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Hymn #24: In the Garden

Sep24

Lyrics: C. Austin Miles, 1912.

Music: C. Austin Miles, 1912.

Theme: When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher).
John 20:14-16.

The story of the writing of this hymn.

Jennifer, Snapshot: “I help with our church’s nursing home service and the oldtimers love this one, so it’s become one of my favorites too.”

John MacArthur: “Those lyrics say nothing of any real substance, and what they do say is not particularly Christian. It’s a mawkish little rhyme about someone’s personal experience and feelings. Whereas the classic hymns sought to glorify God, gospel songs like “In the Garden” were glorifying raw sentimentality.”

Brenda: “I love the vision this hymn brings to my mind, a little glimpse of Heaven as well as bringing peace to troubled souls.”

Joseph Holbrook, Jr.: “America’s all-time religious favorite, ‘In the Garden,’ has done the worst in fostering the I-me-myself version of Protestantism in our country.”

Cecelia: “This was one of my beloved Grammy’s favorite hyms and I love knowing that God will walk and talk with me, calling me His own!”

Nothing like a little controversy to liven up this hymn countdown. I won’t say which side I lean toward, but I will say that a little sentimentality never hurt anyone.

I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear,
Falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.

Refrain:
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody
That He gave to me,
Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Tho’ night around me be falling,
But He bids me go;
Thro’ the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

Hymn #28: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

Sep19

Welsh Title: Arglwydd arwain trwy’r Anialwch
Original (English)Title: Strength to Pass Through the Wilderness

Lyrics: Williams Williams, 1775. Translated to English by Peter Williams (no relation to William).

Music: CWM RHONDDA by John Hughes, 1907.

Theme: By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. Exodus 13:21-22.

Totally cool rendition of CWM RHONDDA by a Welsh Men’s choir:

*William Williams, nicknamed “The Sweet Singer of Wales,” was a medical student when he came under the influence and preaching of evangelist Howell Harris. Williams eventually left medical school and became an evangelist himself and writer of hymns. He wrote over 800 hymns, mostly in the Welsh language.

*Welsh composer John Hughes composed the beloved tune CWM RHONDDA in 1907 for the annual Baptist Cymnfa Ganu (singing festival) at the Capel Rhondda, Potypridd, Wales.

*Three women missionaries in China are said to have sung this hymn as bandits were beating on their door. God was their Strong Deliverer.

*The hymn was sung in Flanders in the trenches by the Welsh soldiers, and it was so melodious that the German soldiers took it up and sang along.

*Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah has been translated into over seventy-five different languages.

*The Welsh to this day sing Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah at outdoor sporting events, especially rugby matches.

*The hymn was sung at Princess Diana’s funeral.

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
[or Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer…]
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.

Lord, I trust Thy mighty power,
Wondrous are Thy works of old;
Thou deliver’st Thine from thralldom,
Who for naught themselves had sold:
Thou didst conquer, Thou didst conquer,
Sin, and Satan and the grave,
Sin, and Satan and the grave.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.

Musing on my habitation,
Musing on my heav’nly home,
Fills my soul with holy longings:
Come, my Jesus, quickly come;
Vanity is all I see;
Lord, I long to be with Thee!
Lord, I long to be with Thee!

Sources:
Center for Church Music.
Hymnscript: The Art of Hymns.
Suite 101: Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

Hymn #29: Be Still, My Soul

Sep19

Original title: Stille, meine Wille, dein Jesus hilft siegen

Lyrics: Katharina Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, 1752. Translated from German to English by Jane Borthwick, 1855.

Music: FINLANDIA by John SIbelius, 1899.

Theme: And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. I Peter 5:10.

From this sermon at the website An Infant in a Cradle:

Be Still, My Soul, (this text and tune) was the favorite hymn of Eric Liddell. He is perhaps most best known for refusing to run on Sunday in the 1924 Olympics (a story made famous in the film, Chariots of Fire). But, later in life, Liddell would become a missionary to China. During World War II, he was captured and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp, where he would eventually die of a brain tumor.

It was this hymn that he taught to the other prisoners in the camp to provide comfort and hope, to strengthen their faith. In the midst of change and tears, disappointment, grief and fear, Liddell remembered and taught others that the day was coming when all that would be gone, and Jesus Christ would remain forever.

Be still my soul – the Lord is on thy side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to thy God to order and provide;
in every change – he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul – thy best thy heavenly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know His voice
Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still my soul – when dearest friends depart,
and all is darkened in the vale of tears,
then shalt thou better know his love – his heart,
who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul – the waves and winds still know
his voice who ruled them – while he dwelt below.

