Music, Religion

‘Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us’

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I’m in the mood for ‘Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us’ tonight. I used to sing this song with my old musical group. We generally didn’t do it in performances, just for our own pleasure, because it works really well in four parts. This rendition is quite nice. It comes from the choir of Weimar University, of which I know nothing.

It’s assumed the hymn was written by Dorothy A. Thrupp. It was published with her tune in 1840 in London.. Historians assume she wrote the words too, but she took no credit. The tune we use was written by William Bradbury.

I needed this hymn tonight, for reasons I won’t go into. Mostly just the mood I’m in.

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‘Look to Norway’

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Well, this is nuts, isn’t it? And by “this,” I mean pretty much everything that’s going on in the world. I have never before in my long, marginal existence felt that listening to the news – and even to conservative talk radio – doesn’t do much to inform me about reality.

I think I know whom I’m against. I’m not entirely sure whom I should root for. I have a feeling of being awash in misinformation. And I have this fear in my heart that that will be our future – we will never again be sure what’s going on.

So, I’m concentrating on my translation (been fairly busy) and my developing plans for my Norway trip this summer.

I am now in contact with Vikingklubben Karmøy, the group that hosts the festival documented above (that was 2019, which I assume was the last festival held). This year they’re hosting a portion of the big Riksamlingen Festival (National Unification Festival). And they’ve told me I’m welcome to participate in costume. Not sure at this point whether I’ll actually be of any help to anyone, but I hope to be there, on the outskirts, an object of pity and horror, no doubt.

The prospect thrills me. And terrifies me. It involves interaction with actual human beings. I don’t always do well with those kinds of people.

Authors, Religion

An Academic Chooses Atheism Over Christ

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Dr. Anthony Bradley’s podcast is not a typical Christian show. He talks about manhood more than anything else and brings on guests to tell their stories uninhibited. I believe I linked to his first episode on the benefits of fraternities for young men in an earlier post.

Today’s episode is difficult. He gives 90 minutes to his friend, Paul Maxwell, a fast-talking intellectual who used to claim Christ and now holds to atheism. It’s difficult listening because Paul studied under and worked with many good teachers and authors, and he rejects it all. How did he remain a Christian so long, at least one of his friends (who studied at Moody Bible Institute) asked him.

Caution: this episode may be a bit too much inside baseball for non-theologians or those unfamiliar with the names and institutions he refers to. He also uses hard language a couple times.

Fiction, Reading

‘Renegade Swords III’

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This is not a review, but a promotion. I have a story in the recently released anthology, Renegade Swords III. I was approached by the compiler, who paid me a small fee for rights to the story. It was originally published long, long ago in Weird Tales (I was delighted to get into Weird Tales, once upon a time the home of Robert E. Howard’s Conan).

The story is called “Magic’s Price.” It’s about a wizard, berserkers, and a bereaved husband. I know nothing about the other stories, or the authors. But my story alone makes the book worth having. It goes without saying.

Had a melancholy reading experience today. I picked up a bargain e-book, and it started out really well. The prose was excellent, and I liked the characters. I was interested in them. The story drew me in.

Then I came up against the Agenda (or, as you may prefer to put it, my bigotry). The central problem of the story involved a homosexual being blackmailed, back in the early 1950s.

I always cringe when they bring in “gay” themes. Aside from my beliefs on sexual morality, male homosexuality gives me the willies. I think that’s true for all “straight” (what we used to call normal) men, if they haven’t been brainwashed. But I could put up with it as a realistic plot element.

However, that wasn’t enough for the author. He had to make it an issue. Had to preach repeatedly on the importance of normalizing homosexuality, of bringing it into the mainstream.

So, sadly, I put the book aside unfinished.

But it was good enough that I think I ought to at least mention it here: Murder by the Book, by Eric Brown. As I mentioned, the writing was very good. You might enjoy it, if you’re more enlightened than I am.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Sierra Six,’ by Mark Greaney

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Mark Greaney’s Gray Man series, about Courtland Gentry, renegade former CIA assassin, continues with Sierra Six, which combines a contemporary story with flashbacks to his first assignment, twelve years ago, as part of a CIA kill team. The two threads intertwine, more and more tightly as the story goes on, coming finally to a crashing double point.

