Garrison Keillor's response to a letter asking what is fresh lutefisk?

I subscribe to A Prairie Home Companion's weekly newsletter for one reason: to read the Post to the Host section.  I love GK's writing voice, his sense of pitch. He responds to random questions about writing, potato salad, giving a eulogy, bookstores, sons who lose a writing contest, music, and the meaning of fresh lutefisk.  [his full response to Sarah can be found by scrolling to the bottom of the link.]   If you enjoy this, there are archives back to January 1997. 

False sophistication.  Guilty as charged.  Bluffer, nodder, phony me. Feigned comprehension. I remember the day in 1982 when my SIL said she was feeling ambiguous and I had no clue what she meant but murmured a vague response to cover up my ignorance.   The person who helps me the most  in this area is my cousin's wife, who freely and naturally says "I don't know what that word means; could you explain it?"  It is so refreshing.  No pretense.  No sham.  Ask and it shall be given to you...

I do not, in my personal capacity,
believe that a baby gets his best physical food by sucking his thumb;
nor that a man gets his best moral food by sucking his soul,
and denying its dependence on God or other good things.
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
          ~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton in A Short History of England

I'm developing a mental and written list of specific authors and books to look for while we browse second-hand bookshops in Great Britain.  I'm specifically looking for British or Continental authors whose works are hard to find or hard to fund (pay for) in America.

Here's a start and I'd love reminders or suggestions from the audience!

G.K. Chesterton
Hilaire Belloc
John Buchan
O. Douglas
Thomas Chalmers
Leslie Thomas (new travel writer I just discovered - oh my!)
George MacDonald (obscure works perhaps?)
Arthur Quiller-Couch
Enid Blyton
Anthony Trollope

It's funny: when I take a trip, one of the overriding concerns is which book(s) to take along?  Now I'm wondering which books will come home and will I find a treasure there?

Full of happiness doubled by wonder,

The hymnal I'm most familiar with is the red Trinity Hymnal, the hymnal I used for this post. I learned about meters using the "by-guess-or-by-golly" self-teaching method.  Those were the days before you could go here.

C.M. means common meter.  The pattern is 8 syllables, 6 syllables, 8 syllables, 6 syllables, or 8.6.8.6.  Get your fingers out and start counting the most famous C.M. hymn:

It's named C.M. because it is so common.  Do you remember at camp singing these words to House of the Rising Sun?

S.M. stands for short meter.  6.6.8.6.

L.M. (long meter) has four lines of 8 as seen in Old Hundredth.  8.8.8.8.

D. after any meter means to double that meter, as if you are singing two verses in a row.  It Came Upon A Midnight Clear is an example of C.M.D.  Sweet Hour of Prayer is in L.M.D. as is St. Patrick's Breastplate.

C.M. ref. tells you that a refrain is tacked on to the verse.
C.M. rep. repeats the final phrase.  8.6.8.6.(6.)

Can you guess what al. means?  You can if I give you examples.   All Creatures of Our God and King is L.M. al.; Christ the Lord is Risen Today is 7.7.7.7. al.

Are you with me still? 

I know this is obscure and I know you are thinking and why do we care?  There was a time when my husband led worship and picked out hymns and praise songs.  He is not a musician.  He would read the hymn book, find a hymn appropriate with that week's message, and want to use it.  The problem was that no one knew that tune.  So we shamelessly substituted tunes.  We looked at the meter, went back to the meter index, and found a tune we knew which worked with those words. We swapped words and music like kids swap lunches in school cafeterias. 

Although the syllables match, the words and tunes don't always complement one another.  I remember in a surge of sophomoric silliness swapping words and tunes between Greensleeves and I Will Sing of My Redeemer, both 8.7.8.7. ref.   Never mind that one is a minor-tuned lullaby and the other a major-keyed Philip Bliss anthem.  Don't worry, I only did it in the privacy of my own home.

If you get your jollies out of this sort of thing, pretty soon the names of tunes become familiar to you. You get around church musicians who toss tune names around like infielders after an easy out.  

I'm telling you, there are curiosities abounding: Dam Buster's March cracks me up. Which dam were they busting when they sang that tune? Many tunes are named after saints, even little known saints like St. Etheldreda.  Geography grabs a large segment: countries such as Germany; cities such as Madrid, Jerusalem, and Dumferline; and even streets get their due: State Street and Park Street are two.  Some take the names of their composers, Haydn and Mozart, some tunes honor others, Moody and Rutherford.

