Poetry

The Earth’s Vigil, by G. K. Chesterton

1 Comment

(It has been my custom to post a poem by Chesterton every Christmas. But I didn’t do that this year. I thought of posting a New Year’s poem tonight, but it looks as if Chesterton didn’t write any. This, however, is close. Happy New Year.)

The old earth keepeth her watch the same,

Alone in a voiceless void doth stand,

Her orange flowers in her bosom flame,

Her gold ring in her hand,

The surfs of the long gold-crested morns

Break evermore at her great robe’s hem,

And evermore come the bleak moon-horns,

But she keepeth not watch for them.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

The nations shock and the cities reel,

The empires travail and rive and rend,

And she looks on havoc and smoke and steel,

And knoweth it is not the end.

The faiths may choke and the powers despair,

The powers re-arise and the faiths renew,

She is only a maiden, waiting there,

For the love whose word is true.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

Through the cornfield’s gleam and the cottage shade,

They wait unwearied, the young and old,

Mother for child and man for maid,

For a love that once was told.

The hair grows grey under thatch or slates,

The eyes grow dim behind lattice panes,

The earth-race wait as the old earth waits,

And the hope in the heart remains.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

God’s gold ring on her hand is bound,

She fires with blossom the grey hill-sides,

Her fields are quickened, her forests crowned,

While the love of her heart abides,

And we from the fears that fret and mar,

Look up in hours and behold a while

Her face, colossal, mid star on star,

Still looking forth with a smile.

She keepeth her watch through the aeons,

But the heart of her groweth not old,

For the peal of the bridegroom’s paeons,

And the tale she once was told.

Fiction, Reviews

Portrait of a Spy, by Daniel Silva

2 Comments

Talk show host Hugh Hewitt has been promoting Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon spy novels for some time, so I finally tried one. I’m happy to report that Portrait of a Spy is an excellent novel, well-written, well-plotted, with engaging, believable characters. I highly recommend it, while at the same time confessing that I probably won’t be reading any more in this series. My reasons are not aesthetic or moral or political. More below.

Gabriel Allon is a skilled, even legendary Mossad agent whose working cover is his vocation as an art restorer, one of the best in the world. At the start of this novel, late in the series, he has at last broken his ties with Israeli intelligence, and is living with his beautiful wife in a secluded cottage on the Cornish coast. He’s excited about his latest commission, a recently identified lost Titian masterpiece.

And then one day, while visiting London, he witnesses a suicide bombing, one in a series of such bombings across Europe. He is drawn into the hunt for the masterminds, first back with Mossad, and then with the CIA as well. Their plan to locate and destroy the enemy involves a wealthy young Arabian heiress who has come (they’re pretty sure) to hate the jihadis.

No plan, as the generals say, ever survives contact with the enemy, and there are betrayals and deaths (and frustrating CIA political meddling) before the job gets done. It was all very suspenseful, and even moving.

Portrait of a Spy is a very good novel and (according to my lights) pretty much entirely on the right side of the issues. I recommend it highly, with the usual cautions for language, violence, and adult situations (not explicit).

The reason I can’t go on with the series is that I discovered something in reading it that I should have realized long ago. I’m just uncomfortable with spy stories. That world of deception and betrayal is tremendously stressful for me to think about. I could never live that way. I’m a very bad liar (not, I hasten to add, because of my high moral character, but because I just don’t do it well. My face gives it away). Spending time with espionage stories makes me uneasy.

You’re probably not like that, so you’ll very likely enjoy it.

Fiction, Reviews

Bid the Gods Arise (Vol. 1), by Robert Mullin

5 Comments

My friend Robert Mullin sent me a manuscript of his novel Bid the Gods Arise a while back, and I read it and provided the following blurb:

Bid the Gods Arise possesses the music of epic and the color of myth. It’s a big story, spanning planets, but with a specific human heart. Once read, it lingers in the mind like a dream.

It’s not uncommon for me to receive manuscripts from people who’d like me to read and comment on them. It’s very rare that I can say much good. Bid the Gods Arise is an exception. A genuinely original work, it combines fantasy with interstellar travel far more successfully than you imagine it could.

The story involves two young men, Aric and Maurin, who are kidnapped from their home planet by interstellar slave merchants. Separated and sent to very different fates, they meet again at last and join with a company of others on a quest which involves both Aric’s true destiny and his greatest temptation.

