Kingdomtide 2008

We're Moving!

2008-07-31T23:54:00.004-05:00

Well, not in a physical sense, and not me and my family. I merely meant that my weblog has moved to:

http://web.me.com/dougsmith

Please change your bookmarks accordingly and I'll meet you there!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Apps for Apple(s)

2008-07-31T14:32:00.004-05:00

When I was a freshman at the University of Tulsa, the Student Council held a "Dance for Those Who Can't" event to raise money for muscular dystrophy. If memory serves me correctly, the big-hearted (if somewhat insensitively-named) soiree was styled as an old-time dance marathon and students recruited sponsors who would pledge so much money for every hour the dancers lasted.

Then, about 10 years ago, I was in Seattle and went to a Mariners game (in the dreaded Kingdome). One of the scoreboards on the third-base side had a "K's for Kids" counter, sponsored by MicroSoft. For every strike thrown by a Mariners pitcher, Bill Gates would donate something like $10,000 to a children's charity.

I mention all this as a roundabout way to elaborate on my post this morning about the iPhone apps. As far as I can tell, Apple's favorite charity is Apple. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose (and there's always the possibility of "good things being done in secret"), but they must be raking in the dough. Good for them.

I recommended the Bible, Morse Code and Cowbell Plus apps earlier. Coach Jim also encouraged me to get the WeightTrack app (for our diets). In addition, I have Shopper (for groceries) and iExpenseIt (to keep track of expenses). All of these are easy to use and have proven to be a help in daily life.

Two questions:

(1) What other Apps have you found helpful?

(2) Who knows what the "i" before all the Apple programs stands for?

iTunes Saw Me Coming

2008-07-31T11:17:00.004-05:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had downloaded "a few" things from iTunes the other night. Well, I got the bill in the email this morning. Between the songs and the new Apps for the iPhone . . . somebody tell Mr Jobs that he can order the new cabinets.

Morse-It, v1.0, Seller: Francis Bonnin $0.99
Bible, v1.1, Seller: LifeChurch.tv Free
Prayer for Home (Fernando Ortega) $0.99
Coyote (Joni Mitchell) $0.99
Song for Sharon (Joni Mitchell) $0.99
I Go to Extremes (Billy Joel) $0.99

Not Home Yet (Steven Curtis Chapman) $0.99
Fly Me to the Moon (Frank Sinatra) $0.99
Come Fly With Me (Frank Sinatra) $0.99
I've Got You Under My Skin (Frank Sinatra) $0.99
The Lady Is a Tramp (Frank Sinatra) $0.99
The Best Is Yet to Come (Frank Sinatra with Count Basie and His Orchestra) $0.99
Witchcraft (Frank Sinatra) $0.99
That's Life (Frank Sinatra) $0.99
You Can Call Me Al (Paul Simon) $0.99
Graceland (Paul Simon) $0.99
Under African Skies (Paul Simon with Linda Ronstadt) $0.99
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (The Police) $0.99
Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte (Boston Symphony Orchestra) $0.99
Seven Days (Sting) $0.99
Big Lie, Small World (Sting) $0.99
Pie Jesu (Sarah Brightman) $0.99
The Dangling Conversation (Simon and Garfunkel) $0.99
Punky's Dilemma (Simon and Garfunkel) $0.99
April Come She Will (Simon and Garfunkel) $0.99
Me and Julio Down By the School Yard (Paul Simon) $0.99
Kodachrome (Paul Simon) $0.99
The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkel) $0.99
Who's That Man (Toby Keith) $0.99
Cowbell Plus, v1.0, Seller: Frontier Design Group, LLC $1.99
In a Big Country (Big Country) $0.99
(Cross The) Heartland (Pat Metheny Group) $0.99
The Red Plains (Bruce Hornsby) $0.99

Grand Total: $32.68

As for the Apps, let me heartily recommend the Bible (it includes 30-some versions and it's free) and the Morse Code (because you never know when you'll be out in the woods and need your iPhone screen to flash out a message). And, of course, if you've ever had that nagging thought that life "needs more cowbell", Cowbell Plus is for you. It also comes with various other sounds, including a tambourine that would make Susan Dey and Davy Jones jump for joy. You play the instruments by shaking the phone.

For a Friday evening's entertainment, I think it was money well-spent.

Top of the Thirty-First

2008-07-31T08:02:00.002-05:00

I realized that I had forgotten to "post" an entry on the 24th - a look back at the famous "Pine Tar Incident" involving George Brett, his bat, Billy Martin, and the Royals-Yankees game on July 24, 1983. That was 25 years ago, if you can believe it.

Anyway, scroll down to the posts on the 24th for some detail and a picture of the bat in question.

Of Peaches and Pavanes

2008-07-30T22:21:00.004-05:00

I have so much to be thankful for - more than I could ever possibly put down in writing - so let me just offer two things from this evening:

Porter Peaches: For those of you outside of Eastern Oklahoma, may I commend to you these slices (no pun intended) of Heaven? We made our annual trek to Porter a week ago, and bought a few bushels. They have continued to improve with the passing of time. I have at least one a day. Yesterday for lunch, I had a peach and a homegrown Beefsteak tomato that Jan Honaker so kindly gave me. The Lord knew what he was doing when He made Summer!

Ravel's Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte: The other night, my friend Michael Homan was over. We were practicing for Michael to sing (and me to play piano) at a house blessing that our buddy Jim was going to. As we listened to the song on iTunes, one thing led to another and I got in a buyer's mode, purchasing songs I hadn't thought about in years. Michael (who is technically young enough to be my son) surprised me by knowing the lyrics to "Punky's Dilemma" by Simon & Garfunkel. I then learned that he and his best friend growing up were huge S&G fans in Minnesota. So there was more downloading and great rejoicing by all! But I'm getting off the subject. I also (as I was pressing "Buy Now" for everything from Sting to Frank Sinatra to Toby Keith) thought of Maurice Ravel and, sure enough, found the Boston Symphony Orchestra's recording of the Pavane. In fact, it's playing now. I like this version because it takes 6:19. By contrast, the Chicago Symphony recording lumbers along for 6:48. Normally, I think the world of the CSO, but the Boston recording is darn-near the perfect tempo. And the music! It's like Porter peaches for your ears! I think it is my favorite piece of music ever.

Single Digits

2008-07-30T22:05:00.002-05:00

You all know I'm a huge fan of James Lileks' daily Bleat. Yesterday, he had a picture of a new Flintstones-based cereal. I was taken aback at how scary Dino (the pet dinosaur's) hands were. And that got me thinking about digits.

The President's latest approval number stands at 28%. Wow, that seems low. But hold on. Congress is at a whopping 9%. For those still keeping score, that's one-third of the President's. It's the lowest ever.

And remind me again . . . who controls Congress?

"We Know Where He Stands"

2008-07-29T11:23:00.004-05:00

Bob Tyrrell's latest piece in The American Spectator makes a case for Senator McCain, even as it points out the deficiencies of Senator Obama's resume. The main point of the article is to elaborate on McCain's integrity - and to contrast his life of public service with Obama's "community service".

Mr Tyrrell also seeks to assuage some of the fears of those of us on the right:

Ironically, and notwithstanding McCain's waywardness, he is conservatism's best chance to win the White House: for he can attract Reagan Democrats and independents. Many conservatives have been understandably critical of some of the Arizona senator's feints to the Kultursmog, but for the most part he is conservative, a maverick conservative yet one who will be campaigning on a platform shaped by four decades of the modern conservative movement's policy desiderata. Moreover, whereas the Republican backsliders on the Hill have deceived us, McCain has been forthright in his disagreements with us. We know where he stands.

The article also touches on McCain's Naval record and the "richly heritage" of service he inherited from his father and grandfather. It is a story that should receive more play.

Mr Tyrrell ends with this suggestion to Senator McCain:

Still, in the months ahead John McCain needs to speak more to his base and reassure its members. Then there is one thing more. John, find a dramatist among the Republican image consultants to present your extraordinary life of service as the heroic narrative that it is. Humility has no place in modern politics.

Ich bin ein Beginner

2008-07-24T22:15:00.001-05:00

Senator: You're no Jack Kennedy.

The Pine Tar Incident

2008-07-24T07:18:00.005-05:00

Here's a shocker: it was 25 years ago today that George Brett was ejected from the Royals-Yankees game for supposedly putting too much pine tar on his bat. Well, technically, he was ejected from the game for threatening the umpire to within an inch of his life - he was merely erroneously called out for using too much pine tar.

It's hard to believe that this all took place a quarter of a century ago.

If you remember, on July 24, 1983, the Yankees were hosting the Royals and it came to the ninth inning. The Royals were down 4-3 and George came to bat against Goose Gossage. He hit a two-run homer, seeming to put the the Royals up 5-4. As Brett rounded the bases, Yankees manager Billy Martin walked out and complained to the umpire that George's bat had too much pine tar on it. (Pine tar is a legal substance that helps a batter's grip, but it is not supposed to extend more than 18 inches up the bat - George had 24 inches on his). The bat was produced for inspection, and the Umpire Tim McClelland called George out.

That's when the fireworks started. Brett charged the field. I still remember the look of his body: as he streaked toward the umpire, every possible square inch was smashed up against the leading plane of his motion. It was like he was a massive, two-dimensional object about to flatten the ump. There was a huge row and George was thrown out of the game. The Yankees appeared to win the game 4-3.

It turns out that Billy Martin and the Yankees had been noticing George's pine tar usage for some time and were waiting for the opportune moment to protest it. The problem is that the rule does not allow for the batter to be called out, merely that the offensive bat be removed from the game.

The Royals protested the game and American League President Lee McPhail (a former Yankee executive, by the way) allowed the protest. The teams came back together later in the season to finish the game. Sly old Billy Martin had one last shot: he now appealed the play and said that the umpires had no way of knowing if the runners had touched all the bases.

Now, you all know I'm a huge Yankees fan, but here's where I think justice was still done, even with a comic touch. The umpires then produced affidavits stating that the runners had indeed touched all the bases on their way to home. The score stood at 5-4, the Yankees failed to produce any runs in the bottom of the ninth, and the Royals won the game.

So, 25 years ago today, baseball gained another bit of folklore for the ages. The bat in question even resides in Cooperstown (thanks to "mattingly23" on Wikipedia for the picture):

This is all a great diversion for the Dog Days of Summer, and it also got me thinking about a couple of current things. Seeings as how I can still love the Yankees even when they were dead wrong about the bat, I think that's how I feel about both Senator McCain and the Presbyterian Church (USA). I already know that I'm going to disagree with a President McCain about 35-40% of the time, but on the fundamental issues, I trust him.

And the PC(USA)? Boy, are they making some bone-headed calls lately. But I don't think this is the time to jump ship. For the present, I'm planning on staying within the denomination - at least until they kick me out. But, like Umpire Tim McClelland, they sure are misreading the "Rule Book".

Maxfield Parrish at 9 o'clock

2008-07-21T22:00:00.003-05:00

While this post may sound like a World War II fighter pilot's declarative, it's actually a statement about the beauty of the evening. After dinner at McGill's, I stepped outside and witnessed a beautiful post-sunset blueness on the western horizon. You expect icebergs, even though it's ninety. If there had been a cornfield, Shoeless Joe Jackson would have stepped out of it. It makes you wonder if, on the evening of that first Pentecost, Peter and his friends encountered just such a sky, and then talked for a while about all the amazing things that happened that day.

A special wish for my friends Jim and Diane, celebrating 24 years of marriage today!

Top of the Third

2008-07-03T07:03:00.001-05:00

I will always obey your law,
for ever and ever.
I will walk about in freedom,
for I have sought out your precepts.
I will speak of your statutes before kings
and will not be put to shame
- Psalm 119:44-46

Top of the Twelfth

2008-06-12T07:45:00.001-05:00

The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.

- Philippians 1:18-19

The Shape of the Union

2008-06-10T10:36:00.005-05:00

To all my fellow cartographers:

I love maps. I can sit and look at them for hours. I had a AAA membership for years just so I could pick up a map on a whim.

If you suffer from this disorder like me, you know that it's more than just the quest for knowledge or information about a particular region. The maps themselves take on an almost living quality. The interplay of the boundaries, the movement of the rivers and roads - they set up a rhythm and resonance of their own.

And, just in time for Fathers' Day, here comes the book How the States Got their Shapes by Mark Stein. Please note the spelling: this is not the Mark Steyn I often reference, but this fellow is equally well-versed in his field. David Mark's review of Mr Stein's book begins:

While Mark Stein's University of Wisconsin classmates were protesting the Vietnam War, he had a different set of concerns: How come Michigan has that whole separate section that's actually attached to Wisconsin? Why does Delaware
exist and why isn't it just part of Maryland?

If, like me, you've ever wondered about such matters (and had the same set of priorities in college), enjoy!

Running Water and Fireflies

2008-06-06T20:57:00.002-05:00

Two things were clarified today:

First, we have been blessed with a plethora of fireflies this early summer. I've always known I love fireflies, but this season has been a special favorite.

Second, we've been - maybe not blessed, but - experiencing a lot of rain this past month. It's maybe not up to Biblical proportions yet, but there's been a lot of it. But as I was taking Chester for a walk this afternoon, we walked by a storm drain and the sound of running water reminded me of how much I love to be by a brook. I am determined now to incorporate some sort of water feature on the patio.

And, if "plethora" is not the correct descriptor for a group of fireflies, please let me know.

Top of the Second

2008-06-02T04:16:00.000-05:00

. . . so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
- Hebrews 9:28

Walk-Off Single

2008-05-31T21:31:00.005-05:00

As we head into the new game of June tomorrow, here's a thought:

I need to replace the light bulb in the lamp by my bed. After an unsatisfying presual of the light bulbs at Sam's (every single one was the new, mercury-laden, compact flourescent kind), I decided to look elsewhere. But it got me thinking:

Pretty soon, the government will be telling me what kind of lightbulb I can use in the lamp on my bedside table. Also, they will probably be telling me where I can set my thermostat at night.

So, the next time the so-called "liberals" in our society tell me that they want to get the government out of our bedrooms, I'm ready to tell them what a bunch of liars I think they are.

But then, I've always known that they were liars.

St Paul's "Desiderata"

2008-05-28T07:16:00.007-05:00

To our graduates:

I'm showing my age here. Back when I was in high school, there was a little "prose poem" that was all the rage, called the Desiderata. The word is Latin for "desired things", and for a while in the late 60s and early 70s, you couldn't walk into a gift shop, poster store, or - most likely - a mainline church without seeing the words on a poster.

The poem's origins were shrouded in mystery at the time, adding to its popularity. That seemed to be a recurring theme, about annually there for a while, where the popular culture would get all involved in trying to decipher ambiguous or mysterious song lyrics. Ask your elders sometime about the whole "Paul is dead" thing, or about Don McLean's American Pie song.

Anyway, the poem Desiderata was actually penned by Max Ehrmann, an attorney from Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1927. In his diary, Mr Ehrmann wrote: I should like, if I could, to leave a humble gift -- a bit of chaste prose that had caught up some noble moods. And then he began with the now famous line, "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence . . ." In 1969, the Rev Frederick Kates, the Rector of St Paul's Church in Baltimore, used the Desiderata in a series of devotionals for his congregation. As the devotional materials were passed around and the Desiderata gained in popularity, people believed that the poem was found in the church because of the devotional's heading of "Old St Paul's Church AD 1692".

Wikipedia reports: "As of 1977, the rector of St. Paul's Church was not amused by the confusion. Having dealt with the confusion "40 times a week for 15 years," he was sick of it." It seems that "Exasperation 101" was a required course in Episcopal seminaries even back then.

So even if Old St Paul's Church was merely a clearinghouse for the poem and not its source, the church's namesake nevertheless wrote of similar "desired things" in the twelfth chapter of the book of Romans. I offer you St Paul of Tarsus' "humble gift": some "chaste prose" that definitely catches some "noble moods":

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Share with the Lord's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not think you are superior.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.
If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
On the contrary:
If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

- Romans 12:9-21 (Today's New International Version)

And so, dear graduates, "go placidly amid the noise and haste" and know that "whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." In other words, the Lord reigns and he loves you. My prayer for you is that you make it your heart's desire to love and serve Him all your days.

Line of the Night

2008-05-26T09:16:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Return of the Jedi, Jason had the line of the evening. We were watching the scene where Han and Leia are trying to hack into the control bunker for the big parabolic dish. C3PO and R2D2 are up the hill and the Ewoks are all around. C3PO gets the idea to draw the Imperial Storm Troopers away from Han and Leia. He calls to the Storm Troopers and they come running to them. Then, the Ewoks begin their ambush of the Storm Troopers.

Jason said, "I always thought they missed an opportunity for a line here. When the Storm Troopers see C3PO and R2D2, one of them should have said, 'Son of a bitch - these are the droids we were looking for!"

Common Ground

2008-05-26T09:09:00.001-05:00

Here's something I never would have thought: Rambo, the Ewoks, and Arnold Schwarzenegger have a lot in common. Spike TV was running an action marathon last evening and we saw Rambo: First Blood, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, and Predator. And what was the common thread? In all of them, the good guys improvised with items found in nature to devise methods of attack. There seemed to be a theme of making large horizontal poles with deadly wooden spikes - even the furry little Ewoks got into the act.

I went to bed after Predator - maybe there was a MacGyver episode to round out the evening.

Top of the Twentieth

2008-05-20T06:23:00.001-05:00

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Romans 15:5-6

On the Other Hand

2008-05-14T15:25:00.001-05:00

The California Supreme Court may have just handed John McCain all the electoral votes of our most populous state.

Top of the Twelfth

2008-05-12T07:38:00.003-05:00

Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.

Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands -

O prosper the work of our hands!

Psalm 90:16-17

I'm Officially Old (Part 3)

2008-05-10T18:11:00.003-05:00

Today was our annual Day of Care at church. The Deacons sponsor this day and teams go out to homes where people need a little extra help - some gutters cleaned or flowers planted. Special thanks to my friend, Deacon Bill Savage, for chairing the effort. Bill, you've set the bar very high for next year!

But here's where I'm feeling old. Our team headed out to east of Broken Arrow to replace a man's hot water heater and shore up the subflooring. I told one of our team members that they could follow me. I punched the address into my GPS as we waited at one of the lights downtown. The nice woman's computerized voice came on and said, "Continue forward for point-two miles" . . . and I did - without even looking to see that I had a red light!

I'm Officially Old (Part 2)

2008-05-10T18:08:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, as I walked out of the locker room at the Health Club, there was a big reception going on. The nuns, doctors and nurses of the hospital were all chatting over cocktails and hors d'ouevres. I noticed that everyone was staring at me and thought, well, I'm not dressed up like you all, but so what.

Then I got into my truck and noticed that I was unzipped.

But that's not the worst part. This is the third time in a couple of weeks that this has happened.

I'm Officially Old (Part 1)

2008-05-10T18:07:00.001-05:00

Today, for the fourth time in five days, I noticed that I had been driving with my turn signal blinking - who knows how long.

But it gets worse . . .

Bottom of the Ninth

2008-05-09T23:08:00.001-05:00

As we head into extra innings this month, here's a great quote from James Lileks today:

The future should never come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention.

Have a good night!

Top of the Fifth

2008-05-05T07:42:00.001-05:00

The Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.

- Deuteronomy 15:10

Bottom of the Third

2008-05-03T21:13:00.004-05:00

Couldn't let the day pass without wishing two of my friends Happy Birthday: Barry Friedman and Erick Devine. They're both in their "golden years" now, so be nice to them. They're also both so good on the stage that they would have made fine attorneys, but Barry's a comic and Erick is an actor, so it's nice to know that they chose more honorable professions!

Barry can be seen all over the hemisphere headlining at comedy clubs and is also the author of three books recounting his life on the road. Barry's wife, Susan, is an accomplished songwriter and singer.

Erick has acted all over the world and has appeared on Broadway in Cats, Ragtime, and others. He is also General Schmitz on the original Broadway cast recording of Seussical, the Musical by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrends.

Happy birthday, fellows!

Extra! Extra!

2008-05-03T07:39:00.002-05:00

Read all about Lindsay and Chester in the Tulsa World today! The article is linked here. Thanks to Cory Young from the World for this picture and to Kim Brown for the article!

Not Ashamed of the PC

2008-05-02T22:21:00.004-05:00

Thanks, Reverend Michael, for the link to Pastor Dan Kimball's post about the rise of militant Macscism (my term: Rev Kimball was much nicer about it). It's intended to be a funny post, but it also spoke of some things that I have witnessed first-hand as a Windows user.

Can't we all just get along?

Top of the First

2008-05-01T05:28:00.002-05:00

And a very special day it is, too!

At this very time (5:28am) 24 years ago (1984), our lives were blessed beyond measure when Lindsay Katherine made her debut into this world. And it has been blessing upon blessing ever since.

Happy birthday, darling!

"I thank my God every time I remember you." - Philippians 1:3

The Pronunciations They Are a Changin'

2008-04-30T22:48:00.006-05:00

As we close out the game of April and head into May (with a very special first inning), here's an observation:

I was watching the highlights of the Bostons v. Atlanta basketball game and thought:
Boston: don't get smug. You have - 4.9 million people; Atlanta has 5.3 million. There was a shift. Get over it.

But second (and apropos to this post):
We still refer to the Celtics with a soft "C" sound, even though everything else celt-related has now been modified to a hard "C" (or "K") sound.

