Month: March 2007

  • Funeral Music

    Thanks to many who prayed for the service for my friends' son.

    Here's a list of prelude and postlude music I played. I tried to choose a mix between hymns, Celtic-sounding "mournful" music, and popular songs, keeping in mind that the group wasn't a highbrow audience.  For All the Saints and Softly and Tenderly wouldn't have been good choices this time.  I had intended to play What A Friend We Have in Jesus and regret forgetting it.

    Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus) by Chris Rice
    Homeward Bound by Marta Keen as heard played by William Joseph
    Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar
    Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy
    Grace by David Foster and William Joseph
    I Will Remember You by Sarah McLachlan
    Give Me Jesus, arranged by Fernando Ortega
    There Is a Fountain
    I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger
    People Get Ready, Eva Cassidy rendition

    Eva Cassidy is a new find - oh, mama, that girl could sing!! Sad story: she died (1996) at age 33 of cancer, an unknown singer.  One of her recordings got some air time in the UK and they went wacko-wild over her.  That popularity bounced back to the states.  Listen!!  If you have three and 1/2 minutes this is well worth your time. Have any of you heard her?

    The samples (# 7 and #11) of William Joseph are also excellent.   I would like to thank my sister and sister-in-law for their incredible help with song selections.  For you musicians out there, musicnotes.com was a lifesaver.  I could buy the music, download and print it in five minutes.  They also allow you to print the first page for free so you get an idea on the arrangement.  Bookmark that page!

    Do you have a song you would really like at your funeral or memorial service?

  • Clean Grief

    It's been a one-two punch week.

    I reconnected with an old friend after 25 years of silence.  We talked on the phone this week.  At one time we were very close, a mutual love of the Lord Jesus bonding us together.  Since then she has rejected what we once shared and switched to a different, wider path, enlightened thought and new allegiances.

    The next day brought news that our friend's son had taken his life.  There are no words.

    These are times of trouble; it's time to read Ecclesiastes.

    Sorrow can be such a complicated thing.  It easily gets muddied with regrets, splattered with the wrong actions of the deceased, splotched with omissions, and speckled with questions.  More than one friend has found evidence of gross immorality on his father's computer after his death.

    One of the gifts we can give to those we leave behind is the gift of clean grief.  The difference between clean and mucked-up grief is the difference between the cut of a surgeon's sterilized knife and the  puncture of a rusty nail.   Both are incredibly painful, both require a time of healing, and both leave scars; but the puncture requires much cleansing in order to heal.

    What brings clean grief?  Clean living - living by the law of God.  Regular confession, repentance, courage to confront the secret sins, honest evaluation, transparent friendships, the fear of God, trusting in Christ alone to cleanse.  

    What about when things go south?  When there is a murky mess left?  The first response should be, "there, but for the grace of God, go I".  Look for instruction, what can I learn from this?  Be silent. Finally, there is no viable option but to trust our Creator and leave it in His hands.  Read Ecclesiastes.

    The conclusion, when all has been heard, is:
    fear God and keep His commandments,
    because this applies to every person.
    Because God will bring every act to judgment,
    everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.
    Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

    Nothing in my hand I bring,
    simply to thy cross I cling;
    naked, come to thee for dress,
    helpless, look to thee for grace;
    foul, I to the Fountain fly;
    wash me, Savior, or I die.

      from Rock of Ages,
    Augustus Toplady

  • Simple Pleasures in March

    ~   Daffodils

    ~   Fresh chives

    ~   Open windows (not today, it's 35° out)

    ~   An empty ironing basket
    (there were capris from the fall at the bottom!)

    ~    Nourishing soups and grilling in the same month

    ~   The easiest, best bread...ever

    ~   Clean, weed-free dirt in the flower beds

    ~   Witnessing the flush of young love...in the spring

    ~ Tchaikovsky's music

  • Words

    Hey, all you word birds: do you have an "aha" moment when the meaning of word became clear to you?  Do share them; I love words and I love aha moments.