This is a really good book, a Christian fantasy novel with no preaching. I recommend it.

Reviews

Film review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

6 Comments





So I finally saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. And I enjoyed it. And yet… I understand why some people were disappointed. I suppose I was a little disappointed myself, though that shouldn’t be taken as a thumbs down.

First of all, the good parts. Martin Freeman is a wonderful, wonderful Bilbo Baggins. I can’t imagine how the role could have been better played. Superb casting, superb job.

I liked the visuals. Some people, or so I’ve read, have trouble with the unusually high resolution in which the film was shot, but it didn’t bother me at all. As you’d expect, I saw it in 3D, and I liked that too. There were some wonderful color effects. One of my major take-aways from the whole thing was just how lovely it looked.

My reservations are complicated, and I suppose I’m still thinking it out. A lot of material has been added, in order to grow the original story, which is a pretty quick read, into a twin to The Lord of the Rings. Much of this ought to be legitimate enough for the most exacting Tolkien fan. Instead of taking things out of the story, as they had to do with the first trilogy, Jackson and people put stuff in, and the most substantial of the additions come (or so I’m told, I’ve only actually read The Silmarillion) from Tolkien’s own writings about Middle Earth. Continue reading Film review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey →

Religion

The Saga of Bethlehem

3 Comments



(Peter Brueghel the Elder, d. 1569)



[Last year, as a creative and devotional exercise, I composed the following nativity story in the Norse saga style. It has its faults, but I think it’s good enough to re-post.

This version includes some imaginary information not found in Luke’s or other gospel accounts. This is because sagas are very different literature from the gospels, and the telling detail is a necessary part of the technique, even if you have to make it up. ljw]

There was a man called Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Matthan, one of the clan of old King David from Bethlehem. Joseph was an honest man, and very clever at building things. But he didn’t get on with his kinfolk, especially his brothers. One day he said, “I’m going to move up to Nazareth in Galilee. They talk strangely up there, but at least they talk sense, and there’s work to be had.” And his brothers said, “Don’t let us stand in your way.”

Now Joseph was promised in marriage to a girl named Mary, daughter of Heli, daughter of Matthat, also of the David clan, though they had kin among the priests. Mary was a beautiful girl, and very devout. Some people said she was too devout for her own good. One day when she was praying in the house all alone, a mighty messenger of God appeared to her, clad in mail that shone like the sun, and he said, “Hail, highly favored one! You are about to conceive a Son, whom you will name Jesus. He will be a hero, and will be known as Gudsson, and the Highest of All will set Him in the high seat of David, and He will reign over the Jacoblings forever.”

“How can this be?” asked Mary. “I am a virgin.”

The messenger said, “The Spirit of the Secret One will come upon you, and the power of the Highest One will overshadow you, so that the Child to be born will be known as Gudsson.”

“I am the thrall of the Highest One,” said Mary. “Let Him do as He likes.” Continue reading The Saga of Bethlehem →

Poetry

“Man’s Maker was made man”

Leave a comment

Man’s Maker was made man

that the Bread might be hungry,

the Fountain thirst,

the Light sleep,

the Way be tired from the journey;

that Strength might be made weak,

that Life might die.

~ St. Augustine (via Relief Journal, Painting by Guido Reni) Continue reading “Man’s Maker was made man” →

Uncategorized

Merry Christmas

Leave a comment

Candle in Abstract

Tina Clarke’s Christmas Candle in colored ink

Sailing Under the Christmas Sail

Christmas Sailboat by Delilah Smith

The Three Wise Guys

The Three Wise Guys by Brenda York

Ending with something completely different:

The Single Sister's House

“The Moravian Single Sisters’ House on Church Street was used as a combination dormitory, industrial and religious center for single women within the community.”

Creative Writing

Family Reunion: Advent Ghosts 2012

6 Comments

“Not this again!” William growls.

The traditional roasted chicken and dressing, gravy, green beans, and corn sit steaming on the table while his wife glides about the room, bringing honeyed ham, broccoli casserole, rolls and muffins, tomato and squash soups—everything as overabundantly perfect as it had been every Christmas. Beautiful, but ethereal.

His sons and daughter, their bodies scorched from the fire three years ago, quietly urge him to eat “to forget this weary world.”

Eyes burning, he throws a coat over his pajamas and stumbles into the icy street. His wife follows with a cup of flaming cider.

(Index of all stories submitted to the Advent Ghosts Storytelling Fest)