When I was a young boy, my first dog was named Hailey. He was a Schipperke and we pronounced his name the same as Halley's Comet: with a long "A". By the time the comet made its pass, though, we were admonished to pronouce it with a short "A".

And speaking of dogs and pronunciations, there's the whole Peking/Beijing thing. The city has been renamed (or at least repronounced) as Beijing, but the dogs (and I use the term advisedly) are still "Pekingnese" and we still order "Peking Duck" at the restaurant. I'm not sure why we made the switch when we haven't respelled Munich or Moscow to Munchen or Mockba. For that matter, we don't bother to be precise on the pronunciations of Paris, Budapest, Mexico, or Quebec, to name just a few. But we do differentiate between Notre Dame and Notre Dame, depending on which place we're talking about.

Just a little pre-game warmup as we head into the inning of May.

Concessions from the Scouting Group

2008-04-29T20:33:00.001-05:00

Tonight, the Scouting Group ate at the Bonefish Grill. It was the second time in the past week and it is quickly becoming a new favorite. Tonight's entree, the Chilean Sea Bass grilled over wood, was as good as a steak (and I mean that as a compliment). The other night, I had the wood-grilled Grouper and was equally impressed.

The atmosphere is nice and relaxed (we ate in the bar area both times) and the televisions in the bar (I know: we've already lost that battle) were at least silent, but get this: our first trip they were set on a baseball game and tonight they were playing the Food Network! I'm sold.

The Art of Song

2008-04-28T10:55:00.003-05:00

Mark Steyn, one of the Designated Hitters here at the Park, knocked another homerun this morning with his Song of the Week. I'll let you read it at your leisure, but I loved what he wrote about the "art of song":

Sooner or later someone staples words to just about every popular jazz instrumental. But, from Duke Ellington's "Take The A Train" to Bill Evans' "Waltz For Debby", they somehow never quite convince you they're anything other than instrumental pieces to which a lyric has been appended. They fail the test of that marvelous Encyclopedia Britannica definition that Ira Gershwin liked to quote:
SONG is the joint art of words and music, two arts under emotional pressure coalescing into a third.

With lyricized instrumentals, they rarely "coalesce" in the way that, say, "Ol' Man River" or "Over The Rainbow" do. It's like putting words to Beethoven's Fifth: You can do it but the lyric winds up riding the tune like a jockey, rather than achieving, as the Britannica puts it, the status of a third, joint art.

The Tithe of Time

2008-04-27T13:44:00.004-05:00

Coach Jim today gave the best sermon I have ever heard on stewardship, tithing, and all things related. In his characteristic style, he was able to illuminate such a touchy subject without alienating segments of the audience - while at the same time being true to the biblical witness. That's my boy! His text was 1 Timothy 6:17-19 -

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

I have a theory that our Sabbath observance is also a tithe - of time. And, by extension, I believe that 7 hours and 12 minutes is a good night's sleep. Let me explain.

There are seven days in a week and 24 hours in each day. That makes 168 hours in a week. One-tenth (a "tithe") is 16.8 hours, or 16 hours and 48 minutes. That seems to be basically one "waking-hour" day. So there's your Sunday. And, conversely, the remaining time (7.2 hours, or 7 hours and 12 minutes), is devoted to sleep. That's what I've been using as a guide for the past few years, and it's been a blessing to me.

Time. Talent. Treasures. We're called to be good stewards of these. I want to continually ask myself: How am I doing with the Lord's tithe - and with my offerings?

If I Had a Hammer

2008-04-23T08:26:00.005-05:00

Just in case you missed my previous post about Jimmy Carter, let me reiterate: He acts like he has a peanut for a brain. Yes, of course, he's a fellow child of God. Sure, fine. Maybe he and I will have a good laugh about all this up in Heaven. For right now, though, his behavior is reckless and dangerous.

I'd also appreciate it if we could drop the whole "he may have been a terrible president, but he's a great ex-president" line. Great (or even marginal) ex-presidents don't go about making the world less safe.

I'm also beginning to call into question his philanthropic work with Habitat for Humanity, or at the very least, I would hope that someone was going behind him on all those house construction projects, checking his work. After his latest faux pas, I'm not sure he's even competent to hold a hammer up on a ladder.

I just read Michelle Malkin's article about the Peanut Farmer's not-so-excellent adventure and got incensed all over again.

Recycling at Its Best

2008-04-22T19:23:00.005-05:00

Happy Earth Day! For a better way to celebrate April 22, however, remember the Land Run of 1889. Saddle up! For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Land Run of 1889 opened up the whole middle part of Oklahoma for settlement. Overnight, the towns of Guthrie and Oklahoma City came into being and, by dusk, they each had 10,000 inhabitants. Talk about environmental impact!

The terms "Sooner" and "Boomer" also came into being that day, with the "Sooners" jumping the gun. I never thought about it, but I guess all of us Baby Boomer Okies are actually Sooner Boomers!

And talkin' 'bout my generation, I do remember the first Earth Day in 1970. I was in the 10th grade and I rode my bicycle to school. Of course, the big fear back then was global cooling. Makes you wonder what they'll come up with as the next crisis.

As is often the case, Mark Steyn has written the definitive column about Earth Day. It originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph in 2004 and it is now recycled gold. I hope you enjoy it and we'll see you tomorrow.

Top of the Twenty-Second

2008-04-22T08:41:00.001-05:00

At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth.

- 2 Timothy 4:16-17

The Goldberg Variations

2008-04-21T21:04:00.009-05:00

Just finished Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. In its 487 pages (58 of which are footnotes and supporting documents) Mr Goldberg gives us an eye-opening history lesson, none of which I learned in the citadels of higher education.

Now, I had always suspected that the German and Italian fascists were creatures of the left (I mean, which part of "National Sozialistische" is unclear?) And their whole pagan Aryan culture silliness struck me as some kind of proto-New Age nonsense. And I already had bad feelings that the current trend in America of undermining parental authority sounded eerily familiar. But I had no idea that Hitler and his cronies were vegetarians, animal rights activists, virulent anti-smokers . . . heck, forget about looking for Hitler in Argentina: you're more likely to find him in the bulk aisle at Whole Foods.

And then there was the amazing suspension of civil rights in the US under Wilson and Roosevelt (that part I knew), with their "speech codes" and "neighborhood watch" wardens. And even though I have always opposed the minimum wage because I thought it actually hurt minorities, I never knew that that was the stated intention of the Southern Democrats who passed it in the New Deal era. And don't get me started about the unbelievable racism and eugenics horrors of the American left.

Mr Goldberg is not saying that if you read It Takes a Village you're a crypto-Nazi. In fact, he thinks that most "liberals" today have the best of intentions. But we all know where those intentions are used as pavement.

His point is that the underlying premises that are the bases for what we call liberalism today are actually more in line with fascist thought, and that it is the "conservatives" who are more in tune with what has historically been referred to as "classical liberalism."

It's a great read and, if you're willing to open your mind, an amazingly helpful book in filling in the holes of all the history you never learned.

Top of the Twenty-First

2008-04-21T09:22:00.002-05:00

When morning gilds the skies my heart awaking cries:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer, to Jesus I repair:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

And a good Monday to you all! This song is often on my mind when I wake up by "dawn's early light." I never can remember the rest of the first verse, so today I looked it up on CyberHymnal. There are actually 15 verses! So, as we head into extra innings, here's a gift for you today. Some of the verses were translated into English by Edward Caswall from an old Katholisches Gesangbuch. Another fellow, Robert S. Bridges, added more verses. The music is by Joseph Barnby. I think I'm going to try to memorize one verse a day - and then make it "part of a complete breakfast"!

When you begin the day, O never fail to say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
And at your work rejoice, to sing with heart and voice,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Whene’er the sweet church bell peals over hill and dell,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
O hark to what it sings, as joyously it rings,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

My tongue shall never tire of chanting with the choir,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
This song of sacred joy, it never seems to cloy,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

To God, the Word, on high, the host of angels cry,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let mortals, too, upraise their voice in hymns of praise,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Be this at meals your grace, in every time and place;
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Be this, when day is past, of all your thoughts the last
May Jesus Christ be praised!

When mirth for music longs, this is my song of songs:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When evening shadows fall, this rings my curfew call,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

When sleep her balm denies, my silent spirit sighs,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When evil thoughts molest, with this I shield my breast,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

The night becomes as day when from the heart we say:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The powers of darkness fear when this sweet chant they hear:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

No lovelier antiphon in all high Heav’n is known
Than, Jesus Christ be praised!
There to the eternal Word the eternal psalm is heard:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Let all the earth around ring joyous with the sound:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
In Heaven’s eternal bliss the loveliest strain is this:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Sing, suns and stars of space, sing, ye that see His face,
Sing, Jesus Christ be praised!
God’s whole creation o’er, for aye and evermore
Shall Jesus Christ be praised!

In Heav’n’s eternal bliss the loveliest strain is this,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let earth, and sea and sky from depth to height reply,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Be this, while life is mine, my canticle divine:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Sing this eternal song through all the ages long:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Top Ten Reasons Mitt Romney Dropped Out

2008-04-18T19:06:00.002-05:00

I caught the audio of Mitt Romey's speech at some Press Club Dinner affair on Mark Levin yesterday. A video version was on ABC News, via Yahoo. Here is the text. I thought he was very funny.

Mitt Romney's Top Ten Reasons for Bowing Out of the Race

10. There weren't as many Osmonds as I had thought.
9. I got tired of the corkscrew landings under sniper fire.
8. As a lifelong hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of varmint season.
7. There wasn't room in the campaign for two Christian leaders.
6. Word leaked out that nobody had bothered to search my passport files.
5. I'd rather get fat, grow a beard and try for the Nobel Prize.
4. I wanted to finally take off the dark suit and tie and kick back . . . in a light colored suit and tie.
3. Once my wife, Ann, realized I couldn't win, my fundraising dried up.
2. I took a bad fall at a campaign rally and broke my hair.

And the number one reason I bowed out of the race:

1. There was a flaw in our campaign theory that, "as Utah goes, so goes the country."

Georgia Out of My Mind

2008-04-17T19:37:00.007-05:00

For anyone who knows me, I think this should be clear, but just in case anyone hasn't checked in since college, please know the following unequivocally:

If I ever said anything nice about Jimmy Carter or Ted Turner, I hereby take everything back. I was either young or stupid or both. They are both vain, petty, wrong-headed men and I am sorry to have ever said anything to the contrary.

Even the part about admiring the Carters for their work with Habitat for Humanity. We have lots of people at our church who have devoted real time and work for that cause and, as far as I know, none of them have ever subverted the policies of the United States. They also haven't done it so that they can be photographed in action.

And Ted is just nuts. I actually think the Atlanta Braves would be one of my favorite teams if they didn't still have the psychic resonance of the Mouth of the South as their curse. Maybe the Ghost Hunters can be called in. But there's no saving CNN. It's damaged goods, plain and simple

The sad thing is: I love Georgia as a state. It's beautiful and diverse and Atlanta is one of my favorite cities on earth. But even their baseball stars don't seem to help. I used to look up to Ty Cobb and I have since learned that he was a hard man - and that's putting it nicely. I also visited Kevin Brown's hometown once on business. When I mentioned to the Director of Gas Operations that I thought this was Kevin's stomping grounds, his eyes lit up. He drove me by the house where he grew up. But I think he (Kevin) might be a little off, too. Maybe it's the Kaolin pits that the town is known for.

And then there's the whole Deliverance thing. And don't get me started about Designing Women.

But at least the Food Network stars that hail from there . . . no, they're kind of wacky, too. I mean, Paula Deen and Alton Brown . . . well, at least they seem to be nice folks. So I'll hold on to that. And Newt Gingrich.

OK. I feel better. But please throw out anything nice I ever said about Jimmy Carter or Ted Turner. It was just the peanuts talking.

On the Training Table

2008-04-14T14:18:00.004-05:00

Coach Jim and I met each other at the grocery store yesterday. We're both getting serious about "Spring Training" and so we decided to be each other's accountability partner. Official weigh-ins were last night (the scales must be broken!) Or, as Coach said, "You know it's time to get serious when you get on the scales and they say, 'One at a time, please.'"

We both have been doing really well exercising and I think we both want to watch our food intake. Unfortunately, gone are the days when we could just cut out a serving of potatoes once a week and the pounds would magically disappear. So, today we start in earnest.

More vegetables, more fruits, less fats, less sugars. I seem to do better if I cut my carbohydrate intake, but this time around I'm going to try just eating whole-grains rather than a hard-line Atkins approach.

I showed Coach my favorite oatmeal: "Scottish Oatmeal" from Bob's Red Mill. I had never thought of it before, but Coach Jim wondered if the oats really were from Scotland, as the name is "Scottish Oatmeal" and not "Scottish-style Oatmeal" - kind of like how things now have to be called "Canadian-style bacon" and "Nilla wafers". On the other hand, how does Cream Cheese still get to be "Philadelphia"? I don't think the factory is necessarily in the City of Brotherly Love.

Anyway, Bob's oatmeal is great stuff, and he looks very jaunty with his tam o'shanter on the label. Give it a try. And keep Coach and me in your prayers.

Top of the Fourteenth

2008-04-14T08:16:00.000-05:00

The acorn, when planted, though small it may be,
How quickly it grows to a wide spreading tree;
A lesson, dear children, for you and for me,
We all can do something for Jesus.

- Fanny Crosby

Bark in the Park

2008-04-12T23:10:00.009-05:00

The Tulsa Drillers baseball team hosts, at least once a year, the "Bark in the Park". You can bring your dog to the park. Here's Chester and Lindsay on the field before the game.

Hot dogs were 50 cents. We saw a lot of 50 cent hot dog plays on the field, too, and one amazing double play.

Chester was great except that we might have given him one too many hot dogs - he threw up in the third inning.

Here are Lindsay and Jason with Chester and Jewel.

It was a great day at the park.

Loss of Yardage

2008-04-11T18:00:00.004-05:00

Well, we were penalized about 20 yards. The best I can tell, the foul we commited was "Failing to have a building named after you" or maybe "Failure to be a large corporate donor". Anyway, we ended up about 20 yards and change north of where we used to be, probably on about the 25 yard line.

I think the thing that really smarts is that our seats had been in the same place for about 60 years. My dad and his friend, Sankey, bought season tickets when they came home from the war. And they were faithful fans (and let's face it, where TU is concerned, that ought to count for a lot) through all the lean years, though the years when you came just to hear the band, through the Keith Burns years - you name it, they were there.

But the whole algorithm for figuring out who got to pick seats first seemed - well, let's be charitable and just call it "outcome determinative". The way the various parameters were weighted (for example, we got credit for "years of attendance" - but only back through 1992 - why 1992?) smelled a little fishy from the start.

Money's important to a program, don't get me wrong. But 60 years of faithfulness ought to count for something.

So now I've got a claim on these new seats. Now I just need to decide if I really want them.

Top of the Eleventh

2008-04-11T07:11:00.002-05:00

Good morning, everyone! Today's the day we pick our seats at the University of Tulsa's newly redesigned Chapman Stadium. For those of you familiar with the campus, this is the same stadium that used to be named Skelly Stadium. In the redesign, it will now be "Skelly Field at Chapman Stadium".

As you can see in the link, the new stadium will have a much smaller seating capacity. They have already removed all that scaffolding-like west-side upper-deck and press box. It had been there for 40-some odd years and it always looked temporary to me. The stadium proper will be back to the original, stone-built dimensions, and the new press box will also house some sky boxes and a Club Level. Most all of the seats in the "common folk" areas will also be larger and have chair backs, too.

Many of you have probably been through this reseating process at other venues. There is some arcane process whereby you get credit for years you've held your old seats (but only back to 1992), whether you are an alum, and (of course) how much you've contributed. Our old seats, on the 47-yard line and 25 rows up, have been in the family since right after World War II, but our last name isn't "Chapman" or "QuikTrip", so we probably will lose some yardage, but we'll see.

Wish me luck!

Edward Albee meets Scott Adams

2008-04-10T22:49:00.005-05:00

We just watched the post-strike season premier of The Office. Wow. It was definitely worth the wait. I'm not sure I've ever laughed that much at a sit-com.

Michael and Jan invite Jim, Pam, Andy and Angela over for dinner. And, of course, Dwight is involved. It was like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets Dilbert and it was The Office at its best. I spent 30 minutes simultaneously cringing and uncontrollably laughing.

And that's what she said.

Middle of the Ninth

2008-04-09T12:45:00.005-05:00

Lindsay just read something we found incredible:

The B2 Stealth Bomber costs about $2 Billion per plane, or about three times its weight in gold.

- from International Relations by J S Goldstein and J C Pevehouse

That's a lot of bake sales!

Song of the South

2008-04-07T11:01:00.006-05:00

Song, song of the south
Sweet potato pie and shut my mouth
Gone, gone with the wind
Ain't nobody lookin' back again
- Alabama

I just glanced at the Table of United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas (courtesy of Wikipedia). Wow, I need to reorient my thinking. We're all in the big leagues, now.

New York tops the list, of course, with 18.8 million folks. And Los Angeles is second with 12.9 million (although when you add in Ontario/Riverside/San Bernardino, the number climbs to 16.9). And Chicago is third with 9.5 million. That's the way I always learned it.

But now it gets different. Dallas/Ft Worth is fourth with - 6.1 million! When did that happen? And although Philadelphia is fifth with 5.8 million, Houston is close behind with 5.6 million. Miami comes in seventh with 5.4 million.

Here's the next big surprise. Washington, DC is eighth (that I could foresee), but now with 5.3 million souls (well, a large percentage are attorneys, so maybe "souls" is a stretch, but you get my meaning). And here is another big stunner: Atlanta now also has 5.3 million people living there! What would Aunt Pittypat say now about Yankees in Georgia? But there are plenty up north, too: Boston rounds out the top ten with 4.9 million.

We all seem to be growing boys and girls, but the huge, double-digit percentage increases are happening in the South and Southwest (Phoenix, Austin, Orlando, Las Vegas, Raleigh-Durham - you get the picture). In fact, of the top 50 areas, only four have lost population since 2000: Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Buffalo and Rochester. Do we discern a trend here?

But the biggest surprise came when I found my home town, Tulsa, Oklahoma. We're number 53 on the list and it showed us with 905,755 inhabitants - and predicts we will reach one million before the next census! Wow. Our neighbor down the turnpike, Oklahoma City, is number 44 with 1.2 million.

There was one other notable population loss. New Orleans, currently with 1 million people, has lost 21.74% of its population since 2000. In fact, it would probably be safe to say the exodus has happened since Hurricane Katrina.

It's a fascinating look at the country and, for me, took me back to Mrs. Trundle's fourth grade class for a moment before slingshotting me into the future.

Bottom of the Sixth

2008-04-06T21:25:00.003-05:00

As we head into the seventh tomorrow, we'd like to welcome a new concessionaire to the Park - Bunnahabhain Whisky. Produced on the Isle of Islay (from whence also hail my other favorites, Bruichladdich and Laphroaig), Bunnahabhain means "mouth of the river". As their website describes the Bay of Bunnahabhain, "it is both picturesque and clement". Two qualities to be desired.

The funny thing is, I had always shied away from purchasing Bunnahabhain because the seafaring captain on the bottle planted in my mind that it might have a taste reminiscent of Old Spice. After one sip last night, I realized how wrong I had been.

It has that winey, briney, peaty flavor that all the Islay Scotches possess. It is milder than Lagavulin (or Laphroaig) but still lets you know that peat bogs have been visited. It is thoroughly enjoyable and we are pleased to offer it at the Park.

In Gaelic, the "bh" combination is pronouced like "v", and the "u" is like the short "oo" in "book", so I think it would be pronounced "Boo-na-hah-vn". But here's the slogan we'll be running on the scoreboard:

Bunnahabhain
Ask for it by name
(Yeah, right)

They tell me that focus-tested well, but I'm just not sure . . .

And with that, we bid you a pleasant evening.

Charlton Gave Up His Gun

2008-04-06T14:47:00.005-05:00

I was saddened to hear that Charlton Heston died last night at the age of 84. Recalling one of his most famous quotes made while he was at the helm of the NRA, I had this image of the undertaker finally having to pry the gun from his hand. I hope so, anyway.

Mr Heston, like John Wayne and Ronald Reagan, was "a man's man". In fact, I remember thinking, during Vice President Gore's somewhat embarassing attempt to be remade a man under Naomi Wolfe's tutelage, "Why on earth do we need another 'alpha male'? We've already got 'The Omega Man'."

Playwright David Mamet's recent conversion to the "right" side also made me think of Mr Heston and Hollywood's snubbing of him as his politics began to stray off the reservation. I have already read of some critics having "second thoughts" about their earlier glowing reviews of Mr Mamet's plays. It's a bit pathetic, if you ask me. Maybe Mr Mamet can get together with Dennis Miller and compare notes.

In fact, it always amazes how little a Hollywood liberal has to do to be considered "brave" or "daring" or even "talented." Hollywood conservatives are held to a much higher standard, if they are addressed at all. Of course, like our politicians and pundits, I think that it's made us have to be stronger, more reasoned, efficient. So I guess we should take it as a blessing.