Foreign languages abound: Latin - Sine Nomine, Lux Prima; German - SCHÜCKE DICH, and Es Ist Ein' Ros' Entsprungen [I love speaking these German names] ;Welsh - Ar Hyd Y Nos; French - Quelle Est Cette Odeur Agreable [we are glad the Agreable is in that name]; Swedish - Tryggare Kan Ingen Vara; and Polish - W Zlobie Lezy.

Certain tune names are lovely in their simplicity: Listening, Peace, Sweet Story and Cradle Song.  

So there it is.  Call me a nerd: I find this great fun.

My friend Tanabu Girl's last comment has tickled my noggin.  Her church (Missouri Synod Lutheran) has new hymnals with a small triangle next to the last verse of hymns when that last verse is a benediction to the Trinity (see the last verse of Only-Begotten as an example). The small triangle is a reminder to stand to sing that verse.  How glorious is that? 

I love hymnals.

We took a hymnal with us on our honeymoon, I love them that much.  I collect hymnals and have a shelf dedicated to my collection, close to the piano.  I love to compare renditions, find new verses which we never sing anymore, learn the names of tunes, interchange tunes, and finally play and sing through them. 

I'm sad at the thought of hymnals going the way of IBM Selectric typewriters.  I grieve at the trend of the modern church to sing off the wall.  Precious few choruses match the weight of glory that a hymn has. Praise songs come and go; most have the life span of a mosquito.  And even if we sing older hymns off the wall (you know I mean with a projector), we are singing in unison and miss the texture and depth of harmony.   We aren't even aware of what we have lost.

I'm not against new songs.  We're told to sing a new song to the Lord.  Most of our new songs, sadly, reflect the shallowness of our culture.  I'm thankful for the few which don't.

But I digress.  Hymnals are great devotional tools.  It is good to read through them.  A phrase may just attach itself to your soul.

A friend used this verse on baby shower invitations:

One of my favorite afternoons in the last five years was spent with a retired Canadian friend, Marjorie.  Marjorie grew up in the Anglican church as a child in Jamaica.  I had bags of basil plants which needed to be cleaned and trimmed to make pesto.  We stood together at the counter snipping leaves while singing to the music of A Vaughan Williams Hymnal, surely one of my favorite CDs of all time.  Dear Marjorie grew up on these hymns and had them memorized. We joined our voices, alternately thin and sketchy, bold and booming, and sang our hearts out. 

I have my eye on a hymnal which doesn't yet have a home on my shelf, The New English Hymnal. Of course, I'd need to get this too.  Did I mention that we will attend an Evensong at the York Minster? 

Do you have a favorite hymnal?  Do you remember a hymnal from your childhood?

To begin, you will not find the word awesome on any post I've written before this.  I only use the word to describe that which inspires awe.

The Lord is so kind.  The one hymn I've wanted for my funeral since I was 19 years old, Vaughan Williams' For All the Saints, is now regularly sung by my loved ones and fellow worshipers.  If I were to die tonight, I have all the confidence that my wishes to have this song sung at my funeral would be fulfilled.  I could not say that ten years ago.

After we had sung Only-Begotten, Word of God Eternal during communion today, I notified my husband that he only has to remember two hymns: For All the Saints and Only-Begotten.  This Latin hymn from the ninth century is one of the most potent expressions of worship.  The music (click on MIDI for a creepy electronic sound [I'm searching for a better version], print out the music free on Adobe) has a majesty and gravitas that is unparalleled. I am never able to sing through every verse.  Lumps, great lumps, arise.  The Trinitarian benediction is glorious. 

Gratefully,

Cleaning bookshelves.  Reshelving, reorganizing, touching, opening, reading.

I just can't help it.  I love my books.

Tools:
    A small vacuum cleaner to vacuum the dust off the tops
    An old cloth diaper to clean the shelves.
    A stool for those upper shelves.

Some books are going - sayonara.

Some books are old friends.  They bring me back to the place I was when I read them, or the people who discussed that book with me, or the events in my life when I was in the midst of that book.  I peek inside for an underlined bit, or look inside the front cover for a page number that's sure to be wonderful. 

Some books are patient friends waiting for a chance to get together and have tea. Every time I do this chore I look at my Harvard Classics "Famous Prefaces" and think awww, I'd love to read that book.

