Gospel Challenge

Jun3

Becky’s hosting a mini-challenge for the summer:

Operation Actually: Summer Studies Mini-Challenge

Host: Operation Actually Read Bible

Duration of the Challenge: June 1, 2009 – September 7, 2009

Description of the Challenge: Participants will choose one gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) to study for the summer. Study could mean reading it multiple times (once a month for June, July, August). Or it could mean reading the gospel and reading books about that gospel (commentaries, study helps, etc.). Or it could mean reading the gospel, listening to the gospel, watching a video drama of the gospel, listening to sermon series preached from that gospel, or participating in a Bible Study or Sunday School class discussion of that gospel. It might mean memorization of passages.

You do not have to have a blog to participate. You can keep track of your progress on the mini-challenge by commenting on this site. (If you want. No one is going to make you share what you learn or anything! But sharing does build community among participants, so it is encouraged!

If you have a blog and would like to ‘journal’ your studies, feel free to do so. But it’s not required.

Go to Becky’s place to sign up. I’m tempted, but what with the hymns and the urchins and the summer field trips and the projects over in the sidebar, I’m already on Project Overload.

Hymn #99: Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken

Jun3

Lyrics: John Newton
Music: AUSTRIA arranged by Franz Joseph Haydn or ABBOT’S LEIGH by Cyril Taylor.

Girl Detective: “I did like Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, till I learned it was set to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles.”

I say: never let a tune with bad associations ruin a good hymn. One can almost always find an alternate tune. I can manage to sing Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken without ever visualizing a Nazi uniform, but if you can’t try this tune from the day before yesterday’s hymn, or use the more modern tune written by Cyril Taylor especially for these words called ABBOT’S LEIGH.

Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He, whose Word cannot be broken,
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

See! the streams of living waters,
Springing from eternal love;
Well supply thy sons and daughters,
And all fear of want remove:
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows their thirst t’assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the Giver,
Never fails from age to age.

Round each habitation hovering,
See the cloud and fire appear!
For a glory and a cov’ring
Showing that the Lord is near.
Thus deriving from our banner
Light by night and shade by day;
Safe they feed upon the manna
Which He gives them when they pray.

Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Washed in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.
’Tis His love His people raises,
Over self to reign as kings,
And as priests, His solemn praises
Each for a thank offering brings.

Savior, if of Zion’s city,
I through grace a member am,
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in Thy Name.
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion’s children know.

Although this is hymn writer John Newton’s first appearance on this list, it will surely not be his last. He is most famous in the United States for another hymn which will appear in due time. In the meantime, Mr. Newton, former slave and then slave trader, was a prolific versifier. Along with poet and friend WIlliam Cowper, Newton published a collection of hymn lyrics called The Olney Hymns, named after the village where Newton was a minister for many years. Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken was one of the hymns in the collection that was written by Mr. Newton. Newton, and his friend Cowper, wrote these hymns for a weekly prayer and worship service with usually one new hymn written each week.

Newton on hymns for public worship: “They should be Hymns, not Odes, if designed for public worship, and for the use of plain people. Perspicuity, simplicity and ease, should be chiefly attended to; and the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be indulged very sparingly and with great judgement.”

Sources:
Victorian Web: The Olney Hymns by John Newton.
Amazing Grace: The Story of John Newton by Al Rogers.
Hymntime: Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.

The Underneath and Me

Jun2

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt was the Semicolon Book Club selection for May, and Amy at Hope Is the Word is on top of it. She’s right in pointing out that this book was somewhat controversial in its treatment of cruelty to animals, and I agree with her that the book is for older children and young adults.

Because I had already read The Underneath and because I loaned my copy to my mom and because I sometimes uses excuses like those to procrastinate, I didn’t get around to re-reading The Underneath in May. My local book club didn’t meet because I got so involved in graduation for my daughter and in hymn survey that I couldn’t manage the book club, too. (Another excuse.)

Anyway, here’s a link to my review of The Underneath, a book I think deserved the Newbery Honor it received and then some. The Semicolon book club selection for June is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I’m not going to procrastinate on the one because if I do I won’t get it read. If you want to join me in reading Dickens’ semi-autobiographical opus, then get reading. I’m making it a goal to post every Tuesday about my progress in re-reading David Copperfield—just to keep myself on track.

The book club meeting, for those of you who live in Houston, will be at 2:00 on Monday, June 29th rather than on the previous Saturday. Anyone who’s even finished part of David by that date is welcome to come over to my house and discuss. Then on Tuesday June 30th, I’ll post a wrap-up with link to those of you online who manage to read and write about Mr. Copperfield.