Mr Heston had quite a distinguished career. People remember him for his later dystopian films like The Omega Man (based on the same story as the current I Am Legend with Will Smith) and The Planet of the Apes, but he started out playing Moses and Michelangelo - and went up from there. He won the Oscar for his portrayal of "Ben-Hur". He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute. Putting more stock in action than words, he marched with Civil Rights leaders in the 1950s. He was elected the president of the National Rifle Association in 1998 and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.

Mr Heston continued to speak out for the causes he believed in. He resigned from Actors Equity when they refused to allow a white actor to play the role of a eurasian in Miss Saigon. He thought it was "obscenely racist" and, given that he had marched shoulder to shoulder with Dr King numerous times, I'll defer to him on that. He also turned a few faces red when he, to protest the record company's promoting of violence and misogyny, read the lyrics from Cop Killer at a Time-Warner shareholders meeting. Mr Heston wrote in his book Into the Arena, "I'll surely never be offered another film by Warners, nor get a good review in Time. On the other hand, I doubt I'll get a traffic ticket very soon."

God bless you, sir, and may the Lord be with your family, especially Lydia, your wife of 64 years.

Top of the Sixth

2008-04-06T07:55:00.004-05:00

And a good Sabbath to you! We are priviliged this weekend to host Dr Dale Bruner for our church's Celebration of Faith weekend. Dr Bruner is a very engaging speaker: at once winsome and entertaining, but always unflinching when it comes to the "tough" issues, and incredibly gifted at unpacking words and phrases in the Gospels, allowing their meanings to shine forth.

Many scholars consider his two-volume Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew to be the best around. And he is working on a Commentary on the Gospel of John, as well.

Dr Bruner captivated us for an hour last night with the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-42). He told us something that I'd like you to think about today as you hear your pastor or priest. He said that one of his professors told him that "the Word" comes to us in three ways.

The incarnate Word of God: Jesus Christ
The printed Word available to all of us through canonical Scripture
The spoken Word which comes alive every time we hear it proclaimed through someone in tune with the other two facets of the Word

What a privilege we have! I know that our congregation is blessed that our pastor speaks the Word so powerfully and vibrantly to us - and I know that he has a deep and personal relationship with the incarnate Word, as well as a thorough knowledge and deep respect for the printed Word - so I think Dr Bruner is on to something.

Give a listen today to your pastor. See what you think.

Prepositions Can Really Hang You Up the Most

2008-04-05T04:25:00.006-05:00

Trying to brush up on my German, I'm wondering if maybe it's easier to teach an old dog new tricks than it is to reteach a Hund an old language. Nouns, actually, aren't so bad. The objects or concepts they represent are pretty congruent across the board and it's mostly just a matter of memorization: a dog is a Hund is a perro is a chien. Other languages may have those (to me) unfathomable and arbitrary genders but, again, you just put your head down and memorize what uses el or la or der, die or das.

Similarly, verbs, for the most part, translate on a one-to-one basis. With German and English, we even get to take advantage of our shared roots on some of the action words: singen and bringen and trinken (to sing, to bring, to drink). And even some (but by no means all) of the colloquial phrases are similar: to ask a friend "Wie gehts?" is basically asking "How goes it?"

Prepositions, though. That's where I struggle. I read once of a study where researchers would show people a spectrum of light and ask them to draw a line where thought "yellow" or "blue" or "purple" was. Everyone was in the same ballpark, of course, but people from the same culture were usually right together with their choices.

That's kind of how I feel about prepositions. I know it's just a matter of memorizing, but I feel like I don't know the secret handshake. Sometimes you use the word you think you would and sometimes the usage requires something different. For example, "to" and zu are often interchangeable, as are "after" and nach, but if you tell someone, "We're travelling to Munich," you say "Wir fahren nach München." I'll leave it to another post to discuss whether this concept of going after something translates to a cultural aggresiveness, but it does get confusing for us accidental tourists.

And then there are the words that really deceive you. You might think that an and auf would correspond to "on" and "off", and in many cases you'd be right. But sometimes they mean the opposite of what you think: to put "the book on the table" is to put "das Buch auf dem Tisch."

You also have to worry about the dative case (which we don't distinguish in English) and that adds another layer of complexity. For example, if you're using the preposition vor (generally meaning "before"), your articles may change depending on whether you mean something is "before" in time or "before" in placement.

If it sounds like I'm griping, I don't mean to be. I actually enjoy learning new languages, but I'm just wondering if I'm getting a little too old. On the other hand:

Patience and perseverance
Made a bishop of his Reverence

Which sounds a lot better than "Beharrlichkeit macht frei", don't you think?

Middle of the Fourth

2008-04-04T12:17:00.002-05:00

Hope your day is going great. I've already mentioned that Joe Torre's move to LA has renewed my interest in the Dodgers. And of course, Joe Girardi and the Yankees will always hold first place in my heart. So, I got to thinking about the whole League and came up with this hierarchy.

There's only one team I will actively root against (see the bottom of the list) but, if a game comes up and you ever want to know which team I'm rooting for, it will generally be the team that is higher up on this list.

The Absolute Favorites
Yankees
Dodgers
Tigers
Nationals

Special Places in the Heart
Cardinals
Phillies
Reds
Rockies
Royals

Others Teams I Follow
Cubs
Rangers
Padres

Generally Positive
Orioles
Indians
Brewers
Mariners
Twins

Indifference
White Sox
Angels
Pirates
Diamondbacks
Mets
Marlins
Rays

Overcoming Past Negatives
Braves
Blue Jays
Astros
Athletics
Giants

The Anti-Franchise
Red Sox

Just Trying to Help

2008-04-04T10:20:00.004-05:00

What with the current flap over Rev Jeremiah Wright (and with what I already know about the UCC denomination), I am here to offer my assistance to the United Church of Christ. If they'd like it, I hereby offer them this new slogan, free of charge. I think it accurately reflects their views:

The United - Church - of Christ:
Hey, two out of three ain't bad!

I make the same offer to the Episcopal Church in America - and pray that my beloved Presbyterians don't also need assistance!

Top of the Fourth

2008-04-04T07:00:00.004-05:00

Redeeming the time . . .

Jim's son Jonathan started a Bible study/devotional time this school year. He invited some friends last fall and they started meeting every Wednesday morning at Jonathan's house. Now, some of the friends have invited other friends, and the group has grown to about 12. They have bagels and hot chocolate, share the Word, and then Jim drives them all to school.

This week, Jaclyn, our director of middle school youth at church, joined the group. That alone would have made it a special day (they all love Jaclyn), but something else happened to make it memorable. In the middle of breakfast, one of the kids threw up. Big time. As Jim and Jaclyn explained it yesterday, it went everywhere. It warmed my heart that it wasn't in Jaclyn's frame of reference to say something like "Linda Blair-style" (as I probably would have done), but rather to describe it with the more clinical "projectile".

Jim took care of the embarassed-to-tears child, calmed the others, and began to clean up. Jaclyn took the other kids into the den and continued with the study. What struck me, though, is that whatever they were studying that day, I'll bet the kids never forget it.

We learned in Property Law class that, before there was a written system for recording real estate transactions (and probably because there weren't that many people who could read then, anyway), the parties would go out on the property for the "Livery of Seisin" ceremony. They would invite as many friends as they could, in part to have a large pool of witnesses and in part to celebrate. The seller would pick up some dirt from the land and hand it to the buyer - and that is when "title" is deemed to have passed.

In order to mark the festivities, the buyer would throw a huge party, with food and drink and games for the children. Then, out of nowhere, they'd take the youngest child there and give them a whipping (current sensibilities forbid me from contemplating anything worse than a spanking, but who knows). The idea was that the day would be seared in the child's mind and, being the youngest person there, the child would theoretically be the person living the longest in case any questions about the transaction arose in later years.

Two thoughts. First: Does it make you think a little more kindly toward the realtors, lawyers, and closers in our present-day transactions - or do you wonder if we've really progressed?

More importantly, I think there is power in the unexpected to help us recall attending events. People in car wrecks often say that "everything seemed to be happening in slow motion." Everyone remembers where they were "when Kennedy was shot" or "when the Challenger blew up." Or, as Alan Jackson asks:

Where were you when the world stopped turning
that September day?
Out in the yard with your wife and children
Working on some stage in LA . . .

And we all know.

But I also think that Jim and Jaclyn were part of those kids' lives and development in a special way on Wednesday, because whatever they talked about is sure to stay with them for a long time to come. And it made me think of Ephesians 5:15 - 17:

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

It's a call for me to be more intentional in my living and my dealings with others.

Because you never know when somebody's going to throw up.

Bottom of the Second

2008-04-02T22:31:00.001-05:00

Good night, all.

Golden slumbers fill your eyes
Smiles awake you when you rise
Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby.

- Paul McCartney and John Lennon

Middle of the Second

2008-04-02T13:17:00.001-05:00

I just remembered a dream (nightmare, maybe) I had last night.

I was trying to convince someone that we should make Logan's Run into a musical.

Yikes!

Of Monies and Mouths

2008-04-02T12:06:00.004-05:00

Of course, many of us have known the following for a while.

The compassion of conservatives: Go here for George Will's article reviewing the findings of Professor Arthur C Brooks that conservatives give more than so-called "compassionate liberals". Says Mr Will:

If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data.

An example of Professor Clark's findings:

Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

As Mr Will summarizes another finding:

People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.

The generosity of the American people: Go here for Neal B Freeman's article about the generosity of the American people and American corporations.

A Question (and Statement) about Eggs

2008-04-02T09:39:00.004-05:00

Here's the question: Is there an inverse correlation between the quality of an egg and the ease of peeling it once it's hard-boiled?

We bought some of "Jeremiah Cunningham's World's Best Eggs" from Coyote Creek Farm. They were organic, farm fresh, gathered and packed by hand, and "laid by happy hens living in organic pastures". I also figure those hens must be fast, too, beings as how they are roaming free near a creek known for its coyotes.

Anyway, they are very delicious, but when I have tried to peel them after hardboiling I make a mess of everything. And I have tried peeling them warm, cold, under running water, you name it.

Any ideas?

Oh, and the statement. As much as I like flaky sea salt, when you eat it with hard-boiled eggs, it makes you think you haven't gotten all the shell.

Food for thought. Or rather, thought for food, I guess.

Mugged!

2008-04-02T08:06:00.004-05:00

Top of the Second

2008-04-02T07:28:00.005-05:00

What would Psalm 100 look like in the form of worship?

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with signing.
Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures for ever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Here's one idea (each step corresponds with the verses above):

Take a moment to look at the world around you - God's creation. See how "even the rocks and stones sing". Sense your place in his world.
Be glad. If you don't think you are, take up the shield of faith to know that you can be even in the midst of present circumstances. Sing something.
Take a passage of scripture to heart. Then, take it to mind. Know it. Let the Word speak to you. As his people and his sheep, we have strayed. Acknowledge your missteps and receive forgiveness. And also know that the Shepherd loves his flock more than we can yet know.
Give thanks for all your blessings. Then, from that threshold of "his gates" (of "thanks, Lord, because . . ." of something), go deeper: enter "his courts" - bless the Lord for who he is and in all circumstances.
Go into the day secure in the knowledge of God's goodness, steadfast love, and faithfulness. Resolve to be the Lord's hands and feet today in bringing that goodness, love and faithfulness to others.

It's an idea I had this morning. I know you'll find something even better in the Psalm.

Send in the Clowns - and the Jokers

2008-04-01T20:11:00.006-05:00

Today, Bernard Goldberg's book Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve comes out in paperback. I assume he's giving a nod to the old Stealer's Wheel song. In a short interview I heard with Mr Goldberg, I believe the premise of his book is spot on: the left has absolutely gone over the cliff and, while conservatives may still believe in important things, Republicans have lost it.

My dad smoked from the age of 17 until he was 56. But from that day forward (he just threw his pack of Chesterfields away that day and never looked back, by the way), he was the most anti-smoker I know. I kind of feel the same way about Mr Goldberg. A reporter and media personality at CBS, cut his teeth in left-leaning journalism, socialist summer camps, Ben Shahn drawings on the wall . . . stop me before I make a complete fool of myself (for our younger readers, please see Annie Hall) - he now has that bit of missionary zeal about him. You go, Bernie!

Back Where it Belongs

2008-04-01T15:21:00.010-05:00

If anyone was at McNellie's Pub last Sunday and noticed this gentleman using a certain mug in an unauthorized manner:

please rest assured that mug and rightful owner have been reunited. I do commend the perpetrator on his choice of beverage, however (Grimbergen Double).

Repurposing

2008-04-01T15:16:00.004-05:00

Cleaning and rearranging the kitchen this morning, I hit on an idea. I have an old cigar humidor that hasn't held a stogy in ages, so I put Lindsay's tea bags in it. They look great - kind of like what they bring around at some restaurants (very British, don't you think?)

My question is: does anyone know if there is an optimum humidity for keeping tea? The humidor has a hygrometer and humidity source built-in, so we might as well use it if it would help.

Any ideas?

Top of the First

2008-04-01T08:50:00.004-05:00

Look at all the stars. You look up and you think, "God made all this and He remembered to make a little speck like me." It's kind of flattering, really.
- Morgan Earp (Bill Paxton) in Tombstone (1993)

A Nice Touch

2008-03-31T14:03:00.003-05:00

Watching the opening game at Cincinnati just now, as Reds players and coaches took the field, every uniform was, well, uniform. Each and every one sported the number 41 and the name "Nuxhall" on the back. It was fitting tribute for Cincinnati legend Joe Nuxhall.

Mr Nuxhall was a left-handed pitcher for the Reds most of his career. That is, his first career. Immediately upon retirement he began announcing for the Reds, a position he kept until his death last November.

He also holds the record for being the youngest player ever in the majors. On June 10, 1944, 15-year old Joe Nuxhall filled out the war-depleted roster and pitched 2/3 of an inning.

Mr Nuxhall ended every broadcast with, "This is the old lefthander, rounding third and heading for home." Welcome home, Joe.

Rain Delay

2008-03-31T12:32:00.003-05:00

It's raining in Tulsa and, coincidentally, also in the Bronx. The Yankees are hosting the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. It's the last year for the old stadium. When the rain stops, pitcher Chien-Ming Wang will take the mound, and Joe Girardi will take the helm as the Yankee's new skipper.

I've always liked Joe Girardi and am thrilled he took Joe Torre's place (that is, if someone had to take his place at all). Girardi is like an old-style player: he always looked like he stepped out of the 1940s (or maybe an Iowa cornfield) when he was behind the plate catching. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, "I see great things in Girardi. He will rally the team and repair their losses."

And with Torre in LA, I have a new reason to root for the Dodgers!

Monday Morning Openers

2008-03-31T09:07:00.002-05:00

Good morning, everyone! It's Opening Day. "There's new grass on the field." The Nationals have a new stadium, and all's right with the world. More baseball talk later today, but I wanted to post again that great question that a gentleman in our congregation carries around in his wallet:

What are you daring to attempt that could not be accomplished without God’s strength and intervention?

Dream big. Pray hard.

Is it bad luck to sit behind someone in a Chinese Restaurant?

2008-03-30T21:42:00.004-05:00

Eating at the Pei Wei last night, I noticed a woman throwing something over her shoulder. I assumed she had spilled the salt, but on closer inspection, I realized that there weren't any salt shakers on the tables. So I wondered: if people in Asian countries spill the soy sauce, do they throw it over their shoulders? And doesn't that get kind of messy?

On a related topic, in those tribes where they believe taking your picture steals your soul, does breaking a mirror bring seven years of good luck?

What other superstitions are either superannuated or in need of a makeover?

Centerfield

2008-03-23T18:30:00.003-05:00

Centerfield
by John Fogerty

Easter Sunday

The Lord is risen, indeed! A glorious Easter Day to you and yours! Today, the victory is won. Let's celebrate it (and wrap up our Lenten Blog journey) with John Fogerty’s anthem from his multi-platinum comeback album:

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today!
We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field.
A-roundin’ third, and headed for home, it’s a brown-eyed handsome man;
Anyone can understand the way I feel.

We had a wonderful day in church today. The music in all the services was top-notch. My dear friend Jim preached a powerful and heartfelt sermon from John 20: Mary Magdalene has returned to the tomb to find it empty. Her grief is so strong that she isn’t even afraid of the two angels sitting in the tomb. In fact, she thinks the resurrected Jesus is the gardener at first – after all, there is nothing in her frame of reference to make her think that dead people get up.

I can somewhat relate to Mary’s overlooking of Jesus. A few years ago, my daughter and I were walking on the streets of London. We passed someone in the crowd and I remarked to Lindsay, “Wow, that fellow looked just like my cousin.” Of course, I didn’t think there was any way it could be him – he lived in Texas and we were in London, after all. Come to find out when we got home, it was my cousin, and he had said essentially the same thing to his business associate as they walked down that London street, “Wow, that fellow looked just like my cousin.”

But, when Jesus calls “Mary” by name, she knows it is the Lord. She is overcome with joy. And here’s where Jim said something that really hit home. He said that Mary is the first one that Jesus “commissions” after His resurrection. He tells her to “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ (John 20:17)” And Mary gets in the game:

Oh, put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Look at me, I can be centerfield.

Each of the eleven disciples will also get into the game. After spending the last few days hiding in fear, completely destroyed after the death of their friend, each one will meet the Risen Lord, and everything will change:

Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine, watchin’ it from the bench;
You know I took some lumps when the Mighty Casey struck out.
So say hey, Willie, tell Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio;
Don’t say "it ain’t so", you know the time is now.

Peter, especially, will receive some invaluable time with his Coach and friend. At the end of St John’s Gospel, when Jesus asks three times if Peter loves him (mirroring the three times Peter denied Jesus), Jesus is in effect saying to him, “I need you, Peter. Come on, my friend, get back in the game.

Oh, put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Look at me, I can be centerfield.

Yeah! I got it, I got it!

Each and every one of us has been gifted with unique talents and abilities – ways that we can serve the Master. And here’s the really amazing thing about the Lord’s farm-system: sometimes He doesn’t even work through the Minor Leagues, from Double-A to Triple-A – He might just lift us out of the sandlot and say, you’re in “The Show” now, my friend!

Got a beat-up glove, a homemade bat, and brand-new pair of shoes;
You know I think it’s time to give this game a ride.
Just to hit the ball and touch ’em all - a moment in the sun;
(Pop) it’s gone and you can tell that one goodbye!

So my prayer for you and for me is that we answer the Lord’s call and get in the game. Be there for Him for the whole season. Suit up. Run it out. Make the diving catch. Swing for the fences! There’s nothing more exciting than this adventure!

Oh, put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Look at me, I can be centerfield.

Carry On

2008-03-22T16:40:00.002-05:00

Carry On
by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young

This morning I woke up and I knew
You were really gone
A new day, a new way, I knew
I should see it along
Go your way, I'll go mine
Carry on

Holy Week is a roller-coaster ride of emotions. For those of us who know “how the story ends”, I believe that we feel complicity, remorse, guilt, and contrition, and then there is a very deep and profound sense of thanks – thanks to the Lord for loving us, for dying for us, for saving us. But the one thing we don’t have to worry about is whether or not Jesus will get up. We have the benefit of history and of the Truth written in our hearts. I think about all Jesus’ disciples and friends waking up on that Saturday morning. The horrors of Good Friday are past and their friend is dead. Those of us who have lost a loved one know something of that feeling – waking up that first morning and feeling that part of us is dead, too.

The sky is clearing and the night
Has gone out
The sun, he come, the world
is all full of light
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice
But to carry on

The Israelites were no strangers to suffering and waiting. After the 40 years of wandering, after the Babylonian captivity, they were accustomed to waiting. They still think we’re waiting for the promised Messiah, I guess, now that I think about it. The prophet Zephaniah was quite a bearer of “doom and gloom”. But, at the end of his book, there are some amazing and wonderfully optimistic verses, pointing to the future:

On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
"Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The LORD your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing."
– Zephaniah 3:16-17

I guess there are two ways to look at that “do not let your hands hang limp” phrase. On the one hand, experts say that when people are depressed, they don’t swing their arms. Now, I will admit that, even before I had ever heard that, I had noticed that people in New York City don’t seem to swing their arms as much as people back home – I didn’t know why, but I had just noticed that. Then one day, some friends and I at work were discussing whether the arm swinging part was a cause or an effect. We wondered if people could intentionally swing their arms and thereby elevate their moods. I mentioned that maybe all those older folks you see “power walking” at the mall were actually improving their disposition. A couple of days later, one of my co-workers came to work and related a strange dream she had had. She said, “I dreamed I was severely depressed and was walking around, not swinging my arms. In my dream I decided to just jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. But as I did and the air rushed around me, the turbulence started to make my arms flap about . . . and I started to feel great! But I had already jumped off the top of the bridge. And I remember the last thing, before I woke up, was thinking, 'Damn!'”

And another way to think about it is to just “keep on keeping on,” as I've heard people say. "For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:3)." In other words, carry on.

The fortunes of fables are able
To sing the song
Now witness the quickness with which
We get along
To sing the blues you've got to live the tunes
Carry on

For those of you who have been along with me on this Lenten adventure, “living the tunes”, thank you! Your readership and comments are greatly appreciated, and humbling. There will be an Easter post, and then week or so hiatus before the blog comes back in a somewhat different form. But back to today’s thoughts . . .