    I remember:

    window = wind hole
    to make manifest (make clear)  = comes from hitting palm (hand, manus) against forehead,
                                                        the action you make when you  "get it"

    Here are some words which have tickled me in my medieval history reading:

    Canterbury = Kent town (Augustine of Kent)
    vassal = Celtic word for boy
    cardinal = hinge of door (hinges of the great papal door)
    sheriff = shire reeve

    Janie once again has inspired me - this time to list new vocabulary I learn in my reading. If I wasn't sure-certain about a word, I looked it up.  What a great thing, because the author of this college textbook uses these words regularly. 

    vicissitude = changeable
    hegemony = preponderant influence, authority, especially one nation over others
    jejune = lacking nutritive value, dull, unsatisfying
    lugubrious = mournful
    compurgation = to clear completely, clearing of accused person by oaths
    fisc = a state or royal  treasury
    febrile = or or relating to fever, feverish
    autarky = self-sufficient, policy of establishing a self-sufficient and independent national economy
    abnegation = denial, especially self-denial
    nexus = connection, link, a connected group or series
    tautologies = needless repetition of ideas, statement or word
    efflorescence = period or state of flowering, blossoming, culmination
    turpitude = depravity, inherent baseness
    apotheosis = deification, quintessence, the perfect example
    eremitic = a recluse or hermit, especially a religious recluse
    cenobitic = member of a convent, from koinos, common + bios, life

    When I looked up the last two, I found this quirky poem.  Does anyone understand the last two lines?  Will you make them manifest to me, please? 

        O Coenobite, O coenobite,
            Monastical gregarian,
        You differ from the anchorite,
            That solitudinarian:
        With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
        With dropping shots he makes him sick.
                                           Quincy Giles

    [Addendum: 
    Old Nick = the Devil.
    you = cenobite, one from a group 
    vollied prayers = simultaneously discharged, from a group
    dropping shots = anchorites besides being alone were on mountain tops
    he = anchorite
    him = Old Nick]

  • Eat Drink Man Woman

                                                                        HT: Sweetbriar Patch    

    Eat Drink Man Woman directed by Ang Lee, the director of Sense and Sensibility, is a foreign film about family and food set in Taiwan.  The opening scenes are sumptious shots of food preparation.  

    Mr. Chu, a senior chef, fixes an abundant feast each Sunday for his three grown daughters.  There is no connectedness between them and the weekly meal is a hodge-podge of clipped communication, random announcements, and dutiful picking at the food.  The daughters dread the "Sunday torture" as they call it and we all mourn the wasted opportunity, the wasted effort of Mr. Chu, the senseless charade.  The girls want to break away, seeking a romantic liason to provide their ticket out of the family.  

    Even Mr. Chu realizes that life is adrift:  "Eat, drink, man, woman. Basic human desires. Can't avoid them. All my
    life, that's all I've ever done. It pisses me off. Is that all there is
    to life?"       As the family structure changes, we learn more about each one's relationship to food and eating.  I anticipated the movie ending with a final feast of reconciled relationships.  It does end with a small feast, a poignant inversion of the opening scene.

    I'm quite taken with foreign films, especially ones set in modern
    times.  They offer slices of daily life in the local culture.  The
    opening sequence begins with motorcycles roaring down a highway and
    pans to the quiet serenity of the kitchen, with its small, satisfying sounds of a knife on wood.  The home is a quiet sanctuary from the bustling, urban milieu outside. An interesting twist in the culture of Taiwan is the role of Christianity in the life of the eldest daughter. She prays aloud before each feast while her family waits, tolerant, indifferent and silent.  

    As I babbled on to Curt about this movie, he asked the best question (he excels at good questions):  What would this film be like if it were redeemed?   I pondered and experienced a brief moment of clarity: the food stuff was exquisite.  It inspired me to take more care with my meals, menus and presentations.  But it was not done for the glory of God.  The most delicious food, prepared with love, presented in glorious array is not enough.

    It was strange to be processing my thoughts about this movie I watched on Saturday as we enjoyed a four-generation family feast at my son's house on Sunday.  The smells of garlic and salmon wafted through the house as we talked, lingered, and then gathered around the table.  That there was no occasion to celebrate gave an even richer significance to the evening.   
       

  • Love of Learning

    There are some who wish to learn
    for no other reason than
    that they may be looked upon as learned,
    which is ridiculous vanity. . .

    Others desire to learn
    that they may
    morally instruct others;
    that is love.

    And, lastly, there are some
    who wish to learn
    that they may be
    themselves edified;
    and that is prudence.

    ~ St. Bernard of Clairvaux
    c. 1145
    trans. S. J. Eales

    This quote is on the front page of the book I'm currently reading, The Civilization of the Middle Ages, by Norman F. Cantor.

    How does this quote strike you? 