Come on and give it a try. Summertime is made for long, hefty, chunky classics.

Hymn #100: O God Our Help In Ages Past

Jun2

Lyrics: Isaac Watts, The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, 1719.
Music: ST ANNE by WIlliam Croft, 1708.
Theme: Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Psalm 90:1-2

Hannah: . . . a beautiful commentary of the frailty of human life, and the omnipotent strength of an immortal God. This is a beautiful cry to God for help in our brief lives, and a remembrance that He is our home in the next one.


O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust,
Return, ye sons of men:
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
With all their lives and cares,
Are carried downwards by the flood,
And lost in following years.

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Like flowery fields the nations stand
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering ere ‘tis night.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

From The Second World War by Winston Churchill, Vol. 3, p. 345:

On Sunday morning, August 10, (l94l) Mr Roosevelt came aboard H.M.S. PRINCE OF WALES and, with his Staff officers and several hundred representatives of all ranks of the United States Navy and Marines, attended Divine Service on the quarterdeck. This service was felt by all of us to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck…… the American and British chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers.. I chose the hymns myself.

We ended with “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” which Macaulay reminds us the Ironsides had chanted as they bore John Hampden’s body to the grave. Every word seemed to stir the heart. It was a great hour to live. Nearly half those who sang were soon to die.”

This hymn is inextricably linked, in my mind at least, with Churchill and with the heroism of the British people during World War II. In the final scenes of the WWII film Mrs. Miniver, as the people gather in a bomb-damaged church, the preacher exhorts them on remaining steadfast and faithful as the ST ANNE tune to O God Our Help in Ages Past plays in the background. According to Cyber Hymnal, the same hymn was played at Sir WInston Churchill’s funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London in 1965.

I know of two alternate tunes to this venerable hymn:

Sovereign Grace has a mp3 version that you can download for free if you like it.
My friend Hannah also has composed a tune setting for the lyrics to O God Our Help in Ages Past, and we sing her tune at my church. I wish you could hear it; she’s quite a talented composer.

I also found at iTunes a ST ANNE rendition by Bing Crosby, and I just had to buy it. I’m rather fond of Mr. Crosby’s crooning.

Sources:
Hymn History: O God Our Help in Ages Past.
Cyber Hymnal: O God Our Help in Ages Past.
W. G. Parker: An Historical Link With 1941 World War II.

Books Read in May, 2009

Jun1

Every Secret Thing by Ann Tatlock. A little too sweet for my tastes, this story about secrets, and recovered love, and unfulfilled dreams might be a treat for some other palates.

The Blood of Lambs by Kamal Saleem (with Lynn Vincent). Memoir of a former PLO terrorist, converted to Christianity and sworn to defend America by alerting Americans to the danger of terrorists among us.

The Trap by Joan Lowery Nixon. YA murder mystery. Nothing to write home about, but it’s an OK way to spend an hour or two.

Gringolandia by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Semicolon review of this YA novel set in Chile and in the U.S. among Chilean refugees, here.

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. I’m fairly sure this book looks inside the mind of a certain kind of adolescent male fairly accurately; I’m not sure I want to go there again anytime soon.

Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey. I’ve got to get a review written and posted of this mystery novel set in Ghana. Short version: good, but not anything like the Alexander McCall Smith books it’s compared to on the back cover.

Lavinia by Ursula K. LeGuin. The story of the Trojan hero Aeneas’s second or third wife (was Dido a wife?), Lavinia, a Latin princess for whom he founded the city of Lavinium, later part of Rome. THe book was OK, but I remember Ms. LeGuin as a more exciting and interesting writer.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. Semicolon review here plus a short list of favorite novelized fairy tales.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. R-e-a-l-l-y sure I don’t want to go here again anytime soon.

Tuck by Stephen Lawhead. I didn’t think this third book in Lawhead’s Robin Hood trilogy was as good as the first and second, but it did provide a satisfying ending

Ancient Highway by Bret Lott.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. I actually didn’t finish this Booker Prize-winning novel. Wikipedia says “the narrative is non-linear,” and I think that’s what wore me out so that I stopped halfway and never returned.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Odd, but the ending was satisfactory.

The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips. Semicolon review here.

Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Most Beloved Song by Steve Turner. Great book. Recommended. I’ll be writing more about this one as my hymn posts progress.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1, The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson. Finally, I read this one. It’s wonderfully evocative of the time period (American Revolution) with the language of the narrator reflecting the era and sadly educational (slavery), but I really wonder how many young adults, much less children, would make it through the first chapter.