In the 2000 film Cast Away, Tom Hanks’ character is marooned on a South Pacific island for 1,500 days. At the end of the film, he tells Helen Hunt how he got through the times when he didn’t know how long it would be before he was rescued, if ever: “And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”

Even those of us on this side of Easter know that it can be hard sometimes, just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I think, for those disciples who weren’t sure at the time how the story would end, this time from Good Friday to Easter morning must have been dark times, indeed. And then, suddenly . . .

At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes,"
says the LORD.
– Zephaniah 3:20

“Before our very eyes.” And so we wait. To us, it’s a brief moment. To the disciples, it might have seemed an eternity. But something amazing awaits us tomorrow.

Carry on
Love is coming
Love is coming to us all . . .

Lawyers, Guns and Money

2008-03-21T15:19:00.009-05:00

Lawyers, Guns and Money
by Warren Zevon

Good Friday

Once again, it’s Fun-Time Friday. That may sound absurd, given the circumstances, but it’s no more implausible than calling today “Good” Friday, is it? Of course, through God’s redemptive power, He is able to take this darkest of days and bend it to the good, turning this Easter weekend into the most important and hopeful time for the whole human race.

Today’s song is from that “excitable boy” Warren Zevon, who died in 2003 after a battle with lung cancer. Shortly before his death, Mr Zevon filled in for an extended period for Paul Shaefer as the bandleader on Late Night with David Letterman. The bulk of his earlier career was spent as a composer of catchy, sometimes profound, and always quirky songs, such as Werewolves of London and – perhaps apropos of today, as well – Accidentally, Like a Martyr.

Lawyers, Guns and Money is a story of deals gone south and best laid plans gone awry . It begins with a case of mistaken identity and its serious consequences:

I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too?

Sound familiar? Let’s pick up the Gospel story early this Good Friday morning:

While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she looked closely at him. “You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus,” she said. But he denied it. “I don't know or understand what you're talking about,” he said, and went out into the entryway. When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.” Again he denied it. After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don't know this man you're talking about.” Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
– Mark 14:66-72

Meanwhile, Jesus is being beaten and mocked by the Roman soldiers. They have thrust a crown of thorns on His head, put a “royal” robe on Him and given Him a reed sceptre, while throwing dice to see who will get to keep His garments:

I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this

Jesus had already called on his own Dad, last night in the garden, when he said, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will (Mark 14:36).” But from that moment forward, Jesus set His face toward Golgotha. He will endure unbelievably brutal beatings and blows, so much so that the soldiers will have to conscript the help of someone on the street to help Jesus carry the cross to Calvary: “A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross (Mark 15:21).”

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock
and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck
Yes, I'm down on my luck
Well, I'm down on my luck

We have already seen Peter, the “Rock”, crumbling under pressure and denying his Lord. The rest of the disciples also scattered, fearing for their lives:

I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money . . .

But Jesus stood before the tribunals and rulers, engaging them with the most important questions they would ever ask:

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.” But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
– Mark 15:1-5

[Pilate] went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free . . .
– John 19:9-12

Lawyers, guns and money . . .

Pilate and the Chief Priests did their own lawyerly battling, with this bit of wordsmithing:

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews." Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."
– John 19:19-21

And the “big guns” of the day, the Roman soldiers, had already thrown their weight around. But after they had scourged, mocked and beaten Jesus, at least some of them at last got it right:

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus' resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"
– Matthew 27:50-54

And then there was the money. Perhaps Jesus’ rhetorical question from earlier in His ministry, “What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? (Mark 8:36)” was ringing in Judas’ ears that morning of Good Friday:

When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility." So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
– Matthew 27:3-5

Jesus calls on His “Abba” – his Dad – one last time, in His last words from the Cross: “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last (Luke 23:46).” I heard it explained once that that phrase was an ancient Hebrew children’s bedtime prayer, much as we might today say, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” Here is the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the whole world, completely trusting His heavenly Father for what comes next.

Like the old adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” we often aren’t able to grasp the whole meaning of a situation by just taking it at face value. Mr Zevon seems to echo this thought in another of his songs:

I saw a werewolf drinking a Piña Colada at Trader Vic’s
and his hair was "perfect".

Remembering the details of this day, we may marvel at how anyone could call it “Good” Friday. But in just a couple of sunrises, by that glorious Easter morning, we’ll be able to look back and see just how “good” – if not “perfect” – today really was.

Our Love is Here to Stay

2008-03-20T15:42:00.005-05:00

Our Love is Here to Stay
lyrics by Ira Gershwin
music by George Gershwin

Maundy Thursday

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
– John 13:1

And so, on this first day of spring 2008, we find ourselves at the precipice known as Maundy Thursday. The word “Maundy” has the same root as our word “mandate”, and it refers to what Jesus tells his disciples (and all of us) at the Last Supper, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34).”

If someone asked me for my all-time favorite song, and said that I had to narrow it down to just one, Our Love is Here to Stay, would probably be at the top of the list. It is quite possibly the last song the Gershwin brothers wrote together, as it was released after George’s death in 1937. Everyone’s familiar with the verses and bridge, but here’s the often-overlooked introduction:

The more I read the papers, the less I comprehend
The world and all its capers and how it all will end.
Nothing seems to be lasting, but that isn’t our affair.
We’ve got something permanent,
I mean in the way we care.

Our Love is Here to Stay is from the film The Goldwyn Follies of 1938 and it was released shortly after George Gershwin’s death. In the film, Oliver Merlin, a Hollywood producer, realizes that he has become far removed from the “common folk”. He wants to hire a simple person to critically evaluate his movies. He finds the perfect candidate and offers her the job:

Oliver Merlin: I'm a producer of movies. I get my wagonloads of poets and dramatists, but I can't buy common sense – I cannot buy humanity!
Hazel Dawes: Well, I don't know why, Mr. Merlin. There's an awful lot of it.
Oliver Merlin: Yes, I know, but the moment I buy it, it turns into something else, usually genius, and it isn't worth a dime. Now, if you could stay just as simple as you are, you'd be invaluable to me. I'll put you on my staff. I'll give you a title, "Miss Humanity". Don't rush; you can finish your ice cream soda.

That’s kind of the whole human story. Ever since our eviction from the Garden of Eden, God has been at work, reconciling us to Him. He posted signs in the Earth and the heavens, set up laws, seated rulers, and inspired prophets. All these things were pointing to the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, when “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us” as St John’s Gospel states in verse 1:14. Or, as we say in the Nicene Creed, “For us and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven.”

It’s impossible for us to relate to what kind of “stepping down” the Lord did to get here for us. But on this night before He was betrayed and handed over to the authorities for crucifixion, He tells His dear friends the extent of His love for them. It's a love, timeless and unchanging. Here's how the Gershwins express it:

It’s very clear our love is here to stay.
Not for a year, but ever and a day.
The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies and in time may go.

But, oh my dear, our love is here to stay.
Together we’re going a long, long way.
In time the Rockies may crumble,
Gibraltar may tumble, they’re only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.

After sharing the Passover meal, Jesus and the disciples sing a hymn, then make their way to Gethsemane. Unspeakable sadness and horror are on the horizon, but Jesus takes the opportunity to impress upon them the power of love – of His love for all of us and of our love for one another. Before they are all scattered, He holds them close:

I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
– John 15:15

His love is on offer for all of us. Will we return that love? There is nothing more powerful. It is the greatest thing of all that remains.

In time the Rockies may crumble,
Gibraltar may tumble, they’re only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.

7 ½ Cents

2008-03-19T12:41:00.002-05:00

7 ½ Cents
by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross

Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?" So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
– Matthew 26:14-16

So! Although!
Seven and a half cents doesn't buy a hell of a lot
Seven and a half cents doesn’t mean a thing . . .
– the Chorus in Pajama Game

Welcome again to Full-of-Woe Wednesday! This week that we call Holy Week is a world turned upside-down. And to follow through on that theme, in today’s post we’re going to go about things topsy-turvy, as well. My brother, Fuelgrip Skip, would like to write about one of his favorite songs, 7 ½ Cents from the 1954 musical Pajama Game. This has never been one of my favorites. So, here’s a transcript from our recent St Patrick’s Day outing. Maybe we can blame the green beer.

Fuelgrip: First off, I would think you’d give this musical a little latitude if for no other reason than it opened in 1954, our birth year.

Fireplug: I can think of a lot better things to celebrate from that year. There was the Brown v Board of Education decision. The first mass vaccinations against polio began. We added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. And Yogi Berra and Willie Mays shared MVP honors . . .

Fuelgrip: Well, speaking of baseball, Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe. The first TV dinner was marketed. And the Fender Stratocaster guitar was first produced . . .

Fireplug: You’re citing those as pluses to me?

Fuelgrip: All right. Let’s get back to the music. Plus, you’ve already done one Billy Joel song this Lent.

Fireplug: We were starting to sound like We Didn’t Start the Fire, weren’t we?

Fuelgrip: So, when we encounter the song 7 ½ Cents in Act 2 of the show, Prez of the Pajama-Makers Union is just having one of those “light bulb over the head” moments:

I figured it out!
I figured it out!
With a pencil and a pad I figured it out!
Only five years from today!
Only five years from today!
I can see it all before me!
Only five years from today!
Five years! Let's see . . . that’s 260 weeks, times forty hours every week, and roughly two and a quarter hours overtime . . . at time and a half for overtime! Comes to exactly . . . $852.74!
That's enough for me to get
An automatic washing machine,
A year’s supply of gasoline,
Carpeting for the living room,
A vacuum instead of a blasted broom,
Not to mention a forty inch television set!

Fireplug: Let me say upfront that I think the idea of planning strategically for your future is great. And little things do add up to be a lot. But you know my whole problem with this show: it’s just one big ad for unions.

Fuelgrip: Just because the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union underwrote the whole show, that shouldn’t totally taint it. I mean, without some sort of patronage, we wouldn’t have any musical on Broadway right now, not to mention Mozart or Shakespeare or . . .

Fireplug: True. But it just seems like the whole idea of unions is so passé, if not downright counterproductive.

Fuelgrip: Tell that to the coal miners.

Fireplug: I just think unions have outlived their usefulness: I didn’t say they weren’t important in the past. Tell you what, for every mustachioed, canary-carrying, candle-in-the-headlamp-wearing, “I owe my soul to the company store”, meat pie in the pocket, How Green Was My Valley coal miner you can find these days, I’ll spot you a major league pitcher bringing in $400,000 per pitch, or an actor whose net worth exceeds many African countries. What do they need help with? And when it comes to the “real” workers, like the coal miners, it seems to me that the only folks getting really wealthy are the union bosses.

Fuelgrip: Order me another round, while we continue with the song:

Only ten years from today,
Only ten years from today,
I can see it, clear as daylight,
Only ten years from today!
Ten years! Let's see . . . that’s 520 weeks, times forty hours every week, and roughly two and a quarter hours overtime . . . at time and a half for overtime! Comes to exactly . . . $1705.48!
That's enough for me to buy
A trip to France across the seas,
A motorboat and water skis,
Maybe even a foreign car,
A charge account at the corner bar,
Not to mention a scrabble board with letters made of gold!

Fireplug: Here’s your pint – and I hope you have a charge account at this bar!

Fuelgrip: I think I know why you don’t like this show: it’s from the first time we saw it as kids.

Fireplug: You mean that really scary guy that played Hines? Boy, he creeped me out!

Fuelgrip: I agree. For years after that, when people would warn us as kids not to take rides from strangers, I would see him in my mind’s eye as the driver of the car.

Fireplug: You too? Well, I hope my dislike of this show isn’t totally subjective. And there are a lot of the other songs that I really like.

Fuelgrip: Like which?

Fireplug: There Once Was a Man: it’s a lot of fun. I always wondered how this, yee-haw, Frankie Laine song sounded to Eisenhower-era theatre-goers.

Fuelgrip: What else?

Fireplug: Hey There is a good ballad and Steam Heat’s a very versatile number.

Fuelgrip: What about Her Is?

Fireplug: Creepy.

Fuelgrip: I’m Not at All in Love?

Fireplug: It's OK but a tad overblown.

Fuelgrip: Once a Year Day?

Fireplug: Now there’s what I’m talking about. It’s a fun enough song, but I always felt a little sad for the folks at the factory. It’s like there was this antagonism built in between the management and the workers, and the unions were willing to fan those flames just so they could appear necessary to the process. In fact, they actually held back the brightest and best: now those folks only get a “once a year day” and they’re limited to “7 ½ cents” in raises.

Fuelgrip: Let’s hear the last verse and I think we’ll hear what you’re talking about.

Fireplug: Do we have to go through all that math again?

Fuelgrip: I’m afraid we must:

(Babe and Prez): We figured it out!
We figured it out!
(All): With a pencil and a pad they figured it out
(Babe): Only twenty years from today
(Prez): Only twenty years from today
(Babe): I can see it like a vision
(All): Only twenty years from today
(Prez and Babe): Twenty years! Let's see . . . that’s 1040 weeks, times forty hours every week, and roughly two and a quarter hours overtime . . . at time and a half for overtime! Comes to exactly . . . $3411.96!
Wow!
(Prez): That's enough for me to be
A sultan in a Taj Mahal
In every room a different doll!
(Babe): I'll have myself a buying spree,
I'll buy a pajama factory,
Then I could end up having old man Hasler work for me!

(All): So! Although!
Seven and a half cents doesn't buy a hell of a lot,
Seven and a half cents doesn't mean a thing!
But give it to me every hour,
Forty hours every week,
And that's enough for me to be living like a king!

Fireplug: Do you think that Judas had also “done the math” with the thirty pieces of silver?

Fuelgrip: What do you mean?

Fireplug: Well, I don’t think he ever got the big picture with Jesus and His ministry. Judas got angry when the woman used all that costly perfume to wash Jesus’ feet. I don’t think he understood the symbolism that she was preparing Jesus’ body for burial.

Fuelgrip: Plus, Judas was more concerned with being in charge of the treasury – probably for his own benefit.

Fireplug: True. And as Jesus told him, there would be plenty of time to take care of the less fortunate – He was only going to be with them a little longer, so pay attention. It was kind of the same thing he told Martha when she was upset that Mary was just sitting there listening to Him.

Fuelgrip: And so you think Judas decided to take the money and run?

Fireplug: I know there’s more to it than that - a lot more - but I think he was also being really short-sighted.

Fuelgrip: But that’s why I like 7 ½ Cents. It’s encouraging people to think about the long haul.

Fireplug: Fair enough. But I just don’t think they need some union boss to help them with that. In the same way, I would much rather have the money I’m paying into Social Security to invest it myself. I know I’d do a lot better job.

Fuelgrip: Spoken in all modesty. Actually, though, I think you might be right. But back to Judas: those thirty pieces of silver did buy “a hell of a lot.”

Fireplug: Pretty good, brother. Hey, before you finish your beer, I know one song from Pajama Game that we can both agree on!

Fuelgrip: You mean Hernando’s Hideaway?

Fireplug: Yeah! We used to have a lot of fun with it. I think we’ve ruined that Robert Frost poem for more people, though.

Fuelgrip: So let’s warn anyone reading your blog on Wednesday. Folks: if you want to remember the work of Robert Frost as you always have, please quit reading now, and Fireplug will see you tomorrow.

Fireplug: OK. If you’re still with us today, sing the following poem to the tune of Hernando’s Hideaway. Enjoy!

Whose woods these are, I think I know
His house is in the village, though
He will not see my stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow

Will I?

2008-03-18T16:06:00.005-05:00

Will I?
by Jonathan Larson

Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?

That’s all the words there are to today’s song. Once you’ve heard it, though, you might find it impossible to get out of your mind. Will I? is from the 1996 musical Rent, a Tony- and Pulitzer-prize winning show. Sadly, its creator, Jonathan Larson, received all his awards posthumously – he died the night before Rent’s opening of an aortic aneurysm.

Now, truth be told, I’ve never cared all that much for Rent. First of all, it’s a reworking of Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème, and I’m not sure why Puccini’s masterpiece needed to be “updated”. We saw Baz Luhrman’s production of La Bohème in New York City in 2003. He had set it in 1957 Paris and had modernized the language in the subtitles (but not the sung words) and it worked just great for me. But to loosely take the storyline and think that, in order for modern audiences to “get it”, it needed (1) to be set in the artsy parts of New York City in the 1990s; (2) to change references from “tuberculosis” to “HIV/AIDS”; (3) to replace Puccini’s beautiful score with a small rock “orchestra”; and (4) to have that heavy dose of “attitude” that popular culture seems marinated in today – well, it just seems like creative teams these days have so little faith in their audiences that they don’t think they can make the connection from an older production to the present. It actually makes me long for the days when a creative artists’ indulgence was “relevance” rather than today’s “in your face”. I think people have more smarts than they give them credit for – at least I hope that’s still the case.

And then there was the music. The spare orchestrations probably made perfect sense when Rent started off-Broadway in a small space at the New York Theatre Workshop. But when it moved “uptown” to the Nederlander Theatre, I think they might have sprung for some more instruments. They surely were already paying for them under union rules. As for the songs themselves, I always found them to pale in comparison with Mr Puccini’s earlier works. To me, Mr Larson’s pieces lacked heft.

Except for this one. Will I? is an amazing piece of music to me. There are only four lines of text and the music just keeps repeating. But each time the stanza begins again, voices begin to enter. Then, they sign in rounds. Then, harmony is added. Then, the counterpoint begins to enter in mid-measure. The melody of the piece is intriguing, as well. It is very simple, but at the same time, there is a quirk to the rhythm that keeps it interesting. The first time I heard the piece, I thought it was in a strange meter. (I did the same thing with On the Willows from Godspell, the first time I heard it.) It wasn’t until the second time I listened to Will I?, and consciously counted the beats, that I realized that it was in a simple 8-measure, 4/4 rhythm.

We had a Cancer Ministry Workshop at church a couple of weeks ago. I thought of Mr Larson’s song then, too. We learned that people who are facing extreme health challenges (like cancer or AIDS or other life-threatening conditions) asked these same questions. It was amazing, too, how the training for ministering to cancer patients could apply to just about any homebound visitation situation.

Another of Mr Larson’s plays was Tick . . .Tick . . .Boom. It was never a hit and really only had a limited run after the phenomenal success of Rent. We’re also in the middle of a countdown this week. What is going on in the minds of Jesus and His followers? We know that, a couple of nights from now, Jesus will ask the Father very similar questions when he entreats Him, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”

All hell will break loose on Thursday and Friday of this week. We know that Jesus will be scourged, mocked, spat upon. In answer to His question, “Will I lose my dignity?” the answer, I’m afraid, is “yes”. And to “Will someone care?”, the answer is a little more complex: the disciples will scatter, leaving John, Mary (his mother), and some of the other women at the foot of the Cross. And, if Jesus asked you “Will I awaken from this nightmare?”, what would you, as a trusted friend and someone He loves very much, tell Him?

Tick . . . Tick . . .

And thanks, be to God, the Lord still says, “Nevertheless, not my will, but Yours be done.”

If I Knocked the "L" Out of Kelly

2008-03-17T13:29:00.005-05:00

If I Knocked the “L” Out of Kelly
lyrics by Sam Lewis and Joe Young
music by George W Meyer

St Patrick's Day

An’ a top of the mornin’ to ya! We kick off Holy Week with the wearin’ o’ the green. As we remember Ireland’s Patron Saint Patrick today, we also traditionally remember the Monday after Palm Sunday as the day when Jesus drives the money changers out of the temple. It must be an important story, because Matthew, Mark and Luke all three record it. After the ride into Jerusalem on the donkey, Jesus enters the Temple and, quoting Jeremiah 7:11, exclaims:

Is it not written, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it “a den of robbers!” (Matthew 21:13, Mark 11:17 and Luke 19:46).

Jesus then forcibly drives out those who were changing money into “temple currency”, selling animals, and the like. We all like to think of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild”, but we do well to remember that He got angry at those things which kept God’s children from Him.

Saint Patrick was also famous for driving out bad things. I’ve not yet been to Ireland, but if the Guinness and the beautiful countryside didn’t already call me, I would be drawn there by the fact that, like Hawai’i, there are no snakes on the island. I have a confession to make: when I was younger and would come across a picture of snakes (in National Geographic or the World Book), I would keep those pages together as I quickly turned them. Some people don’t like spiders or bugs, but an island with no snakes is my idea of paradise.

I don’t know if it rises to the level of Jesus’ righteous anger in the Temple, but today’s song deals with some of that famous, red-headed temper. It begins with a simple business transaction gone awry:

Timothy Kelly, who owned a big store;
Wanted his name painted over the door;
One day Pat Clancy the painter man came;
He tried to be fancy, but misspelled the name;

I actually can empathize with Mr Clancy. XM radio has been running an Irish music channel for the weekend. After having it on for the past 30 hours or so, I think I am becoming an honorary Irishman, as evidenced by this progression that has been forced upon my by the music:

Blurring the distinction between valid religious saints and mythical beings
Heavy drinking
Insanity

Just kidding! (I’m a kidder.) But seriously, that music causes you to take a stand after a while. My left ear is hurting today and, ordinarily, I’d worry that I was getting an ear infection. In reality, it might just be the penny whistle. Anyway, back to our song. Pat Clancy the painter may have had one of those legendary “free lunches” at the pub before painting Mr Kelly’s sign, because here’s what happened:

Instead of “Kelly” with double L Y
He spelled it “Kely”, but one L was shy

We all know the importance of a good name from Proverbs 22:1, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” Well, our narrator gives us similar words of warning. It’s hard to know whether he sings the following chorus after seeing painter Clancy nursing a Guinness in one hand while holding a beefsteak on his eye with the other. Maybe, he’s just relaying how he would feel if someone got his name wrong. Or maybe storeowner Kelly is famous for his temper. At any rate, we get a crash course on the importance of spelling:

If I knocked the “L” out of Kelly
it would still be Kelly to me
sure a single L Y
or a double L Y
would look just the same to an Irishman’s eye
Knock off an L from Killarny sure Killarny it ever will be
but If I knocked the “L” out of Kelly
sure he’d knock the “L” out of me!