Be still my soul the hour is hastening on
when we shall be forever with the Lord,
when disappointment – grief and fear are gone,
sorrow forgot – love’s purest joys restored,.
Be still my soul – when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed – we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy works and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well-pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

Quick Movie Notes

Sep2

Inspired by At a Hen’s Pace:

Sweet Land was recommended to me by someone, a blogger I think. It was a sweet little movie, set in 1920, in rural Minnesota, about a mail-order bride and her life and difficulties in the U.S. Since Inge is German, and the community she comes to join is mostly Norwegian, and since the U.S. has been recently at war with Germany, the difficulties are many. The kids found it somewhat confusing, but not inappropriate. Elizabeth Reaser who plays Inge is a beautiful and talented actress.

Amazing Grace is the story of William Wilberforce and the abolition of the slave trade in England. I saw it when it first came out in theaters, but Blockbuster offered me a coupon for a free movie, not a rental, but a previously viewed movie to own. I chose Amazing Grace, and tonight we watched it again. I found it not only educational, but moving and romantic and inspirational.

Computer Guru Son and I watched the movie Frequency the other night, and both of us found it stretched our ability to suspend disbelief past the breaking point. And I’m pretty good at “six impossible things before breakfast.” The most interesting thing about the movie, for LOST fans, is that one of the main characters is played by actress Elizabeth Mitchell who plays Juliet in LOST, and that the main character is named Jack Shepherd. Also, the movie is about time travel, or at least communication through time. Coincidence or is there some connection between this movie and the writers on LOST?

Speaking of movies, here’s a list from Inside Catholic of 50 Best Catholic Movies of All Time. I found it useful.

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

Aug22

Moundville, Alabama. 1917. Harry Otis Sims, nickname Dit:

“I’ve been wrong before. Oh, heck, if I’m being real honest, I’ve been wrong a lot. But I ain’t never been so wrong as I was about Emma Walker. When she first came to town, I thought she was the worst piece of bad luck I’d had since falling in the outhouse on my birthday.”

Dit is an engaging narrator, the middle child in a family of ten children, shaped by his culture and upbringing in rural Alabama, but willing to learn and to accept change. And change he does as he becomes friends with the new postmaster’s daughter, a girl, and what’s even more shocking, a “nigra” girl.

I liked the way this book was written with nuance and recognition of the complications of race relations in the Deep South. I wasn’t there (I’m not that old!), but this book describes the people of a small town in Alabama the way Harper Lee describes them in her classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. The people in Moundville are not all bad, not all racist to the bone, but they are crippled and held back by their heritage and their innate conservatism. Only Dit and his new friend Emma are able to see past the cultural racism that has ruled Moundville society since the Civil War, and they are able to right a wrong that could cost an innocent man his life.

This wonderful slice of life from the World War I era mentions several historical events and works them seamlessly into the story: the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, the lynching of black men in the South during the 1910’s, the double standard for employing blacks even in the postal service, the young men going off to war to fight the Hun, a banana train from New Orleans, learning to drive a Model T, seeing one’s first airplane flight. I loved the way the history “lessons” blended into the story, and I can see this book being useful and beloved inside and outside the classroom.

Target ages: 10-14.
Could be enjoyed by readers age 10 through adult. Hey, I liked it.

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

Aug17

This is America–a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves.
The town is, in our tale, called “Gopher Prairie, Minnesota.” But its Main Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told Up New York State or in the Carolina Hills.
Main Street is the climax of civilization.

So begins Sinclair Lewis’s novelistic critique of the manners, mores, traditions of Main Street, USA. Published in 1920, Main Street is proto-feminist, liberal in its politics (to contrast with the no doubt conservative politics of 1920’s small town businessmen), and agnostic in its religious views. Our protagonista, Carol Kennicott becomes the wife of a small town doctor, and finds, to her dismay, that she cannot find a place for herself at all in Gopher Prairie. At one point she calls herself a “hexagonal peg.” (“Solution: find the hexagonal hole,” she says.) She tries to reform the town, to bring culture and refinement to her neighbors and to her husband, then to reform herself to appreciate village life, but all to no avail. For 479 pages Carol struggles, fights, regroups, hides, ventures out again, runs away, and finally resigns herself to being the perpetual aginner, in an overwhelming sea of mediocrity and traditional (hypocritical) family values.

“I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith.”

Through the entire book, Carol mostly stays just this side of being an obnoxious, supercilious snob, and when she crosses the line, she knows it, admits it, and laughs at herself. It’s worth reading the book for those moments of self-deprecation and realism. Carol never will admit that anything about Main Street or anyone who lives on Main Street is worthy or objectively beautiful, but she finds that city people and office life are much the same as Main Street and its denizens. The best parts of the book are Lewis’s observations, voiced through Carol, of the contradictory ways we think about ourselves and others. His psychological insight into the mind of a young married woman is keen and humorous. Carol tries to read poetry with her prosaic doctor husband, makes various people she meets into heroes, and then finds that they, too, are rather prosaic and ordinary. She’s something of an idealist and unwilling to become a cynic.