Hymn #101: Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted

Jun1

Lyrics: Thomas Kelly, Hymns on Various Passages of Scripture, 1804.
Music: WO IST JESUS, MEIN VERLANGEN, German hymn tune.
Theme: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:4-5

Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
See him dying on the tree!
This is Christ, by man rejected;
Here, my soul, your Savior see.
He’s the long expected prophet,
David’s son, yet David’s Lord.
Proofs I see sufficient of it:
He’s the true and faithful Word.

Tell me, all who hear him groaning,
Was there ever grief like this?
Friends through fear his cause disowning,
Foes insulting his distress;
Many hands were raised to wound him,
None would intervene to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced him
Was the stroke that justice gave.

You who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed;
See who bears the awful load;
It’s the Word, the Lord’s Anointed,
Son of Man and son of God.

Here we have a firm foundation;
Here the refuge of the lost;
Christ, the rock of our salvation,
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.

The lyrics here have been modernized somewhat, but not so much as to lose the meaning. (Original lyrics at NetHymnal) I don’t know how to embed it, but you can listen to a beautiful version of this hymn by Fernando Ortega here.

I had never heard of this hymn, but as I was looking it up I did find another hymn by Thomas Kelly, an Irish preacher and hymn writer, that we sing at our church all the time: Look Ye Saints, the Sight Is Glorious (didn’t make the top 101 list). I rather think I like both of the two of Mr. Kelly’s hymns that I’m now acquainted with. I’ll play Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted for the urchins today, and we’ll make a stab at singing it. Thanks to Sarah, among others, for introducing me to this beautiful and meaningful hymn.

By the way we’re starting with #101 because numbers 99-101 on my compilation of votes were tied for points. Tomorrow, number 100 on the list! Hint: Tomorrow’s hymn was sung at the funeral of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, 1965.

The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips

May30

The Well and the Mine is Alabama author Gin Phillips’s first novel, and I’m impressed. The plot is simple: Nine year old Tess witnesses a tragedy on her own back porch, and she and her older sister, Virgie, try to figure out why a Mystery Woman threw a baby in their well. It’s very much a bildungsroman, a coming of age story, reminiscent of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. (OK, I’m not saying it’s as good as To Kill a Mockingbird, but the setting and themes are similar. And it is good.)

The well part of the title is indicative of the plot; the mine points to the setting. The story of Tess and VIrgie and their family takes place in the fictional mining town of Carbon Hill, Alabama, somewhere not too far from Birmingham. Tess’s daddy is a coal miner; her mother is a homemaker who works from dawn to late at night to put food on the table and make a life for herself, her husband, and her three children. Tess and Virgie have a little brother, Jack. They’re all good folks.

Each member of the family takes turns telling the story in first person from his or her point of view, sometimes for a few paragraphs and sometimes for several pages. This rotating narration was annoying at first. I had to keep looking back to the beginning of the section to the name in italics to see who was talking, who “I” was this time. But you get used to it, and this style of story-telling has the advantage of giving the reader a fuller view of what’s going on in the family, of family dynamics, of how different people see things. Each of the five narrators became a real person for me. I felt I knew them, and I was glad that Ms. Phillips saw fit to tell us over the course of the story, which mainly focuses on one summer in 1931, what happened to each family member in later life.

I’m glad I got to read this novel about life during the Great Depression in a coal-mining town in northern Alabama. I didn’t even know they had coal mines in Alabama. I associate coal mining with Kentucky and West Virginia. At any rate, if you’re a fan of the Southern novel, the summer-of-growing-up family slice of life novel, or the gentle, rambling, character-driven story of an historical era, The Well and the Mine will fit the bill. Recommended.

Two by Laurie Halse Anderson

May29

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2007.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Viking, 2009.

Ms. Anderson is a skilled writer. Her contemporary YA novel Speak was “haunting and memorable.” (Semicolon review here.) Twisted, written from a male protagonist’s point of view is, well, rather twisted, but also thought-provoking even now, three weeks after I’ve read the book and returned it to the library. Wintergirls, Ms. Anderson’s newest novel, is twisted, haunting, and memorable and eventually crosses the line into downright disturbing.

Put it this way: I let my fourteen year old read Speak because I thought it dealt with a subject she should know about and be on guard against. I let her read Twisted because I thought she was naive about teenage boys and the fact that even “nice” boys think about sex . . . a lot, especially when confronted with immodestly and skimpily clad teenage girls. Ms. Anderson did an excellent job of getting inside the mind of a fairly typical teenage boy without making him into a saint or a hero or a total scumbag.