Jesus seemed to be very concerned with His Father’s good name, too. In church yesterday, Jim offered an intriguing idea as to the reason for Jesus’ anger. Jim first explained how the Temple was laid out. It was an enormous structure built in a series of concentric squares (if that’s not mixing a metaphor). In the innermost part was the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest could go once a year. Then there was the Holy area for only the priests. Next was the men’s courtyard and just outside that was the women’s courtyard. All these aforementioned areas were only for Jews: a gentile faced death if he or she was found in any of these parts. The outermost courtyard of the Temple (but still within the Temple) was the courtyard of the gentiles and everyone was welcome there. It was the only place where non-Jews could go within the Temple walls, and that was the area where all the money-changing and trading was going on. Jim asked us to imagine if we were trying to worship God in that area (the only place as foreigners we could go), it would be difficult if not impossible to focus our worship on the Lord with all that commotion going on around us. When Jesus is quoting Jeremiah (“my temple is a house of prayer for all nations . . .”), he is stressing that importance.

The nation of Ireland has recently become quite an economic force. After years of being hampered with socialism and lethargy, Ireland in the last few years has drastically cut tax rates – and revenues have soared. They have encouraged private development and ownership, and the economy is booming. In short, Ireland has encouraged the foreigner to come within its purview and has removed those barriers which have impeded both them and their nationals to succeed. Think of that when you put on your “green” today.

When I was a boy and heard the line from today’s song, “he’d knock the ‘L’ out of me”, I knew there was a pun there but I couldn’t quite grasp it. It was the same way with that joke about a door being “ajar”. When we get older, we get the humor – or the gravity – of a situation that we might have missed when we were younger. And then sometimes, even when we don’t understand something, we just have to defer to a trusted friend. Often, it’s the little things – a missing “L”, a little commotion in the courtyard – that are actually the big things. Just ask Mr Kelly, or the Lord Himself.

As we hoist a pint or a "wee dram" this evening, we do well to remember those instructions from the Lord that often seem minor, but that actually, in His infinite wisdom, are intended to bring us to health and wholeness and a closer walk with Him.

Slàinte!

I Go to Extremes

2008-03-15T14:56:00.001-05:00

I Go to Extremes
by Billy Joel

And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

Tomorrow we celebrate Palm Sunday, when Jesus rides into Jerusalem as a King. A short five days later, He is being crucified between two thieves, and his followers are running for their lives and hiding in fear. But just two days after that, we have the most joyous news ever announced. We are beginning a week of extremes. This is a roller-coaster week of proclamation and denial, of love and betrayal, of “Hosanna!” and “Crucify Him!”, of despondency and elation, of death and new life.

Billy Joel’s song today offers words that I find applicable to this week. I recall all those who have gone on before us, who ran the good race, “fought the good fight”, and gave it their all. Think of John the Baptist, the “voice crying in the wilderness” whose head ended up on a platter. Or Mary the Mother of Jesus, who from the time Jesus was born “treasured all these things in her heart” and then this week witnesses grief and pain that we can only begin to grasp. There’s Peter, who told the Lord he would be right there for him, who with bravado cut off the soldier’s ear, who then denied the Lord three times, and then who later still became the Rock on which Christ built His church. And then there’s St Paul, who ran at full throttle after his conversion and who was “already being poured out like a drink offering” when the time came for his departure (2 Timothy 4:6).

Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

In his book Orthodoxy, G K Chesterton looks at differences in the art of two different religious traditions: “No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. . . Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards.”

Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

But what if Jesus is not the extreme at all? What if we, all of us through history, are the extremists and He is the center, as He invites us in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”? Mr Chesterton sets forth this very intriguing proposition, also in Orthodoxy: “Suppose we heard an unknown man spoken of by many men. Suppose we were puzzled to hear that some men said he was too tall and some too short; some objected to his fatness, some lamented his leanness; some thought him too dark, and some too fair. One explanation . . . would be that he might be an odd shape. But there is another explanation. He might be the right shape. Outrageously tall men might feel him to be short. Very short men might feel him to be tall. Old bucks who are growing stout might consider him insufficiently filled out; old beaux who were growing thin might feel that he expanded beyond the narrow lines of elegance. . . Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least the normal thing, the centre. Perhaps, after all, it is Christianity that is sane and all its critics that are mad--in various ways. I tested this idea by asking myself whether there was about any of the accusers anything morbid that might explain the accusation. I was startled to find that this key fitted a lock. For instance, it was certainly odd that the modern world charged Christianity at once with bodily austerity and with artistic pomp. But then it was also odd, very odd, that the modern world itself combined extreme bodily luxury with an extreme absence of artistic pomp. The modern man thought Becket's robes too rich and his meals too poor. But then the modern man was really exceptional in history; no man before ever ate such elaborate dinners in such ugly clothes. The modern man found the church too simple exactly where modern life is too complex; he found the church too gorgeous exactly where modern life is too dingy. . .”

Out of the darkness, into the light
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?

C S Lewis in Mere Christianity leaves no middle ground when it comes to the options that are open to us: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

And as we begin this Holy Week of extremes, Mr Joel leaves us with these words of reminder and comfort:

You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

Trouble!

2008-03-14T17:08:00.005-05:00

Trouble!
by Meredith Willson

Mass-steria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
– “Professor” Harold Hill in The Music Man

That’s “Professor” with a capital “P” and that stands for “Pi”! Happy “Pi Day”, everybody! It’s another Fun-Time Friday and it’s also March 14 or “3.14”, if you will, so some smart folks call it “Pi Day”. Of course, I instantly thought too much about it, and wondered if we should celebrate officially at 3:37am (that is, at 0.15926535898 of the way through the day, beings as how Pi begins 3.1415926535898). And then, I thought that maybe we should have celebrated on March 4 at 6:56am (at 0.1415926535898 of the way through the third month). But then, there’s that whole base 10/base 12 problem . . . and fortunately at this point, Chester knocked a glass of water off the coffee table with his tail, thereby breaking my reverie. Lucky for you! So it really is true: one man's "trouble" is another's good fortune.

So let’s get moving with one of my all-time favorite musicals, Meredith Willson’s The Music Man. Mr Willson calls it his “Valentine” to his growing-up years in Mason City, Iowa. Set in the mythical “River City” in 1912, The Music Man tells the story of the transformative power of dreams and the triumph of love. Professional con man “Harold Hill” arrives in River City ready to sell them a bill of goods. He’s not sure which scheme to use until he meets his old friend Marcellus Washburn. Marcellus has fallen in love with a local girl and has settled down in River City. He tells Harold about a new Pool Hall about to open, and Harold now knows the “evil” for which he needs to offer the cure.

At a town meeting, Harold Hill (now calling himself a music “Professor”, offering band instruments, and selling “The Think System”) tells the crowd, “Either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community.” He thus begins one of the most famous “patter songs” of all time. And note to all Rap star wannabes: Pay attention. You might learn something.

Well, ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
Why sure I'm a billiard player,
Certainly mighty proud, I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden.
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye.
Y’ever take and try to give
An iron-clad leave to yourself
From a three-rail billiard shot?
But just as I say,
It takes judgment, brains, and maturity to score
In a balkline game,
I say that any boob can take
And shove a ball in a pocket.
And they call that sloth.
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-day-
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon,
Then, beer from a bottle . . .

Sorry, to interrupt, but we needed to catch our breath. Not so for Robert Preston, who won the role of Harold Hill precisely because he wasn’t that good of a singer. When the other men trying out for the Broadway premiere in 1957 tried their hand at Trouble!, they had too much melodic sense (Trouble! had actually started out as dialogue and the producers thought that Harold needed to have a song at that point). Meredith Willson heard Mr Preston’s audition – where he seemingly effortlessly “talked” his way through the song – and instantly knew he had found Professor Harold Hill. And so had we all. Mr Preston took home the Tony Award that year for Best Actor in a Musical. The show won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Actress (for Barbara Cook). When Hollywood brought The Music Man to the silver screen in 1962, Morton DaCosta (the director of the Broadway production) also directed the film. He stayed very faithful to the original stage production and also brought Mr Preston and most of the cast with him, including Pert Kelton (Mrs Paroo) and the Buffalo Bills barbershop quartet. Two new additions were Shirley Jones as Marian Paroo and a new child actor, Ronnie Howard, as Marian’s brother, Winthrop. Studio head Jack Warner had wanted either Frank Sinatra or Cary Grant to play Harold Hill, but Mr Willson prevailed, thereby raising Hollywood’s awareness of Mr Preston and capturing his performance on film for all of us. And speaking of Warner and Sinatra, when we left off we were talking about “beer from a bottle”:

An’ the next thing ya know,
Your son is playin’ for money
In a pinch-back suit.
And list’nin’ to some big out-a-town Jasper
Hearin’ him tell about horse-race gamblin’.
Not a wholesome trottin’ race, no!
But a race where they sit down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey boy
Sittin’ on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say.
Now, friends, lemme tell you what I mean.
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six pockets in a table.
Pockets that mark the diff’rence
Between a gentleman and a bum,
With a capital “B,”
And that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!

I saw Susan Stroman’s 2000 revival of The Music Man on Broadway. Lovely Rebecca Luker played Marian Paroo opposite Craig Bierko’s Harold Hill. For the curtain calls, Ms Stroman gave every member of the cast a trombone and dressed them in a marching band outfit. They all played Seventy-Six Trombones, with varying degrees of success. It was lot of fun! I also learned, when researching today’s song, that the Olds musical instrument company produced all the instruments for the film version of show. After filming, Olds refurbished the instruments and sold them to the public, without mentioning that they had been in the show. I think they frittered away a huge marketing opportunity: I know I would have paid extra to have one of those instruments. And speaking of “frittering”:

And all week long your River City
Youth'll be fritterin’ away,
I say your young men'll be fritterin’!
Fritterin’ away their noontime, suppertime, choretime too!
Get the ball in the pocket,
Never mind gittin' dandelions pulled
Or the screen door patched or the beefsteak pounded.
And never mind pumpin' any water
'Til your parents are caught with the cistern empty
On a Saturday night and that's trouble,
Oh, yes we got lots and lots a' trouble.
I'm thinkin' of the kids in the knickerbockers,
Shirt-tail young ones, peekin' in the poolhall
Window after school, look, folks! Trouble!
Right here in River City.
Trouble with a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!

How times change. When I was a teenager, our church’s youth lounge had a pool table. I wonder what the good people of River City would have thought. And who knows if maybe they weren’t right. Sometimes, it’s hard to know where that slope becomes too slippery. That’s the funny thing about the point of no return: you don’t know you’re there until you’ve reached it. Rudolph Giuliani, when he was Mayor of New York, made it a policy that graffiti was to be cleaned off subway trains and broken windows repaired nightly. He believed that an atmosphere of vandalism and disrepair fostered more of the same. The book of Proverbs seems to agree: it includes this one proverb in two different places –

A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest –
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.
– Proverbs 6:10-11 and also Proverbs 24:33-34

Harold Hill is certainly in agreement, as the crowd is now fully with him:

Now, I know all you folks are the right kinda parents.
I'm gonna be perfectly frank.
Would ya like to know what kinda conversation goes on
While they're loafin' around that Hall?
They'll be tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out Cubebs,
Tryin' out Tailor-Mades like a cigarette fiend!
And braggin' all about
How they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen.
One fine night, they leave the pool hall,
Headin' for the dance at the Armory!
Libertine men and scarlet women,
And Ragtime! Shameless music
That'll grab your son and your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instinct!
Mass-steria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!

Of course, Harold has unknowingly put himself at odds with Mayor Shinn, the owner of the Pool Hall. Harold doesn’t help his case when he also unknowingly matches up the Mayor’s daughter Zaneeta with local “ruffian” Tommy Djilas, who he has enlisted to be the leader of the boys’ band. But 1912 proves to be a “summer of love” for River City, as lifelong adversaries on the School Board blend their four couldn’t-be-more-different voices into a Barbershop Quartet; as the nosy, pick-a-little-talk-a-little ladies of the town welcome the outcast librarian, Miss Marian, into their artistic endeavors; as shy, lisping Winthrop begins to verbalize his joy at receiving a trumpet to play in the band; as the townspeople begin to lose some of their “Iowa stubbornness” and part with hard earned money for the band instruments.

Marian isn’t at first convinced of the Professor’s good intentions, and by the next verse of Trouble!, she and the Mayor are the only two people in the meeting not under the Professor’s spell, as everyone else sings:

Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool,
That stands for pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
Right here!
Gotta figure out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!
Our children’s children gonna have
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble . . .

As the townspeople keep the chant of “Trouble” going, Harold exhorts them further:

Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale signs of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Captain Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like “swell?”
And “so's your old man?”
Well, if so my friends . . .

And then everyone (minus the Mayor and Marian) joins in:

Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we've got trouble.
We're in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
We got trouble, here, we got big, big trouble!
With a "T"! Gotta rhyme it with "P"!
And that stands for Pool!

It’s all great fun. Of course, in the real world, it’s not always that simple. As George Carlin explains relativity, “Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot. Everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.” Where do we draw the line? We’re given this warning, and accompanying bit of guidance, in 1 Peter 5:8-9 –

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your fellow believers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

And immediately before, in verse 7, St Peter offers these words of encouragement:

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

In Marian Paroo’s case, true love carries the day. The flames of love are fanned when she sees Winthrop’s transformation upon receiving his trumpet off the Wells Fargo Wagon. When the townspeople turn against Harold after a jealous anvil salesman (and competitor of Harold's) tells them the real story, Marian emphatically reminds them of how their lives have been transformed by the dreams that Harold has sparked in them. Of course, the transformation isn’t fully realized until the “band” marches in under the director of Tommy Djilas. They are outfitted in their uniforms and holding their instruments. Marian – believing more in Harold than he does in himself – breaks off a classroom pointer and gives it to him as a conductor's baton. He summons up all the courage he has to tell the band, “Now, think, men. Think!” Some say love is blind. In this case, it is tone deaf. The band begins honking out the Minuet in G . . . and it is the most beautiful thing their parents have ever heard!

I have heard this phrase before and I think it is lovely: Harold experiences “unanticipated redemption.” And as we prepare for Easter next week, aren’t we all singing the same tune?

Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses

2008-03-13T16:04:00.003-05:00

Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses
by Paul Nelson and Gene Nelson

After Fuelgrip’s song pick yesterday, I thought it would be nice to focus on a story about a trucker and his wife that has a happy ending. The flip side of the coin to Papa Loved Mama is Kathy Mattea’s Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses. Here’s how it starts:

Charlie's got a gold watch
Don't seem like a whole lot
After thirty years of drivin'
Up and down the interstate
But Charlie's had a good life
And Charlie's got a good wife
And after tonight she'll no longer
Be countin' the days

And by the chorus, we know that Charlie is deeply in love, after all these years:

Eighteen wheels and a dozen roses
Ten more miles on his four day run
A few more songs from the all night radio
Then he'll spend the rest of his life
With the one that he loves

The thing I really like about the chorus (besides the sentiment, of course) is how it utilizes all sorts of numbers – both definite and indeterminate – to make its point. Each phrase contains a numeric reference, for example:

Eighteen
A dozen
Ten
Four
A few
All
The rest
One

It reminds me of those times in the book of Proverbs where the writer begins a list with a number, then tweaks it up one. Here is Proverbs 6:16:

There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up dissension in the community.
- Proverbs 6:16-19

Then, in chapter 30, the writer puts a whole string of lists in. For example, here is 30:29-31:

There are three things that are stately in their stride,
four that move with stately bearing:
a lion, mighty among beasts,
who retreats before nothing;
a strutting rooster, a he-goat,
and a king secure against revolt.
- Proverbs 30:29-31

Before Ms Mattea’s song, the only numeric connection I made with 18-wheelers was “3-2” and “6 point”. For those of you too young to remember Smokey and the Bandit, believe it or not, there was a time when the different brands of beer were only available in certain locales. More amazingly, people would actually go to a lot of trouble to move them around the country. It was almost like osmosis: beer would move from an area of higher concentration to a lower one. Back when my wife and I were dating, her friends in North Carolina would always ask me to bring Coors when I came for a visit. In exchange, I would take home Stroh’s – and now I can’t figure why on earth we went to all that trouble!

Luckily for the story, Charlie and his wife have more important things to do as they reach their golden years:

They'll buy a Winnebago
Set out to find America
They'll do a lot of catchin' up
A little at a time
With pieces of the old dream
They're gonna light the old flame
Doin' what they please
Leavin' every other reason behind

And from Proverbs again:

Gray hair is a crown of splendor;
it is attained in the way of righteousness.
- Proverbs 16:31

The glory of young men is their strength,
gray hair the splendor of the old.
- Proverbs 20:29

All through the Bible, we are told of people who did some amazing things in their old age. For example, “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. (Deuteronomy 34:7)” Caleb told the crowd, “I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. (Joshua 14:11)”

Luke’s Gospel (in 2:36-38) tells us of “a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then had been a widow for eighty-four years. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”

In Saving Private Ryan, Captain John Miller and his batallion have risked it all to find Private James Ryan. Ryan’s other three brothers were all killed in battles and the heads of command dispatch Captain Miller’s team to bring him home safely to his mother and family. In the midst of the last battle, when it is clear that Private Ryan is going to make it, even as most of his fellow soldiers will die, Captain Miller whispers something to him. Private Ryan leans in closer and asks, “What, sir?” Captain Miller replies, “James, earn this . . . earn it.”

In the film’s final scene, a now much older James Ryan and his wife are visiting Normandy and Omaha Beach. He finds the grave of his old friend and kneels, weeping. As his wife comes to his side, James requests of her, “Tell me I have led a good life.” She asks him, “What?” He says, “Tell me I'm a good man.” To which she replies, “You are.”

I am so thankful that our church is finding more and more chances to bring the generations together. This year, a couple of men in their seventies and eighties were mentors to a group of confirmands. A group of older women prepare lovely items for the new mothers in the congregation and present them when the babies are baptized. It is so encouraging to see people viewing their “retirement” as an opportunity for service.

May the Lord give them strength in their endeavors. They are good men and women, and the work of their golden years is good, too. And may He also shine on their “rest and relaxation.”

Eighteen wheels and a dozen roses
Ten more miles on his four day run
A few more songs from the all night radio
Then he'll spend the rest of his life
With the one that he loves.

Papa Loved Mama

2008-03-12T15:05:00.002-05:00

Papa Loved Mama
by Garth Brooks and Kim Williams

Papa loved Mama
Mama loved men
Mama's in the graveyard
Papa's in the pen

And with haiku-like precision, Garth Brooks hauls us into a dark world of infidelity and homicide. It’s made all the more horrifying being told matter-of-factly by one of the children of the conflict. On top of that, the music of the song adds to our discomfort by being at such odds with the lyrics: it rollicks along like an 18-wheeler in tenth gear. In short, it’s the perfect song for Full of Woe Wednesday! I’m your host, Fuelgrip Skip.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Mr Brooks. He, too, is an Oklahoma boy. According to the papers, he’s set all kinds of records for album sales – Country or otherwise. And, we’re neighbors! Sort of. For those of you who have heard this story, please indulge me, but I know I’ll tell it better than my brother Fireplug does. A few years ago, Mr Brooks bought some property up by our family’s farm. The term “some property” may be slightly misleading. It was 2,800 acres: about four square miles. He promptly went about erecting an eight-foot high fence around it. That’s eight miles of fence for those of you keeping score. Think where we’d be today if we had gone long in chain link futures! Anyway, our properties adjoin each other for about 400 feet, so I guess I can technically call us next-door neighbors. But here’s the sad part: he must have spent all that money on chain link and now can’t afford a telephone – I’ve been waiting for an invitation to go fishing in one of his ponds or something and have never received a call. Oh well, every once in a while we get the benefit of a terrific fireworks show on his land.

But I digress. Speaking of fireworks, let’s get started on today’s song:

Papa drove a truck nearly all his life
You know it drove mama crazy being a trucker's wife
The part she couldn't handle was the being alone
I guess she needed more to hold than just a telephone
Papa called Mama each and every night
Just to ask her how she was and if us kids were alright
Mama would wait for that call to come in
When Daddy'd hang up she was gone again

The thing I really like about Country music is that you pretty much know the arc of the story in the first few lines. There’s usually an unexpected twist, and most likely some clever wordplay along the way, but the basic narrative line is usually set right up front. In the case of Papa Loved Mama, it adds to the suspense. I read an article where a film director (I think it was Steven Spielberg) was praising Alfred Hitchcock’s style of suspense as opposed to what passes as “suspense” today. He said, in essence, that Mr Hitchcock would let you know from the start that there was a bomb under someone’s seat, and the suspense and horror came in waiting to see if and when it was going to go off. By contrast, a lot of directors confuse “horror” with “suspense”: the bomb just goes off and it’s a grisly mess. I’ve noticed that, too. With Hitchcock’s style, you’re on the edge of your seat, even if you are looking sideways and partially covering your eyes. With the horror style or direction, you’re blown back into your seat with your hands over your face.