We start with the flashback, where young Court’s talents as a fighting man are recognized, and the CIA decides to add him to an action team. He’ll be the “Six,” the point man, replacing a string of other sixes who’ve been killed on recent missions. Court is not a team player by nature – it’s hard for him to coordinate with others. Even harder for him to trust others. In training, he keeps messing up. In early missions, he makes costly mistakes. But his sheer talent persuades his superiors to keep him on the team – though his team members don’t like him one bit.

In the present, working as a freelance, he gets hired for an operation in Algiers. In the course of the action he glimpses the face of a man he thought was dead – a terrorist he came up against on that old, first mission. Court has a personal score to settle with that man. And, incidentally, that man is going to murder millions of people if he isn’t stopped.

Sierra Six was a tight, taut thriller that never let up. The action was pretty cinematic – a little implausible, but compelling. I don’t have the tolerance for such stories that I used to have, but I can’t deny it was well done. And I do keep reading the books.

Recommended, for those who like this kind of story. Cautions for what you’d expect.

Music

Sunday Singing: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

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“A Might Fortress Is Our God” performed by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

We needed a battle hymn this weekend, and there isn’t a better one than this by Dr. Martin Luther, a little known professor at the University of Wittenberg, Germany, in the 1500s.

1 A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he, amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing:
for still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and, armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.

2 Did we in our strength confide,
our striving would be losing;
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God’s own choosing:
dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabbaoth, his Name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle.

Continue reading Sunday Singing: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God →
Authors, Blogs, Socials, Music, Non-fiction

Ukraine Has Something to Fight for, and Other Links

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Poet George Herbert reminds us,
“That all things were more ours by being His;
    What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
    Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.”

Everything I naturally think as mine is Christ’s–my time, my skills, my ambitions, even my sin.

It’s been hard to pull my eyes away from the news since Thursday. I have sought more information than prayer, but my prayers are completed with just a few words. Lord, have mercy on both Ukrainians and Russians, and break of the arms of evil men. Call them to account for their deeds.

God save Ukraine: Before the invasion, many Ukrainians knew what to expect. “Ukraine has been prepared through this crucible of constant pressure that it’s much stronger than people think.”

“Putin’s aggression must not go unchallenged: The invasion of Ukraine should be met with persistence, patience, and confidence”

At 3:03 a.m. Saturday morning, the valiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recorded himself in Kyiv again, saying they would not lay down their arms. This Twitter threads has that video translated as well as the news that Melitopol had fallen. That report is being countered as I write this.

Here are other links you may appreciate.

Cal Thomas on a departed friend from the other side of the aisle.

H. L. Mencken: “People seem increasingly uncomfortable with our essentially contradictory nature.”

Black History Month: Here’s a book I’ve been wanting take up for a few years, because the author is a wise disciplemaker who knows his subject. Free at Last? The Gospel in the African-American Experience by Dr. Carl Ellis has been rereleased as a classic in cross-ethnic, gospel-centered reading.

Jazz Organist: This is not the way I’m used to thinking of organ music. LeDonne remembers jazz organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, who passed away last September. “Is this Mike LeDonne? This is Lonnie Smith and I’m playing at the Village Vanguard with Lou Donaldson and he tells me you have a nice B-3.”

Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash

Reviews

‘Riders of the Whistling Pines’

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It was a relatively quiet day. Warmer than yesterday and clear outside. I had to do some shoveling again. Not much.

Hey, it’s almost March. In March, you can start hoping for spring. You’ll be bitterly disappointed, but you can hope. At least the sunlight comes in larger packages now, which is nice in a time of inflation.

As I’ve mentioned, I like to have the TV on while I’m doing translation. Especially old B-westerns. I very much enjoy B-westerns. They’re cheaply done and obviously so, but they fill the silence demand little of the viewer. They were a comfort in my childhood, and they still make me feel good. Especially when they’ve aged badly.

Whenever I watch a Gene Autrey movie, I wonder, “How did this guy get to be a movie star?” He was not tall, not particularly handsome, and a little tubby. The answer, of course, is his singing. He started as a singer, and moved into the movies. Little boys loved him. Because, what do little boys know?