The writing and the tone are well done. It’s no wonder that Lewis won the Nobel Prize, ten years after the publication of Main Street, in 1930. However, Lewis’s inability to see any good at all on Main Street makes the book and the world it inhabits a rather unhappy and tedious place to spend reading time. Which Carol Kennicott would say is a good description of Main Street and of Gopher Prairie.

But I still maintain that there are a few kindred spirits in the wasteland, that some church-goers are both thoughtful and sincere, that there is more depth, and even poetry, to the average Main Streeter than Lewis and his mouthpiece would credit. Sinclair Lewis became an expert at showing up the limitations and hypocrisies of American life (see Babbit, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith), but he never got past that antipathy to traditional American values to see anything worth appreciating and preserving in the American experience.

Interesting side note from Wikipedia: “Main Street was initially awarded the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, but was rejected by the Board of Trustees, who overturned the jury’s decision. The prize went, instead, to Edith Wharton for The Age of Innocence. In 1926 Lewis refused the Pulitzer when he was awarded it for Arrowsmith.”

Reading Through Asia: Cambodia

Aug11

First I read When Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy Him. This harrowing and honest memoir of young girl growing up in Khmer Rouge-ruled Kampuchea was my introduction to the literature of the Cambodian Holocaust. I’ve never seen the movie that everybody seems to reference when talking about the horror that was Pol Pot’s Kampuchea because I cannot watch reenactments of actual, horrible events. I’ve also never seen Schindler’s List nor The Passion of the Christ. Reading about such events and acts is bad enough.

During the time covered in the book, Chanrithy Him suffered the loss of her father, murdered in a “re-education camp”, her mother, who died in a squalid hospital from untreated disease and malnutrition, five siblings, who died of malnutrition and disease, and other family members lost to the insane and disastrous policies of the Khmer Rouge government. The book begins with some background about Chanrithy Him’s childhood, but focuses on the details of her daily life in Cambodia/Kampuchea from April 17, 1975 when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Pen until her escape a few years later with what remained of her family to a refugee camp in Thailand.

“Death is a constant, and we’ve become numb to the shock of it. People die here and there, all around us, falling like flies that have been sprayed with poison.”

You can read the first chapter of When Broken Glass Floats online here.
And here is an interesting review of three memoirs of the Cambodian Killing Fields, all published in 2000: Music through the Dark, written by Bree Lefreniere and narrated by Daran Kravanh, When Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy Him, and First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung.

Next I read When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution by Elizabeth Becker. This book was a more complete history of Cambodia before and during Pol Pot’s reign of terror. The author attempted to show how Pol Pot and cohorts came into power, what kept them in power, and what the effects of their genocidal policies were on the people of Cambodia. It’s a decent enough attempt, but Ms. Becker gets bogged down in the details and sometimes fails to explain the larger picture. Pol Pot and his friends sometimes seem like sympathetic characters even in the midst of their carrying out of horrendous acts simply because they are humans who even turn against one another at intervals.

Some of the most memorable passages in the book tell about Becker’s personal experiences in Cambodia as the guest of the Khmer Rouge regime. She was invited, along with two other journalists, in December 1978 to see what the Khmer Rouge had accomplished in a little over three years of rule in Cambodia. She, of course, saw only what the government wanted her to see, and she was unable to talk to people or see anything without the ever-present guides and translators who presented the Communist propaganda line in spite of the general appearance of grinding poverty and escalating violence and paranoia. Becker’s visit came to a climax with the midnight murder of one of her fellow journalists, Malcolm Caldwell, a sympathizer with the Khmer Rouge government, who nevertheless became a victim of its incompetence and general craziness.

Read this one for all the detailed information and for an idea of what was going on when all over the country and in foreign countries in relation to Cambodia. Read some of the memoirs and personal stories listed above to get a feel for what horror was perpetrated by the this so-called “agrarian communist utopia of Democratic Kampuchea.”

For today’s round-up of reviews of titles set in Southeast Asia or written by Southeast Asian authors, check out the One Shot World Tour at Chasing Ray.

Joy to the World: A Different Take

Aug3

It seemed almost sacrilegious to post this blast from the past along with the hymn from which it borrows a line and a title, but on the other hand, I couldn’t resist. So I’m giving the Three Dog Night version of Joy to the World, lyrics and tune by Hoyt Axton, its own post. It’s not praise and worship, but I’ve always been a sucker for a catchy tune with some silly lyrics.

By the way, Three Dog Night’s Joy to the World was the top hit single of 1971.

Hymn #52: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Jul26

Lyrics: Helen H. Lemmel, 1922.
Alternate Title: The Heavenly Vision

Music: Helen H. Lemmel, 1922.

Theme: Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2.

O soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Saviour,
And life more abundant and free.
Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion –
For more than conquerors we are!

His Word shall not fail you – He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well;
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell.

I was a bit surprised to find this hymn/gospel tune on the list. Not that it is unfamiiar, I’ve heard it all my life, and I think it has a great message. I just didn’t know that it was all that well-known. As it turns out in addition to the Alan Jackson countrified version above, Amy Grant, Hillsong, Newsboys, Michael W. Smith, Cynthia Clawson and many others have recorded this song.

The composer and author of the hymn, Helen Lemmel, was the daughter of a Methodist pastor. From a gospel tract called Focused by Lilias Trotter, a missionary to the Muslims of Algeria, Ms. Lemmel heard the words, “So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”

As she meditated on those words, Ms. Lemmel said: “Suddenly, as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, with not one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme, or note to note to make melody. The verses were written the same week, after the usual manner of composition, but nonetheless dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

Helen Lemmel wrote more than 500 other hymns, but this one has endured.

Sources:
Our Favorite Hymns: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.
Wikipedia: Lilias Trotter.

The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

Jul21

I’ve seen two movies based on books written by Paul Gallico: Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris starring Angela Lansbury, Omar Sharif and Diana Rigg and the blockbuster 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure starring Shelley Winters, Gene Hackman, Red Buttons, Stella Stevens, Carol Lynley, Ernest Borgnine, and Jack Albertson. However, I’ve never read anything by Mr. Gallico until now.

Paul Gallico was a movie critic, then a very successful sports writer, but he wanted to write fiction. He wrote short stories for various magazines, got a $5000 check for one story, and promptly retired from sports-writing to write fiction. His first and most successful novel(?) was The Snow Goose. Not really a novel or even a novella, the book clocks in at 58 small, widely spaced pages, and I would call it a short story. It was first published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1940, and The Snow Goose was one of the O. Henry prize winners in 1941.

The story itself is set on the Essex coast of England, beginning in “the late spring of 1930” and ending approximately ten years later. The main action of the story takes place in and around the evacuation of Dunkirk by the British near the beginning of World War II. It’s a romantic, and sad story about an artist, his young friend and protege, and a Canada snow goose that makes its way somehow to the Essex coast and becomes a symbol of hope for survivors of the debacle and rescue that was Dunkirk.

I would think that as a gentle introduction to World War II literature, The Snow Goose would be a winner among high school students. Other books and movies featuring the evacuation of Dunkirk:

Books:
The Miracle of Dunkirk by Walter Lord. Nonfiction.

Dunkirk: The Complete Story of the First Step in the Defeat of Hitler by Norman Gelb. More nonfiction.

Dunkirk: The Men They Left Behind by Sean Longden. Times Online review/

On Rough Seas by Nancy L. Hull. Young adult fiction. Fourteen year old Alex lives in Dover, England in 1939, and he is eventually a hero as he participates in the rescue of the British soldiers at Dunkirk.

The Little Ships: the heroic rescue at Dunkirk in World War II by Louise Borden. Picture book. “A young English girl and her father take their sturdy fishing boat and join the scores of other civilian vessels crossing the English Channel in a daring attempt to rescue Allied and British troops trapped by Nazi soldiers at Dunkirk.”

Dunkirk Crescendo by Brock and Bodie Thoene. Rather melodramatic, fast-paced Christian fiction by a pair of prolific writers in the genre of historical fiction. This book is Book #9 of the Zion Covenant series published by Tyndale House.

Atonement by Ian McEwan features Dunkirk in the second half of the story. Semicolon review here.

Movies:
Dunkirk (1958) “Documentary-style film which tells two sides of the evacuation of more than 350,000 troops from Dunkirk beaches in 1940. A British corporal (John Mills) finds himself responsible for getting his men back to Britain from the Dunkirk beaches, after their officer is killed and they are separated from the main allied forces. Meanwhile, a civilian reporter (Bernard Lee) follows the build-up to the eventual evacuation of British and French troops from the beaches of Dunkirk.”

Mrs. Miniver (1942) “Mrs. Miniver nobly tends her rose garden while her stalwart husband participates in the evacuation at Dunkirk. She personifies grace under pressure as the Miniver family huddles in their bomb shelter during a Luftwaffe attack, while she is forced to confront a downed Nazi paratrooper in her kitchen, and while she is preparing for her annual flower show despite the exigencies of bombing raids.” I saw Mrs. Miniver about a year ago, and I thought it was delightful. If you like The Snow Goose and its somewhat sentimental picture of a world at war, you’ll enjoy Mrs. Miniver, too.

The Snow Goose itself was made into a 1971 film starring Richard Harris and Jenny Agutter. I’ve not seen the movie; have any of you?

Nicely maintained website for fans of Paul Gallico and his books.