I think Papa Loved Mama covers both styles. It starts out rather Hitchcockian, if you’ll pardon the expression, but by the chorus, we’re moving into the other territory:

Mama was a looker
Lord, how she shined
Papa was a good'n
But the jealous kind
Papa loved Mama
Mama loved men
Mama's in the graveyard
Papa's in the pen

Boy, those last lines of the chorus tell the whole story. They’re short, packed with alliteration, and musically quite interesting. Mr Brooks builds to the end of the chorus and the melodic line climbs: “Papa loved Mama, Mama loved men . . .” As he holds the word “men” on that high tonic note, the accompaniment chops down in syncopated time. Then, on “Mama’s in the graveyard, Papa’s in the pen” – the part that sets it all out for us – it’s almost a throwaway line. And that makes it all the more memorable to me. Have you ever seen something staged by Twyla Tharp? Often, she has the dancers go through some incredibly difficult maneuvers, only to end the segment with them walking off stage flat-footed. Or maybe watch John Smoltz or Roger Clemens on the mound. Some pitchers, like Josh Beckett or Kenny Rogers, are all fired up during the inning and then keep that angry-faced, clenched-fist intensity going even after the inning is over. Smoltz and Clemens are intense while they’re pitching, but when they walk off the field, there’s a quietness there – not a calm maybe, just quiet. To me, it means “Look out: there’s a lot more to come.”

Well, we already know how the story ends, but Mr Brooks fills in the details in verse two, and there’s a lot more to come there, too:

Well, it was bound to happen and one night it did
Papa came home and it was just us kids
He had a dozen roses and a bottle of wine
If he was lookin' to surprise us, he was doin' fine
I heard him cry for Mama up and down the hall
Then I heard a bottle break against the bedroom wall
That old diesel engine made an eerie sound
When Papa fired it up and headed into town

How effective is this song in sticking in my memory? I have a diesel engine on our Excursion, and whenever I start it early on a winter morning to warm it up, I think about that “eerie sound” line. But as far as painting a lasting picture, the next four lines do the job:

Well, the picture in the paper showed the scene real well
Papa's rig was buried in the local motel
The desk clerk said he saw it all real clear
He never hit the brakes and he was shifting gears

It’s very hard to “un-see” something. Like the desk clerk or the children who are the innocent bystanders in this song, we can be blindsided by events: the bomb can go off unexpectedly. We must be persistent. The enemy seeks to sneak in deceptions subliminally, one frame at a time, with all those vain things that can charm us, like old-time theatre owners flashing “Popcorn!” on the screen. We know all too well the words of the old hymn, “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.” But we know that Jesus is persistent in his vision with us: he stands “at the door, knocking (Revelation 3:20)” with a “love that will not let us go,” to quote another great old hymn.

I once worked with a man whose ancestors were from Hungary. He had taken up the hobby—like some men might tie fishing flies—of painting those ornate, incredibly detailed eggs you see in Eastern Europe. He told me, “You can’t work on these eggs, concentrating on their symbolism of the Risen Lord, without being changed by them.” His words came back to me as I was thinking about today’s song. You can understand the powerful hold of images and icons. The question for me becomes: am I giving the Lord sufficient time before my eyes? And maybe more importantly, what are we setting before our children?

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” – Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Where in our lives are we persistent in our vision of the Risen Lord? I believe it is imperative to have such contact and communion with Him so that we are constantly reinforcing his vision in our lives. As we impress the Lord’s great Good News on our children, as we talk about Jesus with one another, as we write his name on our gates, as we pass our faith on, he becomes our vision—the Lord of our hearts!

The Girl I Mean to Be

2008-03-11T15:25:00.004-05:00

The Girl I Mean to Be
lyrics by Marsha Norman
music by Lucy Simon

Paradise (noun), from the Greek paradeisos (an enclosed garden) . . .

Now, before we get started today, let me say right off the bat that I’m a sucker for anything that takes place at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. So, I’m fascinated by Theodore Roosevelt’s biographies, by the whole St Louis World’s Fair Exposition of 1904, by the Wright Brothers’ endeavors, and by G K Chesteron’s Orthodoxy, to name just a few examples. The film Harry and Walter Go to New York is one of my favorites, even though most critics were not so impressed.

And then there are the musicals. A clear majority of my favorites are set in this period: Ragtime, The Music Man, Mary Poppins, and the show from whence comes today’s song, The Secret Garden.

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel The Secret Garden is set in 1906 and tells the story of Mary Lennox, an English girl who comes to live with her widowed uncle and cousin in Yorkshire after Mary’s family dies of cholera in India. Her uncle Archibald is a morose, hunchbacked man, still intensely grieving the death of his wife, Lily. Archibald and Lily’s son, Colin, is confined to his bed, seemingly unable to walk. In the musical, Archibald’s brother Neville is the attending physician and has ulterior motives for keeping both Archibald and Colin in their debilitated states.

Mary learns of a secret garden, a walled enclosure that has been locked since Lily’s death. With the help of the gardener and the servants, Mary brings the garden back to life. The garden’s charms work their magic on Colin, as well. When Archibald hears noises in the garden and opens the gate for the first time since Lily’s death, Mary and Colin are having a footrace amidst the beautiful spring flowers. Colin falls into his father’s arms and the dark spell is broken.

The Secret Garden opened on Broadway on April 25, 1991 and ran for 709 performances. There were also companies in Australia and London’s West End, as well as a touring company. If you pay attention to this sort of thing, the show took home three Tony Awards. Eleven-year old Daisy Eagan became the youngest actor ever to win the Leading Actress in a Musical honor. Heidi Landesman garnered the Tony for Best Set Design, combining Victorian toy elements with those elaborate collages of Joseph Cornell. Marsha Norman brought Mrs. Burnett’s novel to the stage and won the Tony for Best Book of a Musical. She also wrote the show’s lyrics, which were set to music by Lucy Simon (Carly Simon’s sister, incidentally).

The musical departs slightly from the book in that it adds what are referred to as “The Dreamers”, who function as a sort of Greek chorus. The Dreamers might also be called “ghosts”, as they are played by Lily, Mary’s parents, the servants from India – all those who have gone on before. They comment on the action and give aid and comfort to Mary, then Colin, and then Archibald. I would call them “the Communion of the Saints.”

Act I of the musical takes place in the gray and dreary Yorkshire winter, set mostly in the cold and drafty Misselthwaite Manor, the windswept Yorkshire Moors, and in flashbacks to India in the time of cholera. As Act II opens, Mary is in the middle of a vision of what can be: we are in the Garden, fully realized, on a beautiful summer day. Mary is surrounded by all her loved ones – her mother and father, her Aunt Lily, her friends from India – and all of them, including Mary, are outfitted with white dresses, white suits, white parasols. Mary sings to us what is on her heart:

I need a place where I can go,
Where I can whisper what I know,
Where I can whisper who I like
And where I go to see them.

I need a place where I can hide,
Where no one sees my life inside,
Where I can make my plans, and write them down
So I can read them.

A place where I can bid my heart be still
And it will mind me.
A place where I can go when I am lost,
And there I'll find me.

I need a place to spend the day,
Where no one says to go or stay,
Where I can take my pen and draw
The girl I mean to be.

Especially during Lent, but always really, we are invited to spend more time with the Lord. As the Lord speaks through the prophet in Isaiah 30:15, “In returning and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength . . .” We also learn in the Gospels that Jesus spent a lot of time alone with His Father. If Jesus needed all that time apart, I don’t know why I’d think I could get by with anything less!

I also think our Jewish brothers and sisters do a great job of speaking to God more intimately. Think of how Tevye converses with the Lord in Fiddler on the Roof. All through the Old Testament and Psalms, there is an openness and candor that we would do well to recapture. In both the Jewish and Christian traditions, there is also the whole mystery of how a husband and wife “become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24, quoted by Jesus in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:8 and by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:16 and Ephesians 5:31). I hope I am not going too far afield here, but note that it does not say they “become one mind” or “become one spirit”. No matter how intimately you know your spouse, or how close you are to a friend, or how much strength we can gain through fellowship with others, there are still times when the Lord calls us to “come apart for awhile” with Him. There, you can be just who you are.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28

At one point in The Secret Garden, Mary asks her uncle Archibald if the house is full of ghosts. He tells her, “They’re only a ghost as long as someone is holding on to them.” At the end of the musical, the “Dreamers” drift among the people and the flowers of the garden. As Archibald proclaims his love for his son, Colin, and his niece, Mary, the Dreamers begin to leave. The last to exit are Mary’s father and Archibald’s wife, Lily. They are no longer “ghosts” but are now part of the “Communion of the Saints”.

The book ends with these words of Mary: “The spell was broken. My uncle learned to laugh, and I learned to cry. The secret garden is always open now. Open, and awake, and alive. If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

"Open, awake, and alive." That's a great goal to have in mind. As we "look the right way", and notice that "the whole world is a garden", ask the Master Gardener to help you with your own "bit of earth": the enclosed park that is your life. He can help you make something beautiful inside. And then, please remember to leave the door open.

Running on Empty

2008-03-10T15:23:00.002-05:00

Running on Empty
by Jackson Browne

I'm not a smart man . . . but I know what love is.
- Forrest Gump

This weekend, I went shopping for a treadmill. It’s for our dog. At 10 years old, Chester is susceptible (as are most Rough Collies – all big dogs, really) to hip problems. His veterinarian has suggested that we walk him on an uphill incline, thereby requiring him to use his back legs more and build up those muscles. Fortunately, our house is on a hill, and Lindsay has very faithfully taken Chester for walks, making sure that they climb the big hill every time that leads to the house.

It probably explains a lot about myself that I at first thought that the efficacy of the hill climb would be negated by the fact that there would also be an equal downhill component (we start and end at the same place, right?). And this is coming from someone who has always been a huge opponent of the “zero-sum” theory in economics, etc. As Lindsay (and the vet – yes; I called) explained, the downhill segment may work other muscles, but it doesn’t negate the benefit of the uphill walk on his hips. So “a rising hill lifts all collies”, if you will.

Once again, I was done in by thinking too much – or rather, thinking too much on the wrong things. Which brings us to Forrest Gump, by way of Jackson Browne:

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

Mr Browne’s 1977 song Running on Empty was used in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump was like a Rorschach Test for our generation: everyone saw in it what they wanted to see. Some folks read an anti-war message into Forrest’s military service. Others just the opposite. Here’s a sample of Forrest’s naïve discussion about Lieutenant Dan: “He was from a long great military tradition. Somebody from his family had fought and died in every single American war. I guess you could say he had a lot to live up to.”

I was taken by Forrest’s trusting nature: how he always saw the good in everyone and every situation. I also think the idea of keeping things simple is the best. And I’m glad the Lord has made the Word available to all of us, as He promises in Deuteronomy 30:11-14:

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

Do you all remember the huge running craze of a quarter century ago? I know people still run, but it seemed that, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, everyone was a jogger. When I began running in earnest, I found that the New Balance shoes worked better for me. Here’s what I learned about New Balance when I visited their website:

It started in 1906, when a 33 year-old waiter named William J. Riley decided to build arch supports that relieved the pain suffered by people who spent all day working on their feet. His design fit better, and felt better than anything else on the market, and by 1909 Riley was listed in the Boston business directory under 'shoemaker.' Nineteen years later Riley designed his first running shoe for the Boston running club known as the Boston Brown Bag Harriers. The success of this shoe spread quickly, and by 1941 New Balance was creating custom-made shoes for running, baseball, basketball, tennis and boxing.

I love it that the shoes that now win Olympic events and outfit us in our recreational pursuits started out to ease the aching feet of Boston’s policemen and waitresses. And that before the inventor became known as a “shoemaker” he was a waiter. Jackson Browne also has a list of professions on his resume. His website lists him as a singer, songwriter and anti-nuclear activist. I wonder if St Paul’s first business card listed him as “Tentmaker” before his change of profession. Or, for that matter, Jesus’ first business card for “Joseph and Sons” might have listed his occupation as “Carpenter”. We can often confuse “Occupation” with “Vocation” – maybe that’s why a lot of us keep running.

Forrest Gump was quite a runner himself, but he didn’t start out that way. On his first day of school, young Forrest, his legs in braces, tried to find a seat on the school bus, only to be refused by everyone. Then, young Jenny offered him a place next to her. From that first time he heard her voice, Forrest was in love with Jenny. Her voice helped him again, when he was being chased. As Jenny yelled, “Run, Forrest!” his leg braces began to fly off, and he beat the bike-riding bullies. Forrest tells us, “Now you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running!”

In the film, Forrest tells us that one day, “for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.” And Mr Browne’s music underscores the entire scene:

Everyone I know, everywhere I go
People need some reason to believe
I don't know about anyone but me

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

For Forrest Gump, he just stopped running one day, after “3 years, 2 months, 14 days and 16 hours.” He was in the middle of Monument Valley and decided he “was pretty tired.” For others of us, our bodies are telling us that they are “pretty tired.” Every year, I know more and more people who have had their knees replaced. It’s a miraculous surgery – and a God-send to aging Baby Boomers. I’m not there yet, but I can no longer run at the speed I used to: the impact on my knees does me in. So, for the past two years, I’ve gotten on the treadmill at the health club. I keep it at a walking pace and increase the grade to 9 or 10%. That’ll get the old ticker going! Maybe Chester and I can get matching treadmills in our retirement, side by side.

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. – 1 Timothy 4:8

I think it’s only right to keep our bodies in shape – to be good stewards of what God has given us. But I wonder if I spend as much time and effort on spiritual things as I do on bodily things. And I think a lot of our running can be resolved when we know what we are running from – and when we know the One we are running to.

I'd love to stick around but I'm running behind
You know I don't even know what I'm hoping to find
Running into the sun but I'm running behind

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I'm running behind

I love Forrest’s quote at top of this post. For someone the world views as pretty simple, he knows quite a lot. Here’s another exchange from the film:

Jenny: Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you're gonna be?
Forrest: Who I'm gonna be?
Jenny: Yeah.
Forrest: Aren't – aren't I going to be me?

And I think that’s the secret. Running – everything – can change from a life-defining event to merely a life-enhancing one, when we know who we are, in Christ.

Play That Funky Music, White Boy

2008-03-08T21:14:00.001-06:00

Play That Funky Music, White Boy
by Robert Parissi

Spring is on its way! We already have some jonquils and crocuses peeking out of the ground. Tonight, even though it seems really early, we’re switching to Daylight Savings Time, and that always signals Spring to me. And Easter is also early this year, just about as early as it can be. Here’s a question for you (two questions, actually). First, why isn’t Easter always the Sunday after Passover? That’s seems to be when it should be to me. And (now that you know Easter isn’t the first Sunday after Passover) do you know how the date of Easter is calculated? For some reason, it’s the Sunday after the first full moon of Spring. Now you know.

Anyway, all these signs of Spring are around us and it got me thinking about new growth and the “growing pains” that can accompany it. As we step out into new ways of thinking and doing things, we can feel a little uncomfortable. And that brings us to today’s song, Play That Funky Music, White Boy, one of those one-hit wonder songs of the late 1970s.

We won’t spend a lot of time on the lyrics. Here’s a short Curriculum Vitae of our narrator: he was “playin’ in a Rock ‘n Roll band” and he “never had no problems.” And then one day – well, let’s let him tell it:

And everything around me
Got to start to feelin’ so low
And I decided quickly
To boogie down and check out the show

Yea, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted

Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music right
Play that funky music, white boy
Lay down and boogie, and play that funky music ‘til you die

I always like the way the song modulated up a whole step for the “chorus”, then somehow managed to wind up back in the tonic key in time for the next verse. But today, I’d like to focus on the “modulating up” part. As we head into Sunday for the weekend, you might consider where the Lord is leading you upward – maybe even a little bit out of your comfort zone – into areas of growth.

Jesus was always calling His friends upward. He still is, I guess, come to think of it. When the multitudes were assembled on the hillside and the disciples came to Jesus to tell him that everyone was getting hungry, Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.” After Peter had betrayed Jesus three times, I’m sure Peter was feeling really inadequate to serve the Master effectively. But Jesus told Peter (also three times), “Feed my sheep.” All through history, the Lord has called his friends to be something more than they could imagine themselves being. Think of Mary, of Peter, of Paul, and of Joan of Arc and the three children of Fatima and Martin Luther and Martin Luther King. And think of you: “no longer what we were before, but not all that we will be”, as another song says.

Of course, we usually don’t even realize all the wonderful things the Lord has in store for us. One of my favorite cartoons shows two caterpillars on a branch. They look up and see a beautiful butterfly in the air. One of the caterpillars says to the other, “Boy, you’ll never get me up there in one of those things!” Our singer’s in the same boat:

I tried to understand this,
I thought that they were out of their minds.
How could I be so foolish (how could I),
to not see I was the one behind.

Yea, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted

Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music right . . .

And then, one day, it happens. The white boy gets funky. The rough fisherman becomes The Rock on which the Church is built. The Handmaid of the Lord gives birth to the Son of God. The caterpillar awakens to find he is the butterfly.

Tomorrow, when you awake, watch for signs of new birth. They’re all around us and in us. Watch!

The Dance of the Hours

2008-03-07T21:07:00.003-06:00

The Dance of the Hours
music by Amilcare Ponchielli

Welcome to Fun-Time Friday! You may be wondering how a piece of music without any lyrics can be the subject of this Lenten blog. A valid question, I’ll grant you, but Amilcare Ponchielli’s music was long ago repurposed into something far beyond what he could have dreamed of. First came the dancing ostriches and hippopotami in tutus in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. Then came the clanging pipes and honking horns of Spike Jones. Then came multiple lyric versions dealing with everything from homesick campers to processed cheese to fabric softener to cute little puppies without fleas. Still don’t know how we’re going to work all this into Lent? Well, let’s see what happens!

The original Dance of the Hours is a ballet segment in Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda and has become one of the most popular pieces in ballet history. Those who know things about opera state that the 1880 version of La Gioconda is the most famous Italian Grande Opera between Verdi’s Aida (1871) and Otello (1887).

But that’s not what we all remember it for, is it? You have to wonder, when Mr Ponchielli composed his ballet within an opera, if he didn’t envision beautiful ballerinas en pointe, making lovely tableaux. Maybe that’s how it worked until 1940. But then, Walter Elias Disney and his team of animators changed forever how we think about Amilcare Ponchielli’s music, and gave us accompanying visual images that maybe only recently have been replaced (more on that in a moment).

Disney’s version was one of the eight classical pieces in Fantasia, an experiment in animating the works of Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and other great composers. For Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours, the Disney team gave us corps of ostriches and elephants before introducing the prima ballerina, a tutu-bedecked hippopotamus. When the villainous Ben Ali Gator and his troops show up, chaos ensues and the set eventually comes crashing down.

Disney had already put a crack in the dam of The Dance of the Hours’ respectability. Spike Jones made that crack wider in 1943 when he and his orchestra used Ponchielli’s music to accompany a parody of the Indianapolis 500. The musical themes are introduced by perfectly tuned car horns and pipes.

The dam finally broke in 1963 when Allan Sherman took some of his son’s letters from camp (including references to his real-life friends Joe Spivy, Leonard Skinner and Jeffrey Hardy) and reworked them into lyrics set to Ponchielli’s ballet music. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah went to number 2 on the Billboard chart and launched Mr Sherman into celebrity – kind of the Weird Al Yankovich of his day.

Hello muddah, hello faddah
Here I am at Camp Granada
Camp is very entertaining
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.

I went hiking with Joe Spivy
He developed poison ivy
You remember Leonard Skinner
He got ptomaine poison last night after dinner.

It’s obvious what’s going on here. His son is trying, obliquely, to raise enough concern that his parents will be on the next train to the Poconos. He turns up the heat a little:

All the counselors hate the waiters
And the lake has alligators
And the head coach wants no sissies
So he reads to us from something called Ulysses.

How I don't want this to scare ya
But my bunkmate has malaria
You remember Jeffrey Hardy
They're about to organize a searching party.

And now by the bridge, sublety is out the window. I’ve been one of those homesick kids at camp and I agree that there comes a time when you just pour your heart out:

Take me home, oh muddah, faddah
Take me home, I hate Granada
Don't leave me out in the forest where
I might get eaten by a bear.
Take me home I promise I will not make noise
Or mess the house with other boys.
Oh please don't make me stay
I've been here one whole day.

In case the honesty angle doesn’t work, he decides on an approach that would make Dr Kübler-Ross proud:

Dearest faddah, darling muddah,
How's my precious little bruddah
Let me come home, if you miss me
I would even let Aunt Bertha hug and kiss me.

But then, everything changes in a moment:

Wait a minute, it's stopped hailing.
Guys are swimming, gals are sailing
Playing baseball, gee that's better
Muddah, faddah kindly disregard this letter.

Hasn’t this happened to all of us? Just when things look their bleakest, the sun comes out. The Psalmist reminds us, in Psalm 37:5, of the importance of trust and patience:

Commit your way to the Lord;
Trust in Him and He will do it

And in verse 7:

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him

I mentioned earlier that the Disney images that most of us now see when we hear Ponchielli’s music may have been supplanted recently. I was thinking about those cute puppies in the Advantix ad. The little Golden Retriever puppy writes home to his parents, and I think Allan Sherman would be proud:

Swimming hiking,
And tent pitching
They're not biting,
I'm not itching!
Can't wait to show you,
All my new tricks
Thanks again for sending me K9 Advantix!