Today I watched Riders of the Whistling Pines, which I found notable for several reasons. It’s actually a more serious movie than Gene’s usual line – no comic sidekick, and some rather tragic themes. Gene plays a guy trying to establish a forest camp in an area where there’s an infestation of tree-killing moths. The local logger is rooting for the moths, because if the trees die, he can legally harvest them all. Gene is involved with trying to get the forest sprayed with – wait for it – DDT. The nasty logging baron spreads false rumors about the dangers of DDT to wildlife and human life, and deliberately causes some poisoning.

Yessiree, we’ve got a pro-DDT movie here. It was 1949, long before Rachel Carson. Trust the science!

Actually, I personally think DDT needs to come back, under controls, so I’m cool with it. Your mileage, as I persist in saying, may vary.

A second surprise was that I recognized one of the evil henchmen – by his voice. It was Clayton Moore, who in a few years would become immortal as the Lone Ranger. (I know a guy who knew him, when he lived in these parts.) In this film, he doesn’t even get a cool cowboy hat.

And finally, on a couple occasions one of the characters, a struggling alcoholic, fishes out a photo of his wife, who died while he was away in the war. She’s pretty. She’s a blonde.

She’s Marilyn Monroe.

Marilyn was an unknown contract player for Columbia at the time, and this was a Columbia production, so they just picked her picture off a pile as an example of a girl a guy might pine for.

For all I know, it was her big break.

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As if you hadn’t figured it out already…

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Illustration of the Battle of Hafrsfjord by Erik Werenskiold, from Heimskringla.

Big day today, in the saga of Lars Walker. I got one item I’d been unsure of confirmed, so I feel I’m in a position to announce that I’m definitely planning to attend the celebration of the 1150th anniversary of the Battle of Hafrsfjord on Karmøy Island and in Stavanger, in June of this summer.

I haven’t reached the point of no return yet. Haven’t booked the tickets – I’m still not entirely sure when I should leave and return. And I could still suffer some financial disaster that forces me to cancel the whole thing. But all things being relatively equal, at least I feel able to go public.

The festival takes place in Erling Skjalgsson’s neighborhood, but the battle under consideration was well before his time. King Harald Halvdansson, known as “Fairhair” (or “Finehair”), is said to have fought a great sea battle there in the year 872 (perhaps). He is said to have defeated a coalition of petty kings on the waters of the fjord, cementing his control over at least part of what would become the Kingdom of Norway. This has always been considered the founding of the nation. Even historians who believe Harald actually existed (and not all of them do) disagree on how much territory he actually controlled. My personal suspicion is that it was more than the historians think, because, let’s face it, historians enjoy tearing down legends. (Cue a dozen cable channel documentaries.) Until some genius comes along and finds evidence for the legend. (Cue a dozen more cable documentaries.)

Frankly, the idea of taking this trip scares me a little. I’m no longer a young, or a thin, man – and let me tell you, there’s no way you travel in Norway without doing a lot of walking.

But if I don’t do it now, I probably never will. And I’ll never get a better chance to see a fleet of Viking ships in real life. If I overdo it and have a fatal heart attack surrounded by Viking ships, it would be kind of cool, don’t you think?

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Saga Farmann

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The translation work keeps coming in. I groan under the load, but I am a man of iron, capable of enduring great hardships.

Speaking of hard ships, the short video above is of a Viking ship replica called Saga Farmann (Saga Merchant Traveler; link in Norwegian). It was launched in Tunsberg, Norway (a place that features in my Novel in Progress) in 2018, and is particularly interesting because it’s a copy of a knarr (specifically the Klåstad Ship). If you’ve been reading my novels, you know that a knarr is a Viking merchant ship. In the Viking Age these broad, deep ships were doubtless far more common than the fighting dragons (though knarrs were used in war too). But today the great interest is in the dragons, so you don’t often see a nice knarr.

Knarrs generally had rather small crews. Though they carried oars, those were only for emergencies. Knarrs sailed most places they went. What did they do when the wind was calm, or contrary? They waited. You arrived when you arrived.

If my hopes are fulfilled, I might get the chance to see this ship this summer. Plus a bunch of others. If I’m a good boy and say my prayers and eat my vegetables.