I set two books together as I would introduce friends of mine: I think you two will get along very well.

I remove a book which is so out place: What are you doing here?  You need to get back to your home.

If you've see Miss Potter, just imagine me talking to my books like she talked to her drawings.  You must see me smiling. 

Back to work...

~  Adjectival  forms of cities. 

The Glaswegian dialect (also called Glasgow patter*) can be particularly difficult to decode.  I learned the meaning of Glaswegian one evening this week and came across it the next day.  Finding a new vocabulary word the second time is more fun than the first.  Hey!  I know you!  (*So, noo thit yez ‘uv been telt  aboot the wye thit
Glesca punters yaze ra patter don’t yooz bloks try in’ make
iz look luk eejits thit cannae talk right oan yer fancy high
falutin’ American websites, awright!!)

My son and I watched Gaudy Night on Netflix Instant Watch.  As the movie opened on to an old English campus, Collin said "That looks Oxfordian"  (can you see me looking at you, mouthing the word with a wide-eyed questioning look and shrug ... Oxfordian?)  I delight in learning correct local appelations which make me feel less like a tourist and more like a temporary resident.  Coming from my son is sprinkles on top of Cold Stone. Oxfordian! 

~  Pansies.  There's nothing like an injection of color on a gray-white February day.  These girls need water, food, something.  But they give me great pleasure. $0.98 at the local box store.

~  New food experience: friends had us over and fixed seafood gumbo.  I learned that if it's called gumbo it has okra in it.  I never knew I liked okra!  Yum, yum!

~  Photography tutorials
 
    BetterPhoto.com  The courses cost $$, but free tips and great links abound
    PhotoSecrets.com  I'm soaking up "Great Landscape Photography"
    PhotoCourse.com  Clicking on sample chapter downloads the entire book.

~  Resurfaced notes.  I did a Grand Canyon Clean (very deep, took all day) of my desk and found this quote I scribbled down, no attribution, long before we were given a trip to Great Britain.

 

Lincoln Cathedral, Angel Choir, 1895 by Sally Maltby
Art.com More Sally Maltby

Happy Friday, my online friends,

Don't we all have a hollow stomach when it comes time to write a note or make a phone call to a friend who has experienced the death of a loved one?  It is awkward and difficult and uncomfortable.  Often we try to write what makes us feel better and miss the opportunity to be a true comfort to the bereaved.  

1.  I think the most common mistake we make is to gloss over the loss and go straight to the hope of the future, i.e. "I'm so sorry you lost your son in Iraq, but what a joy that you will see him again in heaven."  There is a time to every purpose under heaven, and that includes a time to mourn.  We need to allow time to process the loss, time to cry every tear in our body out, time to pull the blanket over our face and convulse. 

Why are we so impatient with pain? We are we so uncomfortable with grief, so anxious to sweep it up and dispose of it?  One of the most asinine things I've ever heard was spoken to my girlfriend whose eighteen year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver.  Three months had passed since the accident; a woman approached my girlfriend whose taut-as-a-drum face reflected her grief and asked, "Aren't you over it yet?"

2.   An easy way to slip-up is to gloss over the loss by going straight to the explanation.  We all become accountants and won't tolerate untidy loose strings of mystery.  Or we become a Fix-It Man who needs to fix whatever is broken.  What we say might be true...but the timing is false.  God does work all things together for good, a believer is undoubtedly happier in the presence of the Lord, the deceased is certainly spared more grief on this earth.  Expressions of faith -  "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord" - are sometimes articulated by the bereaved.  If she says it, accept it.  If she doesn't, don't force it.

3.  A less common error is to discount the loss.  After my dear neighbor lost her husband to a heart attack, another neighbor shrugged and dispensed his philosophy: "Well, we're all going to die sometime."  There is a temptation with the loss of a young child to use the fourth grade arithmetic skill of canceling:  "You can always have another child."  Or with the loss of an agéd parent, "At least she had a long and productive life."

4.  Those who have experienced the death of a loved one can be tempted to say, "I know just how you feel".  Don't do it, even if you are convinced it is true.  Every relationship is unique. 

When I write a note, I often employ the words of wiser and more articulate people.  This post is an attempt to gather together some of those words.

           from Galileo's daughter to Galileo, May 10, 1623.  Quoted in Galileo's Daughter

Any suggestions?  I plan to add to this post as I come across other notes.