the story is on Izuku Midoriya, a fifteen-year-old boy who had aspired to be a hero ever since he could think straight. He longed to be a force for good in the world, but he had no quirk. In the first book, Midoriya’s friend, who is something of a jerk and has a powerful quirk, is attacked by a rampaging monster. While everyone else stands by debating how to engage, Midoriya rushes in with little more than a drive to save his friend. This act of heroism provokes All Might to bequeath his power to this boy, and consequently enabling him to try out for admittance to U.A. High school. He has to pass the entrance exam and practical trials, which he does more by strength of character than body.

Horikoshi knows how to write this type of fantasy. His characters are individuals with faceted strengths and weaknesses. They compete with and against each other as students do, trying to gain first place recognition in various areas, and since these are supers-in-training, their competitions involve giant robots, saving mock hostages, and how did those villains get in here?

Horikoshi respects his characters, giving them space to stand out as the story permits, and his main character, Midoriya, has such a natural hero’s heart, he uses him to provoke the others in moving ways. I got teary eyed during the sporting event in which the students of two classes paired up to defeat each other. Midoriya couldn’t just try to outsmart his opponent, a kid named Todoroki who has a difficult relationship with his father. Midoriya kept counseling him during their match, encouraging him to find his own spark and not define himself by his father. The moment Todoroki is pushed over the edge, saved from himself as one of the onlookers put it, is marvelous.

There are a few drawbacks, such as off-color jokes and a couple minor characters, but so far, the writing and artwork have been strong. It’s admirable work.

Uncategorized

Rare Runes from Oslo

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“Solveig Thorkildsen and Ingeborg Hornkjøl of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) found the objects—a bone featuring a Norse inscription and a rune stick with both Latin and Norse text—during ongoing excavations at the site. According to a statement, the rune bone is the first of its kind found in Norway’s capital in more than 30 years.”

Smithsonian Magazine describes their excitement over the discovery and preliminary translations of the runes. The stick may have a prayer written on it.