However, I don’t want Brown Bear Daughter to read Wintergirls. I’m not saying that the book is poorly written or pornographic, but do I really want my dancer daughter who already deals with body image issues (as do most teen girls) to read, to become immersed in, the seriously disturbed thoughts of a suicidal anorexic teenage girl? To read WIntergirls is to become immersed in an alternative universe in which thin is fat, eating is evil, and the self is to be annihilated. It’s scary and dark and very real. The book does hold out some hope, but not much.

So what I’m saying that it’s so well written that I don’t want impressionable teens to read it. Forget impressionable teens, impressionable anyage should beware. Enter at your own risk. Parental guidance suggested for both books, but there is some worthwhile stuff here.

Reading Wintergirls made me pray for those I know who have dealt with eating disorders or who are still living in the thrall of anorexia or bulimia. Reading Twisted reminded me of what a dangerous and twisted world we live in.

Other Hymn Surveys

May28

The BBC’s Sunday show Songs of Praise surveyed Brits in 2005:
1. How Great Thou Art
2. Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by John Greenleaf Whittier.
3. The Day Thou Gavest
4. Be Thou My Vision
5. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
6. Be Still, For the Presence of the Lord
7. Make Me a Channel
8. Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer
9. In Christ Alone by Stuart Townsend and Keith Getty
10. Shine, Jesus, Shine by Graham Kendrick.

Favorite Hymns of United Methodists by Dean McIntyre (2006).
1. “Amazing Grace”
2. “Here I Am, Lord”
3. “How Great Thou Art”
4. “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”
5. “Hymn of Promise”
6. “In the Garden”
7. “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
8. “Holy, Holy, Holy”
9. “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”
10. “Spirit Song”; “Blessed Assurance”

Christianity Today had about 500 respondents to its survey in 2001 of favorite hymns and praise songs:
1. Amazing Grace
2. How Great Thou Art
3. Because He Lives
4. Great Is Thy Faithfulness
5. The Old Rugged Cross
6. What a Friend We Have In Jesus
7. To God Be the Glory
8. Majesty
9. Shout to the Lord
10. Holy, Holy, Holy

PopularHymns.com administered a poll from December 2007 to February 2008, and these were their top ten:
1. Amazing Grace
2. How Great Thou Art
3. In the Garden
4. Be Thou My Vision
5. Great Is Thy Faithfulness
6. It is Well
7. What A Friend We Have in Jesus
8. Blessed Assurance
9. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
10. Holy, Holy, Holy

I deduce from these other hymn poll results that:
1. Amazing Grace will be in my top ten unless a bunch of Brits get in and clog up the works with the likes of American poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
2. How Great Thou Art is likely to make the top ten, too, even though Brown Bear Daughter can’t stand it. She’s fond of minor key mysterious sounding hymns, and How Great THou Art is much too rolling, majestic, and triumphant for her teen emo sensibilities.
3. Methodists sing a couple of hymns the rest of us haven’t heard. Hymn of Promise?
4. I don’t understand the popularity of a certain hymn which shall remain nameless, but which reminds me of the poem The Old Oaken Bucket, sentimental and slightly vapid.
5. I’m mostly in agreement with all of these polls. These are all fine hymns.
6. My poll may be redundant, but I’m enjoying it anyway. Please send your list of top ten hymns in today so that I can enjoy more.

Pseudogamy

May26

Anthony Esolen at Mere Comments is writing a series of essays that he calls “Pseudogamy,” reflecting the sham and pretense that we as a society have made of the sacred institution of marriage. It’s worth reading in its entirety, but here are some selected quotes to whet your appetite.

Marriage — marriage such as Jesus defined it — is the foundation of society not simply because it is the best environment for raising children, though it is. It is the foundation because in it man and woman commit themselves one to another, as if they were, so to speak, gods freely bestowing freedom upon what they create.

I return to the notion of cosmos: order. Man and woman unite in marriage to bring into being a new generation; and even when they cannot do so, because of age or some physical defect, they may well wish to do so, or they stand for others as exemplars of the act that naturally brings forth children. All of which is to say that marriage that is open to children is part of the order created by God. Then marriage that is not open to children violates that order, and introduces into our understanding of marriage a destructive chaos.

In these two posts, Mr. Esolen says eloquently and intelligently some of the things I tried to start talking about in this post on marriage: that we have already lost the meaning of marriage before the activists and anti-Christians came along to try to put into statute and law what was already broken. I’m not saying that it’s a losing battle but rather that we will have to re-examine the fundamental Biblical meaning of marriage itself before we will be able to speak truth to our culture and, perhaps, change the course we are travelling toward the destruction of both marriage and family.

Pseudogamy 101 by Anthony Esolen.

Pseudogamy 102 by Anthony Esolen.