“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” was a 12th century Latin hymn brought into English by John M. Neale of London. The Latin words come from an 8th century poem. This makes another commonly sung hymn with ancient roots.
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God Is Infinitely Wise and We Are Not Remotely
Something triggered a memory today. I told my parents, over apple pie at Dollywood, that Jonathan Edwards had suggested the Lord had risen in the East and could possibly return in the West, even America. I don’t think he was suggesting it would happen, just that it could and would flow with the pattern of history. The main reason I remember that is the impression of impressing my parents with this detail from Edwards. A small thing. Both of them passed away in the last few years; now the holidays are different.
Pastor and author Tim Keller has been fighting pancreatic cancer for over a year. It’s now at stage IV. On Twitter Friday afternoon, he said, “It is endlessly comforting to have a God who is both infinitely more wise and more loving than I am. He has plenty of good reasons for everything he does and allows that I cannot know, and therein is my hope and strength.”
In The Atlantic this year, Keller wrote about his faith growing in the face of this struggle. Speaking of earlier in his life, he said, “Particularly for me as a Christian, Jesus’s costly love, death, and resurrection had become not just something I believed and filed away, but a hope that sustained me all day. I pray this prayer daily. Occasionally it electrifies, but ultimately it always calms:
“And as I lay down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace, keep me in the joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, I will someday know my final rising, because Jesus Christ lay down in death for me, and rose for my justification.”
Writing at Age 91. We don’t know what time or days we have…. what was I saying just now? Oh, never mind.
Do you like reading poetry? Does it matter if you enjoy it or is it a professional exercise? “I can only think that a large-scale revulsion has got to set in against present notions, and that it will have to start with poetry readers asking themselves more frequently whether they do in fact enjoy what they read, and, if not, what the point is of carrying on.”
Writing is ridiculous, bound to fail; even success feels like failure. “Some people doubt themselves far too much, others not remotely enough.”
Researchers have concluded contemporary worship songs are going stale quicker than they used to, for reasons they can’t explain. “The average arc of a worship song’s popularity has dramatically shortened, from 10 to 12 years to a mere 3 or 4.” I don’t want to suggest these are only the most consumeristic churches, but in my church circles, we sing old songs–maybe a new melody or arrangement, but the lyric is still several years to centuries old. What I’m sharing in our new Sunday post is the kind of singing I hope you have in your churches.
Photo: Wellsboro Diner, Route 6, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. 1977. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
What Can Be Gained from Translated Works?
Benjamin Moser talks about finding a somewhat old library of English books and how he began to change his opinion of translating world authors into English.
In recent years we have seen writers outside English become global phenomena: Elena Ferrante, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Haruki Murakami. But such a literary life, the popularity owed to translation, began to seem a little fake to me. And when I read Mizumura I found myself agreeing that, strictly speaking, literary universality does not exist. The books I loved were, after all, about something, not everything. But even in practical and commercial terms, the prominence of English created more losers than winners, favoring, like so many other forms of globalization, a handful of instantly recognizable and inoffensive brands.
…
Translation — not the thing but the unquestioned emphasis on its virtue — started to feel to me like another philistinism masquerading as worldliness.
By worldliness, Moser means people travel the world–or read from around the world–and they start to think they own the place.
Micah Mattix discusses the essay in the latest Prufrock email, saying maybe readers or literary opinion makers should lighten up a bit. “A healthy curiosity is a virtue, of course, but there is nothing wrong with enjoying a work on its own.”
Advent Singing: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Advent season begins today, so I’ll share my favorite advent hymn first. If you know this hymn, it may be the oldest song you know. The words come from the Liturgy of St. James, which is a Syrian rite linked to St. James the Less. Remember our brothers and sisters in the Syrian church, who have persevered in the faith for centuries, as you sing this hymn today.
The recording above has only three of these verses.
1 Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded,
for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.
2 King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth he stood;
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood,
he will give to all the faithful
his own self for heav’nly food.
Sent to Erase a Man Only to Become Haunted by Him
Tin Doom 😑 on Twitter: “I may regret sharing this, but I have a very personal story I would like to tell. I hope it doesn’t get too long… Anyway… I was 20 years old when I was sent to erase a man from existence and became haunted by him.”
In over 50 tweets, Doom shares his story of clearing out a man’s house and finding his life in photos. If you get to a tweet that reads, “I closed the last album and sat for a long time on the closet floor, resting my head back against the wall,” that’s not the end of the thread. Select the link to view more replies to see the rest of it.
The Best of the Worst, an Honest Question, and Snow
My girls would love to watch endless varieties of good holiday rom-coms, but multiple factors work against them. We don’t have a TV service to feed us the Hallmark Channel or network broadcasting (also the reason we don’t catch the full Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade). We don’t have Netflix anymore. And, fundamentally, “good holiday rom-coms” are as common as good, ugly Christmas sweaters. They call them “ugly” for legit reasons, so to find good ones you have to take up a particular mindset.
This would have come up even without Molly K advocating for The Spirit of Christmas (2015) as the best of bad Christmas movies. Moving on.
Animator Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli, is coming out of retirement again with a “grand-scale” fantasy idea based on a 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino called How Do You Live?