I wonder how Mr Ponchielli feels about all these variations based on his music. In the Old Testament, we know of Joseph (of the Technicolor Dreamcoat story) who is betrayed by his brothers. He suffers hardship after hardship, but through it all, we are told that “the Lord was with Joseph”. And sure enough, Joseph rises to prominence. When he is reconciled with his brothers, they are worried that he will hold a grudge. He tells his brothers not to worry: “You may have intended it for evil, but the Lord intended it for good.”

We can be fairly certain the Amilcare Ponchielli did not intend his ballet music to be danced by hippos, honked by racecars, or used as a vehicle to sing about summer camp or canine flea preventative medicine. But when I was searching the internet for information about the music, I came across a YouTube file showing the entire ballet as seriously performed with the opera company in Madrid, Spain. And how many people would even have given it a look if they didn’t already know the music from Disney, Sherman, or Advantix?

Take delight in the Lord
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
- Psalm 37:4

Annie's Song

2008-03-06T15:41:00.001-06:00

Annie’s Song
by John Denver

. . . Let me give my life to you
Come let me love you, come love me again.

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. was born in 1943 in Roswell, New Mexico, the son of an Air Force officer and flight instructor. He died in 1997 when his experimental airplane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. In between, he changed his name, gave the world many memorable and singable songs, helped folk music of the 1970s to “put on a happy face”, became the Poet Laureate of Colorado, converted from Presbyterianism to Zen-twinged Lutheranism, gave 10 concerts in the Soviet Union, and even tried his hand at acting – playing opposite everyone from Fozzie the Bear to God Himself.

About the name: he had always gone by his middle name “John”. When he began to sing at clubs in college, his friend suggested that a last name shorter than “Deutschendorf” would allow more information to appear on the marquee. He picked the name of his favorite city in his favorite state, and “John Denver” entered into history.

I have been to two of his concerts and they were extremely enjoyable. Both performances were in the round, and the band was spread out over a huge oriental rug. It gave everything a homey and intimate feel, even in the 8,000-seat arena. Both times, the audience sang along with every song – and was encouraged to do so. The only difference between the two concerts was that, by the second one, the band and the oriental rug were on an immense turntable that slowly revolved. He still walked around the stage, though, making contact with people in the audience. We joined in on Take Me Home Country Roads, Thank God I’m a Country Boy, Calypso, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Fly Away, How Can I Leave You Again, Grandma’s Feather Bed, I’m Sorry, and Back Home Again. But then the lights dimmed and John Denver sang a love song for his wife:

You fill up my senses like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses come fill me again.

Come let me love you, let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you
Come let me love you, come love me again.

In many of his songs, like this one, Mr Denver seems to be reaching for a sensory overload. Sometimes the “high” was natural, as in Annie’s Song, as well as Sunshine on My Shoulders. And let’s be positive here and put Rocky Mountain High in this group: I always thought the line about “friends around the campfire and everybody’s high” referred to the glory of God’s great outdoors, but some of my friends read it differently. Sometimes, though, as in Poems, Prayers and Promises, art imitated life: Mr Denver was arrested twice for DUI.

But even in the hemp-based, proto-granola era of the1970s in which Mr Denver found himself, he was always positive, always working on some higher cause, and always, to my mind, searching for a deeper relationship with God. I think Hollywood recognized this by casting him opposite George Burns in Oh, God! and I think Mr Denver recognized this about himself by accepting. His performance seems very natural playing an Everyman who finds himself in an extraordinary situation. And Teri Garr was the perfect choice to play his bewildered wife. She went through a period there where all the men in her characters’ lives were thought, by the world’s standards, to be a little odd: Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, and John Denver in Oh, God!

Now what I’d like us to do today is also something that might be considered, by the world’s standards, to be a little odd. You might have thought that I was going to suggest that Annie’s Song is also a hymn of praise we can offer up to God, and that’s very true and a good idea. But what I’d like us to do today is to turn it around. Take a moment and imagine that the Lord is singing this song to you. He loves you, you know, and He wants you to know how much.

Come let me love you, let me give my life to you
. . . let me always be with you
Come let me love you, come love me again.

Or as George Burns (aka God) told John Denver (aka Jerry Landers), “If you find it hard to believe in me, maybe it would help you to know that I believe in you.”

Synchronicity II

2008-03-05T20:23:00.005-06:00

Synchronicity II
by Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers, and Gordon Sumner CBE (aka Sting)

Synchronicity (noun): The coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality. Used especially in the psychology of Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung.

It’s Full-of-Woe Wednesday again and I’m your host, Fuelgrip Skip. We’re going to mix it up a little today. Usually, I share with you some of my Least Favorite Songs. Today though, I’d like to tell you about one of my all-time favorites, Synchronicity II by The Police. Why would I include a favorite song on a Full-of-Woe Wednesday, you may ask? Well, in a short 5:02, it explores a world as densely packed as a neutron star with unresolved mystical images, angst, frustration, and dysfunction – in short, woe with a capital P. I love it! Let’s begin.

Another suburban family morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall
We have to shout above the din of our Rice Krispies
We can't hear anything at all

Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration
But we all know her suicides are fake
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take

Many miles away, something crawls from the slime at the
Bottom of a dark Scottish lake

Carl Jung coined the word “synchronicity” to refer to “meaningful coincidences”. I love it that the Bible is full of such events (which, of course, are not “coincidences” at all). When the people bring to Jesus the woman who was caught in adultery, He is writing in the dirt. At the end of Acts 8, the Ethiopian eunuch is just stopped in his chariot reading the Scriptures when Phillip comes up to witness to him. In the world of Synchronicity II, though, the coincidences are between family dysfunction, work frustration, and a creature in a lake in Scotland. If you are unfamiliar with the musical structure of the song, the first four lines are what we might call a “verse”. They are in the major scale of the song. It’s interesting writing that The Police have (has?) managed to create such a world of tonal ambiguity that even the notes of the major scale in the verse seem dissonant. The next four lines begin to build: major third, perfect fourth, augmented fourth, perfect fifth, then an octave up on the tonic, but in a minor mode. By the time we get to the last two lines (beginning with “many miles away”), there is an almost mystical and ethereal quality, but is still a driving number. Now, on to verse two:

Another industrial ugly morning
The factory belches filth into the sky
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today
He doesn’t think to wonder why

Verse two takes the fun of The Office and The Vicar of Dibley and turns it inside out. As we come to the end of the second verse, things gets more mysterious. And, believe me when I tell you this, the next seven lines are in the running for my favorite lyrical moments of all time (and yes, I have considered Sondheim, Lennon, McCartney, Hart, Hammerstein, Loesser, Cohan, Gilbert, Van Heusen, Ahrens and Gershwin):

The secretaries pout and preen like
Cheap tarts in a red light street
But all he ever thinks to do is watch
And every single meeting with his so-called “superior”
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch

Many miles away, something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch

Coincidentally (and probably meaningfully so), Carl Jung’s theories on synchronicity often refer to the writings of William of Ockham, an English logician and Franciscan friar of the 14th Century. Ockham wrote, “entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem", or "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". Don’t worry: of course I looked that up – the Internet can be a wonderful thing! It is commonly paraphrased, "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best" and is known as “Ockham’s Razor”, referring to the “shaving down” of cause and effect.

Now, I have a confession to make: except for the work of Django Reinhardt, I really don’t care for the electric guitar all that much. I think it may actually be a genetic predisposition, just like I think some people are born with an anti-Cilantro gene in their tastebuds. As a Baby Boomer, it has always made me a bit of an outsider with my peers, but I always thought that most electric guitar solos were exploiting all the worst parts of the instrument. I mean, haven’t we learned anything from the saxophone? But where I do think the electric guitar shines as a solo instrument is when it is shaved down to its essence: barely controlled noise. Think of the strange glissandi and feedback in Jimmy Page’s solo during Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love (although, admittedly, it was heavily remixed and augmented by a Theremin). Better yet, think of how Trevor Rabin’s guitar makes the sparks fly in Yes’ Owner of a Lonely Heart: it sounds like a rotary saw striking metal (come to think of it, I seem to remember that the video of that solo portrayed exactly those images). And, for my money, Andy Summers’ inventive solo during Synchronicity II is at the top of the list. It’s full of almost non-tonal power chords, audible finger-fret screeches, and those diving slides down to a dark pool of low-register notes. In short, it’s not your grandmother’s electric guitar solo: but it’s darn near perfect.

Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race

Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break
He sees the family home now looming in his headlights
The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache

Many miles away, there's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake

Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away

Synchronicity. Meaningful coincidences. I think Jung’s on to something. As Obi Wan Kenobi told Han Solo, “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.” More importantly for me, a leader of the Christian community agrees. Richard Halverson was the Chaplain of the United States Senate in the last couple of decades of the twentieth century. His “sending forth” struck a chord with many people and it is now universally known as “the Halverson Benediction”. How universal is it? When I searched for the words “Halverson Benediction” on Yahoo!, I was directed to websites located everywhere from America to Zambia. I leave you today with Chaplain Halverson’s words:

You go nowhere by accident.
Wherever you go, God is sending you.
Wherever you are, God has put you there.
He has a purpose in you being there.
Christ who indwells you has something
He wants to do through you wherever you are.
Believe this and go in His grace and love and power.

And Lord, if it’s not too much to ask, it would be just fine if your purpose did involve that Scottish lake, so many miles away.

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again

2008-03-04T22:44:00.003-06:00

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe
music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Passing bells
and sculpted angels,
cold and monumental,
seem, for you,
the wrong companions –
you were warm and gentle . . .
– Christine, in The Phantom of the Opera

The world’s most popular musical, The Phantom of the Opera, opened at London’s Her Majesty’s Theatre on October 9, 1986. It has never had an empty seat since. The original leads from London reprised their roles with the original Broadway cast and that production became the longest-running Broadway musical of all time on January 9, 2006 when it surpassed another Andrew Lloyd Webber production, Cats, at 7,486 performances. And it’s still going.

The object of the Phantom’s obsession is Christine Daaé, a beautiful, innocent, tessitura soprano in the chorus of Paris’ Grand Opera. Christine is at first drawn in by the Phantom’s mysterious advances, thinking that she is hearing from her father, who died when she was young. It is this deep longing for her father that motivates Christine and leaves her vulnerable to the Phantom’s distorted genius.

In Act II, Christine finds herself caught in a game between those who are using her to catch the Phantom. She is also unsure of the love that dashing Raoul, the Vicompte de Chagny, has for her. She visits her father’s grave and pours out her heart:

You were once
my one companion . . .
you were all
that mattered . . .
You were once
a friend and father -
then my world
was shattered . . .

Our family came to know “the World’s most popular musical” slowly. The first time I ever heard any music from Phantom, we were having dinner overlooking the Magic Kingdom on the top floor of the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. The band announced that they were going to perform a lovely ballad from a new hit show on Broadway. As the singers sang the beautiful duet, All I Ask of You, my daughter and I danced (Lindsay was three and a half at the time, so she stood on top of my shoes) while fireworks lit up Cinderella’s Castle and Space Mountain.

A few years, later, my cousin Ralph was visiting from Oregon. He and my dad had always been close (before I was born, Ralph had lived with my folks for a year while he went to a special grade school in Tulsa). He gave my father a cassette of the music from The Phantom of the Opera. My father had listened and really liked it, so when my daughter and I were getting ready to embark on a cross-country vacation (our first one with just the two of us), dad gave me the cassette for the trip. Lindsay and I instantly liked it, too, and it became our constant companion on the 2,864 miles over 10 days. From the Swedish smorgasbord in the middle of Kansas; to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota; to Mount Rushmore; to Devil’s Tower; to Yellowstone; to the Grand Tetons; to Vail; to my aunt’s house in Raton; and back home, we sang along, made up words when we didn’t know what they were saying, and tried to guess the story line without knowing it. (In my case I also had to decide whether singing an octave lower than the Phantom was still too high for my voice, or whether I needed to drop it down two octaves: how does Michael Crawford sing that high? Or, maybe it’s best not to tell me.)

One aside: I scheduled our trip without knowing about the annual Harley-Davidson Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. By the time we reached the Black Hills, we were a lone SUV awash in a sea of choppers, hogs and sidecars. The riders were all very nice, but I had never seen so many tattoos (some were even on the men), ponytails (some were even on the women), and earrings (some were even in ears). Well, maybe two asides: because we visited Devil’s Tower while listening to the London cast recording of Phantom, I now think of that pipe organ music whenever I hear the five-note Close Encounters theme. But conversely, when we saw Phantom in London the next year and saw the cast climbing down the iron gate at the end of show, I now always associate that scene with the climbers we saw rappelling down the side of Devil’s Tower – I can even smell the pine trees instead of the Paris storm sewers. Oh, I forgot, here’s one more: I got stopped for speeding in Yellowstone (I was actually also passing in a no passing zone, too). The police out there are Federal Marshalls, and they mean business. As the Marshall sternly walked up to my window, I turned off the Phantom tape – or at least I thought I did. I must have hit “rewind” or something because, just as the Marshall was taking my license and lecturing me on the dangers of the mountain roads, the pipe organ blared out – and I mean blared. He let me off with a warning. Now, I can't prove this, but I truly believe this was a providential occurrence saving me from the clink or at least a hefty fine. As Jim Lovell says in Apollo 13, “You never know what events are going to transpire to lead you home.”

In my case, I am blessed to know a lot of those transpiring events. As the Psalmist says, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly inheritance. (Psalm 16:6)” Unlike poor Christine Daaé, I was fortunate to have a loving and very present mom and dad. My main concern is to not muddy up the rich heritage I have been given.

Wishing you were
somehow here again . . .
wishing you were
somehow near . . .
Sometimes it seemed
if I just dreamed,
somehow you would
be here . . .

I remember my friend Jim telling me of a day he volunteered to take one of their neighbor boys to school. The boy’s mother was dying of cancer. As Jim dropped the boy off at school, he saw some of the other kids come up, knock his books out of his hand, and make fun of him. Jim said, “I just pulled over and sat for a minute and wanted to cry. Those kids had no idea what was going on in his life.” I can be so dense and insensitive myself; maybe not intentionally mean, but unaware of the importance of the moment nonetheless. I’m trying to do better.

Dreaming of you
won't help me to do
all that you dreamed
I could . . .

I start to put today’s post together at about 11:59pm on March 3, the last possible moment I could and still say that it began on the fourth anniversary of the passing of my dad. I was fortunate: we had a full life together, not like Christine Daaé and her father who was taken so early. I also think dad had a “two minute warning” and, thankfully, I was not too dense to ignore it: almost, but not quite. He called and, out of the blue, wanted to go to a barbeque place we hadn’t been to in years. At dinner, he looked out over the river bottom and told me something I had never heard – about how he and his father and brother had raised pigs on the river bottom during the Depression. Then, we drove home. As we got out of the car, he mentioned that his leg was cramping. I helped him in to his chair. He sat down, laid his head back – and was welcomed by the ones we can’t see. It was the perfect ending to a good life, and for that I am grateful. But a loved one’s memory has a very long half-life – and actually I am immensely grateful for that, as well, even if does carry with it pain as well as joy.

Wishing you were
somehow here again . . .
knowing we must
say goodbye . . .
Try to forgive . . .
teach me to live . . .
give me the strength
to try . . .

You know that cassette tape of Phantom I mentioned earlier? It had a glitch in it and one of the songs contained two short little skips. (I had a Joni Mitchell record like that in Law School and I got so used to the skips that, even now when I hear Song for Sharon correctly on the iPod, it doesn’t sound right.) The same thing happened with the Phantom music and I still wait for that moment on the full-cast recording where the jump should be. It doesn’t sound quite right, even though it is. In the same way, I have learned as I have grown older that the record my father left me may have a couple of minor skips. More importantly, though, my father’s life story and love are a beautiful soundtrack that I can share with my daughter. And it will always sound right to me, even as I try, for her, to fill in the missing beats.

Ave atque vale
Douglas M Smith, Sr
1914 December 3 – 2004 February 28
Body laid to rest and life celebrated on 2004 March 3

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

2008-03-03T12:41:00.007-06:00

Take Me Out to the Ball Game
lyrics by Jack Norworth
music by Albert Von Tilzer

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks,
I don't care if I never get back.

Jack Norworth was riding a New York City subway one day in 1908. Incredible as it may sound, he had never been to a baseball game in his life, but he noticed a poster on the subway that read “Baseball Today – Polo Grounds” and was inspired to pen some lyrics. He gave the words the title of Take Me Out to the Ball Game and handed them to his friend and fellow Tin Pan Alley collaborator Albert Von Tilzer (who also had never been to a game). Now, the next time someone tells you that you can’t speak out on the evils of drugs if you’ve never taken them, or that Catholic priests are not qualified to counsel people on matters of love and marriage, just point them to Messrs Norworth and Von Tilzer. They hit a grand-slam home run without even knowing what one was. Mr Norworth reworked the verse in 1927, the year before Mr Von Tilzer saw his first game (Mr Norworth didn’t go to the park until 1940). But back on that day in 1908, here’s how it all began:

Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No,
I'll tell you what you can do:"

We all know what happens next, but in case you’re wondering, “sou” was a slang term for any low denomination coin. When people sing the song nowadays (if they sing the verse at all), they usually sing “ev’ry cent, Katie spent” (as did Carly Simon in Ken Burns’ 1994 Baseball documentary). To further complicate matters, in the 1927 version, “Katie Casey” is replaced with “Nellie Kelly”, Nellie’s boyfriend’s name is Joe, and Joe says, “to Coney Isle, dear, let’s go”. But these are all extraneous matters, like the variations in the four Gospels that show different facets of the same story. When it comes to the core truth, it’s something that’s now part of our DNA:

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

It may be cause for concern that most of us can repeat these words more easily than we can the words of the Apostles’ Creed. But then, Baseball is also rich with mystery, miracles, repetition, faith, heartbreak, redemption, tradition and wonder. Annie Savoy in Bull Durham actually gets it slightly wrong: there are only 59 beads on a Rosary, while there are 108 stitches in a baseball. But the Angelus bell is rung 108 times as the Rosaries are said. And check this out as an example of how “the Heavens are declaring the glories of God (Psalm 19:1)”: the diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth, the distance from the Sun to the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Sun, and the average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Moon. Also, as if us Trinitarians needed any further convincing, 108 is the hyperfactorial of 3 (1 to the first power times 2 to the second power times 3 to the third power): it’s three “to the max” in other words. Coincidence? I don’t think so either.

And, if you’ll forgive me, Psalm 108 (in verse 10) echoes Katie Casey’s need to be taken to the game, when it says, “Who will bring me to the fortified city?” And verses 12 and 13 of Psalm 108 are, rightly or wrongly, the prayer of any fan who has ever asked for help against the dreaded foe (in my case, the evil Red Sox):

Give us aid against the enemy,
for the help of man is worthless.
With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies.

But back to the song. Katie (aka Nellie) is safely in her seat at the ballpark by verse two. In true Gospel fashion, Katie has been rescued and is now ready to be an encouragement to others:

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names.
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along,
Good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

And then everyone joins her on “Take me out to the ballgame . . .” We’ve all kept singing along with her for a century now. This week, the fans again begin stretching during the seventh innings at Spring Training exhibition games. And this July, the Post Office will issue a commemorative stamp for the 100th Anniversary of the song. The first-day issue will be in Williamsport, PA, the home of Little League Baseball.

Popular culture has referred to the song in countless ways these past 100 years. In the film Night at the Opera, the Marx Brothers sneak the sheet music of Take Me Out to the Ballgame into the score during the Overture of Il Trovatore. The Brothers then began imitating a baseball game, with Groucho hawking, “Peanuts! Peanuts! Getcher Red Hot Peanuts!” Strange as it may seem, this is an example of life imitating art, or at least life imitating low-brow comedy, and I'll try to explain. We all know that announcer Harry Caray was famous for his leading the crowd in the song during the seventh inning stretch. Did you know that the practice actually started as a practical joke played on him? Mr Caray used to sing the song to himself (as a “private devotional”, if you will) in the press box during the seventh inning stretch. One day, White Sox owner Bill Veeck snuck in a public address microphone, captured Mr Caray’s enthusiastic singing, and broadcast it to the crowd. Once the crowd heard it, they loved it and began to sing along. And the rest, as they say, is history. It is estimated that Take Me Out to the Ball Game is the third most sung song in the United States after The Star Spangled Banner and Happy Birthday to You. After September 11, 2001, ballparks switched their seventh inning stretch music to God Bless America for a while, but they now seem to have gone back to Take Me Out to the Ball Game, reserving God Bless America for Sundays and special holidays. That’s as it should be, don’t you think?

We’re approaching the “seventh inning stretch” of Lent. How’s it going for you? Are you flagging? Are you rallying? Here’s Annie Savoy from Bull Durham again with words of encouragement: “It’s a long season and you gotta trust.”

