It would be the height of injustice for me not to note this remarkable story:

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.

We often say that we’re waiting for Muslims to actually act out the peaceful sentiments they proclaim for the media. Well, here’s some who seem to be doing it. This counts more than a million press releases from CAIR, and I will give praise where praise is due.

(Tip: First Things.)

According to this article, scientists have discovered a tribal group in the Black Sea area who appear to speak a living (though endangered) dialect more closely related than any we’ve seen before to the language of the ancient Greeks.

The community lives in a cluster of villages near the Turkish city of Trabzon in what was once the ancient region of Pontus, a Greek colony that Jason and the Argonauts are supposed to have visited on their epic journey from Thessaly to recover the Golden Fleece from the land of Colchis (present-day Georgia). Pontus was also supposed to be the kingdom of the mythical Amazons, a fierce tribe of women who cut off their right breasts in order to handle their bows better in battle.

Linguists found that the dialect, Romeyka, a variety of Pontic Greek, has structural similarities to ancient Greek that are not observed in other forms of the language spoken today. Romeyka’s vocabulary also has parallels with the ancient language.

(Tip: Archaeology in Europe)

And finally, just so you won’t have to go cold turkey on Sissel, here’s my favorite song of her entire repertoire, a Faeroese hymn called Tidin Rennur. I don’t read Faeroese, but I can figure out the lyrics well enough to know it compares life to being on a small boat on the sea. Only Jesus, it says, can bring the boat safe to harbor.

Christmas/New Year’s went just fine. The family gathered, made merry, and departed without incident. I can’t think of any rational reason to think I messed up in any major way as a host. Which doesn’t, of course, stop me believing I did.

We got enough snow today to justify my going out and blowing it out of the driveway after work. Interesting snow. It was in no way sticky (it’s far too cold for that), and yet it tended to clump up in the chute anyway, having to be cleared out. Which could generally be done by jerking the front up and down, because the dry snow fell right out again.

A Facebook friend alerted me to this video of Sissel doing “Auld Lang Syne” (mostly in Norwegian). The version I first saw was somebody’s creative mash-up, incorporating a rather banal poem and pictures of cuddly forest creatures. Fortunately I was able to find a clean version:

I don’t like the androgynous look on Sissel at all, but I think I’ve never heard her in finer voice.

Happy New Year.

Here’s one of my favorite songs from Sissel’s Kyrkjebø’s first Christmas album, the one that made her a superstar in Norway. The title means “Now a thousand Christmas lights are being lit.” I was looking for a live performance video, but the only one I could find is half talk (in Norwegian). So you’ll just have to look at her face on the album cover, which seems to me no chore. Below is an original translation of the lyrics, done by me at this keyboard at this very moment:

Around this darkened world tonight,

A thousand candles glow,

And all God’s stars above shine down

To cheer our night below.

And over towns and over fields

The joyful carols sing

The news that in a manger bed

We find our God and King.

O Star that shone o’er Bethlehem,

To hail the holy birth,

Bring to our hearts the angels’ song

Of love and peace on earth.

So every wand’ring heart shall see

A beacon in their sky,

To light their path through this dark world

To Christmas home on high.

(For the record, this picture of Sissel on the “Glade Jul” album was the inspiration for the appearance of the character Halla in The Year of the Warrior.)

Let sin depart, while we His grace,
And glory see in Jesus’ face;
For so shall we sure comforts find
When thus this day we bear in mind. (from the old lyric of “The Sussex Carol”)

Tonight, another Christmas hymn sung by Sissel. This one probably isn’t familiar to you (I think it’s Swedish), but it’s one of Sissel’s own favorites, and has become one of mine. “Mitt hjerte altid vanker” means “My heart always wanders,” and the song goes on to say that the singer’s heart always wanders back to the place where Christ was born, because all his/her joy is there.

I particularly like the way they use some strains of Grieg for the bridge.

This Christmas Carol by Christina Rossetti, performed by Sissel, seems a good choice as I approach a weekend when YET ANOTHER snowstorm is portended. It’s supposed to start coming down heavily late tonight, and continue tomorrow–pretty much all day. Indications suggest I’ll finally be able to get to snowblowing on Sunday morning, which may interfere with church.

At least I ought to have plenty of time to work on Christmas cards without distraction.

Have a good weekend!

Kudos to a great new band based in Chattanooga, Concerning Lions. This isn’t a great video, but the song is cool and, I believe, will be in an upcoming album. I wish I could point you to the lyric, but if you’re in a place where you can crank the volume, then you’ll be able to hear the words yourself, which is, like, better.

Concerning Lions – Young Curmudgeon – TBP from Concerning Lions on Vimeo.