Remaking Notre Dame Cathedral: “Newly released plans for reconstruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral will incorporate what some describe as a ‘politically correct Disneyland,’ reports the Telegraph. Christophe Rousselot, the director-general of the Notre Dame Foundation, says the intent is to make the cathedral and Christianity accessible for those not raised in a Christian society.”
Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim, who worked with Oscar Hammerstein as a youth, died on Thanksgiving Day. He was 91.
Willa Cather wrote, “I think even stupid people like to puzzle over a book. A slight element of mystery is a great asset.”
Adam B. Coleman asks, “To the people who would insinuate that I am being used by white conservatives or that I express ‘right’ leaning viewpoints for white acceptance, I have a question: Would you say this to a black liberal?”
Movies in China: “One of the last vestiges of free speech in Hong Kong is now gone. The result is self-censorship by filmmakers who now have to question what might run afoul of the new rules and increased scrutiny by financiers and distributors who now must consider that very same question.”
From “Snow Day” by Billy Collins
In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.
Photo: Southampton Theater, Montauk Highway, Southhampton, New York. 1989. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Let Us Be Mindful of God’s Deliverances
Years ago, Marvin Olasky wrote of his thankfulness for God’s work in his Austin, Texas church and World magazine. He included this anecdote from the Puritans.
The Puritans liked to tell dramatic shipwreck stories concerning thanksgiving in all circumstances. One vivid tale described John Avery and Thomas Thacher clinging to a rock when their boat was shipwrecked. It appeared that the next wave would sweep them away, and Avery, according to Thacher, said, “We know not what the pleasure of God is; I fear we have been too unmindful of former deliverances.”
Neglecting to acknowledge God’s kind provision, attributing it to circumstance or hard work, is common to most of us. Let’s be mindful of Him bought us and saved us for Himself. May He “keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed, and free us from all ills of this world in the next.”
Sunday Singing: We Gather Together
“We Gather Together,” 1625, author unknown, translated from Dutch “Wilt heden nu treden” by Theodore Baker.
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens his will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to his name; he forgets not his own.
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining his kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side; all glory be thine!
We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,
And pray that thou still our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Modern Trauma, The Song of Roland, and Sci-Fi Realities
Micah Mattix is back with the new Prufrock newsletter. Subscribe and read higher. Today’s email links to an essay about trauma being a product of our modern age. From that essay, “Furthermore, I will argue that trauma is so widespread precisely because of the ubiquity of traumatogenic technologies in our societies: those of specularity and acceleration, which render us simultaneously unreflective and frenetic. On this analysis, the symptoms deemed evidence of PTSD are in fact only an extreme version of a distinctively modern consciousness.”
Hierarchies in Space: Alexander Hellene writes about boring, fantasy bureaucracies in science fiction. “Captain Kirk is the ultimate pulp hero, a man of action and passion who takes his duty to his crew so seriously he is consistently willing to die for them. Does this sound like a guy who could function on the society of the future dreamed up by Gene Rodenberry, et al.? No wonder Kirk wants to be in space all the time.”
Snapping is crazy fast, researchers at Georgia Tech have concluded, and that means Thanos could never have done that snappy thing he did. Fact-checkers for the win!
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great French poem “The Song of Roland” on BBC4’s In Our Time.
World Magazine’s next issue is their 2021 books edition.
Photo: Modern Diner on Dexter Avenue, Pawtucket, Rhode Island. 1978. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Dune Messiah: The Future Is Not Set, But It’s Hopeless
The new movie adaption of Dune has been available for a month, and many people have observed, as if factual, that only the strong fans have read more than the first novel. The publisher claims millions of original series books have sold. The current bestselling paperback list from the Washington Post has Dune leading both fiction and mass market categories, Dune Messiah being second for mass market.
It’s a good story, more sedate than the first one since Paul Atreides is a galactic emperor defending himself against usurpers rather than being a usurper himself. It’s twelve years after the close of Dune. Paul’s beloved wife, Chani, has not been able to bear a child, and his political wife, Irulan, has increased pressure to have the opportunity to bear a child herself. Despite hating the idea, Chani begins to think having any heir is better than none.
But Paul has seen many futures and many shadows he may not be able to avoid. Which path of pain and death will support the most life?
Paul and his teenaged sister, Alia, have prescient abilities, because of the complex eugenic program that preceded their birth and their consumption of melange, the valuable spice of that planet. Their powers of foresight are unmatched by anyone else with prescient talent. The spice awakens all who get enough of it in the right context. But the future is not strictly prophetic nor does their vision catch everything that could be seen, so in some way they see paths and consequences and choose between likely risks and rewards.
That’s the rationale Paul offers for allowing interstellar jihad in his name and his deification by the Freman, even though he distains religion. He knows he is not a god and doesn’t seem tempted to become one. He thinks about the coming jihad in the first book and rants about its work privately in the second book, but the bottom line seems to be a better life for everyone if he accepts their worship and doesn’t shut down their holy war. Countless lives wasted, he says. The blood of millions shed in his name, he says, but what else could he do? This cynical view of religion dilutes all holy things to cultural tradition and zeal to simple-mindedness. I would think a gifted leader could redirection such zeal, but no, war was unavoidable.
Am I right to read this secular outlook as hopeless? Is that the reason I doubt I’ll read the third book?