    My answer would be "it all depends on the subject."  There are some subjects which I barely learn enough to guide my student.  In fact, I just don't go there.  Every road must have some potholes, and every one of my students has gaps in their knowledge and understanding which will need to be filled in the future.  We do minimums, we all know that, we leave it on the table and walk on by. 

    In other areas I have a hunger, a propelling thirst.  I want to understand, I  need to see the connections; I know I'm ignorant (without knowledge) but I want more than the rudiments. I desire discernment, analysis, and synthesis. 

  • Fine Art Friday - Millet in March


    The Wood Sawyers (1850-1852)
    Jean-François Millet

    For other Fine Art Friday entries, click on the fineartfriday tag to the left.

  • Today's Poem

                 Grace for a Child
                    Robert Herrick

           Here a little child I stand,
           Heaving up my either hand;
           Cold as Paddocks though they be,
           Here I lift them up to Thee,
           For a Benizon to fall
           On our meat, and on us all.  Amen.

           Paddocks are toads, Benizon means blessing

  • The Top 100 Books

    The Telegraph reports on a poll in Britain in which people were asked to name ten books they couldn't live without and the top contenders are on this list. Ever since Cindy posted her list (others have also but I'm too lazy to track them down),  I've thought it would be fun to be a copycat.  It's just for fun, Okay?

    So here's my list: ones I've read are bold, ones I'd like to read are italic, ones I'm ?clueless? about ??

    1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

    2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

    3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

    4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - I read the first two books, to only Harry is in bold

    5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - it's time to re-read this one (updated 2010: I did!)

    6 The Bible

    7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

    8= Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

    8= His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

    10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

    11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

    12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

    13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

    14 Complete Works of Shakespeare  I'm trying to read four a year, I've probably read 1/4

    15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

    16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

    17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

    18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

    19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ???

    20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

    21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

    22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

    23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

    24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

    25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

    26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

    27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky  I really liked the Brothers Karamozov, C & P is on my shelf

    28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

    29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

    30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

    31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

    32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

    33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

    34 Emma - Jane Austen

    35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

    36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

    37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

    38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

    39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

    40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

    41 Animal Farm - George Orwell  

    42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

    43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez  I'm not sure if I want to (2010 update: on my shelf)

    44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

    45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

    46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

    47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

    48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood ???

    49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

    50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ??? (2010: on my shelf)

    51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel ???

    52 Dune - Frank Herbert ???

    53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ???  (2010: on my wish list)

    54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

    55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth  I almost bought this book based on a recommendation, but it's over 1,000 pages. Yikes!

    56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ??

    57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

    58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

    59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon  I hate to admit this, but I read this in a Reader's Digest Abridgment, in a doctor's office or something like that

    60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ???

    61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

    62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

    63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ???

    64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ???

    65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

    66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

    67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

    68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

    69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

    70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

    71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

    72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

    73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

    74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ??? (2010: on my shelf)

    75 Ulysses - James Joyce you've got to be kidding, right, THIS book is on this list?

    76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath ? one ? means I've heard of it, but...barely

    77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome  on my bookshelf, does that count?

    78 Germinal - Emile Zola

    79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray I've never read Thackeray; really would like to (2010 update: read it!)

    80 Possession - AS Byatt ???

    81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

    82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ???

    83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

    84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

    85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

    86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ???

    87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

    88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn

    89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

    90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton Oh! She is my friend's favorite children's author! Very Hard to find in the US, very Dear in the British sense of the word

    91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

    92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery This was the best part of French 3 in high school

    93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ???

    94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

    95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ???

    96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ??? (2010: I watched the movie, does that count? grins)

    97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

    98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

    99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

    100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

    Do you have any knowledge about books with ???  Either "definitely don't waste your time" or "I can't believe you haven't heard of ___; it's marvelous." 

    We could make a list, couldn't we precious, of all the wonderful books that are not on this list. 

  • Spring 2007

    What spring looks like in Eastern Oregon

    The year's at the spring,
    And day's at the morn;
    Morning's at seven;
    The hillside's dew-pearled;
    The lark's on the wing;
    The snail's on the thorn:
    God's in His Heaven--
    All's right with the world!

    ~ Robert Browning


    "There's nothing remarkable
    about [making music].

    All one has to do
    is
    hit the right keys
    at the right time
    and
    the instrument
    plays itself."

    ~ Johann Sebastian Bach 
    born today in 1685.


    I believe
    that every person
    ought to have
    a regular dollop
    of J.S. Bach.

    ~ Magistra Mater

    There was more color last year.