WELL worthy to be magnified are they
Who, with sad hearts, of friends and country took
A last farewell, their loved abodes forsook,
And hallowed ground in which their fathers lay;
Then to the new-found World explored their way,
That so a Church, unforced, uncalled to brook
Ritual restraints, within some sheltering nook
Her Lord might worship and his word obey
In freedom.
William Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
I just found out from Mr. Grant that today is St. Clement’s Day. Read more about it today at Grantian Florilegium.
Good old Southern Baptist that I am, I’m not much up on the ins and outs of the church year or saints’ days or stuff like that. But if I get what I want for Christmas you may be hearing a lot more about such celebrations on this blog.
Photo courtesy of flickr.com
John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, was born November 3, 1718 in London. He became England’s first Lord of the Admiralty and later Postmaster General. Captain James Cook named the Sandwich Islands for the Earl of Sandwich. He was also an inveterate gambler, and of course, the story is that he invented the sandwich while engaged in an extended gambling session that lasted over twenty-four hours. Not wanting to leave the game, he asked his servants for a meal he could eat conveniently without making a mess. He got The Sandwich.
The Sandwich Project A website with recipes for 2273 sandwiches (as of November, 2005). If you don’t find your favorite there, you can add it to the list.
Sandwich Lover’s Club Blog
I Love Sandwiches Blog
And if you really love sandwiches, this Cafe Press store has a whole line of merchandise for you.
So what’s your favorite sandwich?
I found this poem by Wordsworth while reading for my British Literature class:
WICLIFFE
ONCE more the Church is seized with sudden fear,
And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed:
Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed
And flung into the brook that travels near;
Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind)–
“As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
“Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
“Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
“Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst
“An emblem yields to friends and enemies
“How the bold Teacher’s Doctrine, sanctified
“By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.”
And, of course, it’s true. Wycliffe preached, “Were there a hundred popes and all the friars turned to cardinals, their opinions in matters of faith should not be accepted except in so far as they are founded on Scripture itself.” Wycliffe died, and fifty years after his death, they dug up his body, burned it, and scattered his ashes in the river Swift, a tributary of the Avon.
But Wycliffe’s views and teachings travelled to Bohemia and greatly influenced a man named Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake for teaching what Wycliffe taught first.. A century later Martin Luther wrote, “I have hitherto taught and held all the opinions of Hus without knowing it . . . We are all of us Hussites.”
Tonight we watched the movie Luther in honor of Reformation Day. I’ve been reading the book Wide As the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired by Benson Bobrick. Perhaps some more thoughts on translating the Bible into the languages of the common people and on the Reformation will be forthcoming soon. For now, I’m simply thankful for the great blessing I have taken for granted all my life, the blessing of being able to read God’s very Word for myself in my own language.
By the way, I’m declaring November Thanksgiving for the Saints Month here at Semicolon. (If Rebecca Writes can have Spurgeon Month, I can certainly devote a month to giving thanks for those who have served the Lord faithfully and in doing so directly and indirectly blessed me.) What thirty+ saints in the history of the church am I thankful for? Stay tuned to find out.
Today I’m giving thanks for John Wycliffe, John Hus, and Martin Luther, a triumvirate of reformers, Bible preachers and lovers of Jesus Christ who gave us, among other blessings, the concept of having the Word of God available in our very own language.
Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix on October 31, 1926. Magician dies on Halloween; how odd is that?
Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874. He was the son of a rabbi, and his birth name was Erik Weisz. The family moved to America in about 1878. Erik/Houdini ran away from home at the age of twelve. Houdini worked hard to become a vaudeville magician and entertainer; eventually he concentrated on escapes. He was known as “The King of Handcuffs” and “The Genius of Escape.”
In 1922 Houdini was vacationing with his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Doyle’s family. He attended a seance with Lady Doyle who claimed to receive a message from Houdini’s deceased and beloved mother. Houdini did not believe in the message, and he and Doyle became estranged over this seance and over Houdini’s continuing efforts to unmask fake and fraudulent “mediums.”
Teaching materials on Harry Houdini from PBS’s The American.Experience.
I’ve been blogging for two whole years now. Have I said anything worthwhile? I sincerely hope so.
Most frequent searches that end up at Semicolon:
“What to do when bored” leads to this favorite Bored: Nothing To Do, a list of 100 suggestions for bored urchins.
Searches for “TV detectives” lead to my list of ten favorite TV detectives.
People who are looking for an SAT shower curtain often end up here, and happily for them the link to Amazon to buy the curtain still works.
A search having to do with preschoolers and picture books will, I hope, lead the reader to my Picture Book Preschool curriculum page.
As you might imagine, there are a lot of people who come here looking for help on the rules for usage of the lowly semicolon itself. I really ought to do a post on that subject someday as a public service.
My 10 favorite posts from the past two years:
1. Revealing Literature: A Life in Books
3. Can Anything Good Come Out of San Angelo?
8. Cafes, Cathedrals, and Communities
9. 10 Most Helpful FIction Books of the Last Two Centuries
10. The List, a list of books I want to read this year.
“in 1964, President Lyndon B Johnson, backed by a unanimous Congress, proclaimed 9 October to be Leif Erikson Day, in commemoration of the first arrival of a European on North American soil.” —BBC History
So, in honor of Leif Erikson and all those Viking-types, I’ve ordered these two books by Lars Walker of Brandywine Books. Cheapskate that I am, I was still hoping to check them out of the library before committing myself to spending actual money. But if I’m going to read them , I’ll just have to buy them. I’ll tell you how they were when I get them read.
Happy New Year! Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It’s a day of rest, a day for offerings, and a day for the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn trumpet. Traditionally, the blowing of the shofar has three purposes:
1. It is a call to repentance, beginning the Ten Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During this time Jewish people are exhorted to seek reconciliation with those whom they have wronged during the year. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24
2. The shofar is also blown to “remind” God of His covenant with His people Israel. Our Lord, of course, needs no reminder of His commitment to those who are in Christ. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
3. Finally the shofar is sounded to confuse Satan, the accuser, as he accuses the saints before the throne of God. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.”
So Rosh Hashanah is a good time to remember God’s mercy through Christ, His faithfulness in Christ, and God’s power over Satan by the suthority of Christ.
L’shanah tovah tikatevu= May your name be inscribed (in the Book of Life).
Information from Lederer/Messianic Jewish Communications
Picture courtesy of Blue Mountain
OOOH! I almost missed it; today, September 19th, is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Ahoy, mates, Long John Silver’s restauraunts are promoting Talk Like a Pirate Day with special prices today and with this Pirate Name Generator.
Mine is “Cannonball Carrie the Mosquito”??????? Well, shiver me timbers!
Pirate Stories for Kids:
Obadiah the Bold by Brinton Turkle. Great picture book about a Quaker boy who wants to be a pirate.
Custard the Dragon by Ogden Nash.
Treasure island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Classic story of the boy, Jim Hawkins, and the pirate, Long John Silver.
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Mystery in the Pirate Oak by Helen Fuller Orton. I used to read Ms. Orton’s mysteries when I was a kid of a girl. Good children’s mystery books.
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
The Ghost in the Noonday Sun by Sid Fleischman
Pirate Stories for Older Kids:
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne Du Maurier
Captain Blood, His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini
These are only the books and/or authors with which I’m familiar.
Here’s a much more exhaustive list.