Better yet, here are the words of Hebrews 12:1-3: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

In baseball’s Apocrypha, there are numerous stories of baseball being an encouragement for weary hearts. We have all heard the story of Babe Ruth visiting little Johnny Sylvester in the hospital and promising to hit a home run for him – and then following through on that promise. The real story is slightly different: Babe Ruth did not actually visit the boy until after the World Series, although he did make the promise to the boy’s uncle, who then relayed it to little Johnny. In our minds, though, we all remember “the Babe” walking up to the plate and “calling it”: pointing to the place in the outfield bleachers to where he was going to smash the ball.

As we approach Easter, there is a great story where Jesus “calls it”, too. He tells His disciples in Mark 8:31, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” And it all happened, just like he said. You can look it up.

Alfie

2008-03-01T22:39:00.006-06:00

Alfie
lyrics by Hal David
music by Burt Bacharach

I’ve always been a big Burt Bacharach fan. Growing up, I heard the old saying that classical music has its “Three B’s” (Bach, Beethoven and Brahms). I had my own “Four B’s”: Brubeck, Bacharach, the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I learned something from each of them when it comes to popular music: Brubeck and Bacharach explored rhythmic complexities and polytonality, Bacharach took melodies outside the standard eight or sixteen bars, the Beatles redefined the popular song in the era of rock, and the Beach Boys layered in rich vocal harmonies – even on their “poppiest” of pop songs.

Mr Bacharach’s lyricist for most of the 60’s and 70’s was Hal David. I understand that they had great respect for each other, but were very different. Mr Bacharach was outgoing, he was involved in the life of celebrity with his wife, Angie Dickinson, he owned racehorses – and he couldn’t abide cigarette smoke. Mr David was a chain smoker who was content to put his head down and work and then spend evenings and weekends at home with his family. But the pair complemented each other nicely. Sometimes, Mr David’s thoughtful lyrics helped save a tune that Mr Bacharach had overloaded with one too many rhythmic or melodic anomalies. And sometimes, Mr Bacharach’s inventive music would become an instrumental standard, even after Mr David’s lyrics were long forgotten. But every once in a while – often, actually – the team came up with some truly wonderful music. The amazing thing about some of their classics is that, even when they are “stuck” in the era in which they were written – both musically and in terms of subject matter – they manage to still speak to timeless matters of the human heart.

Today’s song is from the 1966 film of the same name. Alfie, played by Michael Caine, is at once a likeable bloke and a detestable cad. He is living the swinging singles life of mid-60’s London and leaving a trail of broken hearts – and worse – in his wake. The film is all the more jarring to me because Alfie speaks directly to the camera. It’s as if you’re one of his mates, headin’ ‘round to the pub together. I wonder sometimes if there are very few works written in the second-person because, if you’re being referred to in the second person, it means you are intimately connected to the first person.

Of course, the Bible is full of the second-person – and I don’t just mean the Second Person of the Trinity. All through Scripture, the Lord is speaking directly to us, friend-to-friend, father-to-child. And there is an invitation to intimacy there, if we will let it be there.

In Alfie’s case, Mr David’s lyrics give voice to the questions that Alfie, perhaps, has never even given thought to himself. But they are, nevertheless, at the core of his – and our – longings:

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give,
Or are we meant to be kind?

And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
What will you lend on an old golden rule?

As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there’s something much more,
Something even non-believers can believe in.

I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing, Alfie.
When you walk let your heart lead the way
And you’ll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

Musically, Mr Bacharach supports this dialogue perfectly, in my mind. The whole melody until the bridge is diatonic (that is, it stays strictly in the key of the song, with no accidentals). At the same time, though, the accompaniment starts diatonic but then begins wandering all over the board. It’s as if the questions are being asked calmly and insistently by a close friend, as the world around gets progressively more complex. In the bridge of the song (the “as sure as I believe” part), the tonality centers around the dominant chord. This is also a break with tradition, as the normal progression would be to either stay in the tonic key or maybe go to the subdominant (think of the “Trio” section in a Sousa march).

As we get to the third verse (the “I believe in love” part), we’re back to the diatonic melody. As we approach the end, though, the tune jumps a whole ninth (an octave plus a step) on “we just exist” and again on “the love you’ve missed”. I’m sure there is another song with that large a jump between two syllables, but I can’t think of one right now. Then, as the melody climbs on “you’re nothing, Alfie”, the chord underneath exits Western music altogether and becomes a whole-tone arpeggio, leaving the music in the most unresolved state it can be. The final repetitions of Alfie’s name are on similar unresolved chords, firmly placing the ball in his court.

Alfie addresses universal and timeless questions of love, purpose, and a higher power, even while it is firmly planted in swinging, 60’s London. And to those of us on this side of Easter, we know that the answer to these questions is equally timeless and universal. Near the end of the film, Alfie tells the camera, "What I loved once and what I love now are two different things." As we, too, "put away childish things", we find “love” with a capital L, the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.”

Mairzy Doats

2008-02-29T10:24:00.003-06:00

Mairzy Doats
by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe?

Wow. Both spell-check and grammar-check on Word are lit up like a Christmas tree. Just about every word is flagged. But what the heck: it’s Fun-Time Friday! And more than that, today only comes around every four years. Happy Leap Day, everyone! My daughter’s step-sister is “six” today: happy birthday, Jessica!

Today’s song was a huge hit in the 1940’s (more on that in a bit). It was on everyone’s lips for years and, I think, still permeates our collective consciousness today. The bouncy little tune plays a perfect counterpoint to the nonsensical syllables. As the singer repeats them over and over, we begin to wonder: Did they swallow too much Pepsodent? Should they switch to Sanka? Are they speaking in tongues? But then the bridge of the song makes it all clear:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."

And, armed with that knowledge, we can figure out for ourselves that, “A kid’ll eat ivy, too. Wouldn’t you?"

My cousin and I were driving through Fort Worth several years ago. We passed a church and the marquée read:

JUDGE NOTY OUR FRIEND
UNTIL YOU STAND IN HIS PLACE

Undeterred by the curious grammatical construction, I envisioned Judge Noty, a fine, upstanding member of the church, probably a deacon or elder. He was most likely retiring from the bench and they were having a “Judge Noty Day” at church. I could almost smell the fried chicken from the dinner on the grounds when my cousin remarked that those were good words to remember. Seeing my quizzical expression, she explained that the letters on the sign had moved and that it was an admonition to “Judge not your friend . . .”

Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” British author Lynne Truss takes a “zero tolerance approach to punctuation” in her best-selling book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Given that she approaches her subject matter so seriously, I was delighted to find that the book is enormously entertaining. Here’s how she explains the book’s title.

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

Ms Truss’ book is filled with such examples. I’ll play optometrist on this one. Is it better like this?

A woman without her man is nothing.

Or like this?

A woman! Without her, man is nothing.

The inspiration for Mairzy Doats came from an English nursery rhyme that begins, “Cowzy tweet and sowzy tweet and liddle sharksy doisters.” (Isn’t it amazing that, now that you know the “secret” to the song, the whole “Cowzy tweet” line becomes easily readable? Kind of like in The Matrix when those guys could see the whole big picture just by looking at those green letters and numbers.) Milton Drake’s four-year old daughter came home from school one day, saying the rhyme. Mr Drake and his buddies, Messrs Hoffman and Livingston, first just set the “cowzy tweet” verse to music, but then decided to write new lyrics instead.

I understand that the earliest versions of the New Testament (in Greek) were also punctuational nightmares – as is this sentence, I suppose. There were no periods, commas, or carriage returns (remember those?). Sometimes, even spaces between the Greek words were lacking. Thanks be to God for the painstaking effort of the scribes and monks who also “saw the whole big picture”. They parsed and punctuated, set verses and chapters, and even found time to illustrate the pages. It’s amazing, though, that the beginning of John’s gospel is crystal clear: no punctuation was needed – “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Mairzy Doats was recorded by “Al Trace and his Silly Symphonists” in 1943. Then, it went all the way to number one with a recording by the “Merry Macs” in 1944. Spike Jones, of course, could not leave well enough alone, and his band’s version gilded the lily with their trademark sound effects. The song lifted the spirits of servicemen in World War II. What I find really fascinating is that phrases from the song were used as passwords in the War. Who else but a Yank (or maybe a Brit) would have any idea of the proper response?

We were blessed to have Rev. Will Robinson back at church this week. Will was an Associate Pastor a few years ago and he is now working on his PhD at Union Seminary in Richmond. Will spoke at our noontime Lenten Series about “The Holy Spirit.” It was a great talk, and it got me thinking about how we sometimes give the Holy Spirit the short end of the stick – even in my charisma-laden hometown of Tulsa.

It does seem that we often punctuate the Trinity as:

FATHER, SON . . . andholyghost.

I know that the Holy Spirit isn’t mentioned as often by name in the Bible, but He is what makes it a “Trinity”, after all, and not just a “Duality”. Some theologians refer to the Holy Spirit as the “shy” member of the Trinity, but when Jesus tells his disciples (and us) that “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes”, I believe the word He uses for “power” is the same one where we get our word “dynamite.” Maybe, as Mr Twain might say, it’s time we learned to distinguish between a lightning bug and lightning when it comes to the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless you this weekend:

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Happy Talk

2008-02-28T20:47:00.005-06:00

Happy Talk
lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
music by Richard Rodgers

You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
– Bloody Mary in South Pacific

Words to live by, if you ask me. To some extent, it’s ridiculously simple; kind of like one of Steve Martin’s earlier routines when he said, “I’m going to share with you the secret of how to be a millionaire. First, get a million dollars.” But Dr Martin Luther King, Jr also knew the importance of a dream. When he told America and the world, “I have a dream”, it inspired us all to awaken from our slumber and give that dream flesh and bone.

In another discipline, if you’ll permit me, British cook Nigella Lawson presents this axiom: “The most important part of cooking your turkey is shopping for it.” I think she is also getting at the importance of starting out with the ideal. Of course, we know all about the power of dreams in the Bible. So, in that rich tradition, from Joseph to the Magi to St Peter to Dr King to Mr Martin to Ms Lawson, let’s hear what Oscar Hammerstein has to say:

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

South Pacific, the Pulitzer Prize winning musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, burst onto the scene in 1948, just two short years after the publication of its source material, Tales of the South Pacific, by James Michener (itself a Pulitzer Prize winner). Come to think of it, Mr Michener’s Tales about military life during World War II, came just one short year after the Enola Gay, Fat Man and Little Boy (or Little Man and Fat Boy – I never can remember which). Wow, those guys knew how to turn out the material back then. (And by “guys”, I’m talking about the artistic guys, not the guys at Oak Ridge and Alamogordo, although I guess they worked pretty well under pressure, themselves.)

The musical South Pacific, while still adhering to the norms of the musical comedy format (now here’s an amazing thing: this “norm” was established only a mere six years earlier and arose from Messrs Rodgers and Hammerstein’s landmark Oklahoma!, which reset the compass for every musical to follow), nevertheless addressed some pretty hot issues for the time: racism, racial relations, and the excesses of war. Today’s song is sung by Bloody Mary, a Pacific Islander who trades with the sailors stationed on the surrounding islands during the War. English is her second language and she says that she will “speak English as good as any crummy Marine.” In another great song from the show, the sailors sing, “Bloody Mary is the girl I love, her skin is tender as DiMaggio's glove.” (Sorry for the gratuitous baseball reference, but you know me.) I also like Bloody Mary because she is the consummate entrepreneur, but on the occasion of this song, she is trying to get her daughter and Lt Joe Cable to fall in love:

Talk about the moon floating in the sky
Looking at a lily on the lake
Talk about a bird learning how to fly
Making all the music he can make!

Keep talking and dreaming, because I think, to some extent, you do see what you’re looking for. At the 9:30 service on Sunday, Jim showed a picture of a stretch of road in Illinois. A woman and her son were driving and saw what they believed to be the face of Jesus in the potholes and cracks. They took a picture of it and now it’s all over the internet. History is full of these examples – I even remember the Lord showing up on someone’s piece of toast a couple of years ago. Actually, it might have been Rush Limbaugh, now that I think about it. But you know what I mean. The cool thing in church Sunday was that Jim looked at the picture of the road, with a string of telephone poles alongside, and saw crosses. That’s where I want to get to – where I see the right things in everything.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

The film version of South Pacific was released in 1958. Do you remember when Ted Turner was colorizing all those old movies several years ago? You don’t hear so much about it anymore, but it was a big deal back then. People were up in arms and Mr Turner, characteristically, was throwing his weight around anyway. I always thought it was a waste of time, at best (and, at worst, flat-out vandalism to those films that had been crafted to look a certain way in black and white). But I was willing to make one exception: if they could re-colorize the musical numbers in South Pacific back to a more natural look, I’d be a happy man. If you’ve ever seen the film version, you know that, for some unfathomable reason, the film’s creative team thought it would be “artistic” to shoot each musical number through a different colored filter. Boy, does it get on your nerves! I envision some hapless janitor at the studio one night bumping the “Color” lever up to the “Ghastly” setting, Looney Tunes style. But I was reading a while back that the 50th-Anniversary DVD release of the film does contain reworked musical numbers that are more in keeping with colors found in nature. Don’t you just love technology when it works! But we’re here to have “happy talk” today. Let’s continue.

Talk about the sparrow looking like a toy
Peeking through the branches of a tree
Talk about the girl, talk about the boy
Counting all the ripples on the sea

Sparrows – I’m reminded of Matthew 6:26 – “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Jesus has just spelled it all out in His “Sermon on the Mount”. He’s set the bar very high. But, as we come to end to Matthew 6, Jesus ends with some very “happy talk.” We can dream big because of the Father’s deep love for us. And here’s a really great thing: no matter what we can dream, the Lord has even greater things in store. St Paul picks up on this idea when he quotes the prophet Isaiah:

However, as it is written:
"What no eye has seen,what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—
these things God has prepared for those who love him."
– 1 Corinthians 2:9 (quoting Isaiah 64:4)

Bloody Mary has it right, too:

Talk about the boy saying to the girl
Golly, baby, I'm a lucky cuss
Talk about the girl saying to the boy
You an' me is lucky to be us

There’s an older gentleman in our congregation and he carries in his wallet a laminated card with this question written on it:

What are you daring to attempt that could not be accomplished without God’s strength and intervention?

That is such a blessing to me! Dream big. Pray hard. And I think St Paul, Martin Luther King, Steve Martin, Nigella Lawson, and even Bloody Mary and Oscar Hammerstein would approve.

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?

One of Us

2008-02-27T22:27:00.006-06:00

One of Us
by Eric Bazilian

If God had a Name,
what would it be and -
would you call it to His face
if you were faced with Him
in all His Glory,
what would you ask
if you had just one question . . .

Fireplug: Welcome once again to Full-of-Woe Wednesday! The format’s a little different this week because my brother (Fuelgrip Skip) and I once again find ourselves at cross-purposes – as is usually the case. He came up with today’s song, One of Us, as a candidate for one of his Least Favorite Songs. I actually had it on my list as one of my favorites. So here's a transcript of what transpired around the dinner table. Hope you enjoy the dialogue!

Fuelgrip: Right off the bat, I’m annoyed. “If God had a name . . .” Here’s a news flash: he does!

Fireplug: I think she might be alluding to the ineffable name of God and what we might feel if we came before His holy presence. Kind of like when Isaiah said, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. (Isaiah 6:5)”

Fuelgrip: But she asks “What would it be?” This sounds like “oh, let’s give God a name!” It’s not like we’re going to the Animal Shelter or something. By the way, who sang this?

Fireplug: Joan Osborne had the hit. I think she was even nominated for a Grammy. I wonder what ever happened to her.

Fuelgrip: I thought it was Alanis Morrissette.

Fireplug: She did a cover of it. But then, so did Prince, Mike Meyers (as Austin Powers) and Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty.

Fuelgrip: Ringing endorsements all. I think I can rest my case here. Do we need to continue?

Fireplug: I’m afraid we must. Let’s go on to the bridge.

Fuelgrip: Here’s a high-water mark in English poetry:

and yeah, yeah
God is great
Yeah, yeah
God is good
Yeah, yeah
yeah yeah yeah

Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson – they’re spinning like gyroscopes right about now.

Fireplug: I know it looks a little goofy on paper, but I actually found it kind of sweet. She was repeating that blessing that we all learn as children. And then the “yeah, yeah” parts kind of introduced an ironic element; like how we can get lost along the way in the culture that engulfs us.

Fuelgrip: You know, brother, you’re a good guy, but you are so gullible!

Fireplug: Really!

Fuelgrip: And I can prove it with two words. Two letters, actually – “O. J.”

Fireplug: All I ever said was that I didn’t think the prosecution had made their case.

Fuelgrip: Congratulations! The jury agreed with you! So, let’s see: that makes 13 of you in the “not guilty” camp and, in the “guilty” camp – uh, help me do the math here – what’s six billion minus 13?

Fireplug: We’re getting way off track. Let’s move on to the chorus:

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on a bus, trying to make His
way home . . .

Fuelgrip: Now, I’m going to surprise you here, but I thought, musically, that this was a pretty good part. She’d been repeating the silly “yeah, yeah, yeah” parts, almost monotonously. And then, she pops it up an octave and belts it out on the chorus.

Fireplug: Very nicely said. And I may surprise you here, but the “slob” line always bothered me.

Fuelgrip: I just said I liked the music. The lyrics make me crazy.

Fireplug: I think she was just posing a rhetorical question. If God was one of us, how we would act? Kind of like the “entertaining angels unaware” concept.

Fuelgrip: But God was one of us. “And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us . . .”

Fireplug: True. But the chorus with its questions might be able to start a dialogue with someone on just that very topic.

Fuelgrip: I just think . . . now I remember the singer! Wasn’t she the woman that had the huge ring sticking through her nose?

Fireplug: Yes, I believe so. And you’re saying this makes a difference?

Fuelgrip: I’m just saying that sometimes you can get a feel for attitude by how someone presents themselves. And when I look at her and think, “NASA, I think we found part of that satellite . . .”

Fireplug: Unbelievable! Boy, I’m glad you weren’t around in the First Century. Let’s see: we’ve got this poor, unmarried pregnant girl from some backwater village about to give birth in a stable. Then, there’s some scruffy shepherds that show up. Oh, and you certainly couldn’t start a successful ministry with a bunch of dumb fisherman!

Fuelgrip: Point made. I stand corrected. What’s the next verse?

If God had a face,
what would it look like and
would you want to see
if seeing meant that
You would have to believe
in things like
Heaven and in Jesus and the Saints
and all the Prophets and . . .

Fireplug: I always liked this verse. It’s calling for a decision. If you're someone like Thomas – where seeing is believing – then if you do see, you start evaluating Heaven, Jesus, the Saints, the Prophets . . .

Fuelgrip: But “no one has ever seen God” but only His Son. So we couldn’t look on His face in any event.

Fireplug: You know, you’re just way too literal.

Fuelgrip: And you’re too alliteral!

Fireplug: Well, we wouldn’t want a wayward weblog, would we?

Fuelgrip: Let’s just trudge over the bridge and through the chorus again.

Yeah, yeah
God is great
Yeah, yeah
God is good
Yeah, yeah
yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us?
Just a stranger on a bus,
trying to make His way home . . .

Fireplug: Were you singing along just now? I think you like this song more than you let on.

Fuelgrip: I don’t deny the music is catchy, but that’s part of the problem. People might be taken with the music and then not think about the words.

Fireplug: But the very fact that it’s a good tune means that more people might pay attention. Remember, CBS even used it as the theme song for that Joan of Arcadia show.

Fuelgrip: And you’re mentioning CBS like this is supposed to convince me?

Fireplug: Fair enough. But it was a good show.

Fuelgrip: As Woody Allen tells Diane Keaton in Love and Death, “You’re quoting a Hun to me?”

Fireplug: I was just happy to see God being brought up and discussed on network television.

Fuelgrip: Well, we’re about to the end of our discussion. Here’s the final chorus. I actually did think the “Pope” line was kind of clever:

Tryin' to make His way home
Back up to Heaven all alone . . .
Nobody callin' on the phone
'Cept for the Pope maybe in Rome . . .

Fireplug: I like it, too. And I come away from this song feeling a little sorry for God.

Fuelgrip: You feel sorry for God! Wow, there’s two thousand years of religious doctrine down the tubes!

Fireplug: Well, what I mean is, we’re supposed to see God in everyone, and I do think when his children hurt, God hurts with them.

Fuelgrip: That’s what I’m trying to say, too. There are so many lost and hurting and lonely people that we should be reaching out to them. I think we are supposed to go out and be Christ’s hands and feet here on earth.

Fireplug: And I think we can do that more effectively if we spend time with the Lord; really listening to what He’s saying. And as we’re able to hear His voice, He’ll lead us where we should go and what we should do.

Fuelgrip: But then we need to step out. We don’t need a song posing “what if’s” about God – we need to do what He’s already told us to do.

Fireplug: Well, we’re actually agreeing on something, sort of. You know, Skip, this has been fun.

Fuelgrip: I always enjoy talking with you, Doug.

Fireplug: Really? Thanks. Well, it’s been great to get both sides today. I think I lean more to the inward, spiritual side, looking for the Lord in everything and letting God speak to us. I think you lean more to going out and being His hands and feet. And you’re right – if we don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.

Fuelgrip: So let’s give each other one nugget of wisdom before you pass the potatoes.

Fireplug: Talk with the Father.

Fuelgrip: Call your mother.

A British Tar is a Soaring Soul

2008-02-26T15:17:00.004-06:00

A British Tar is a Soaring Soul
lyrics by Sir William S Gilbert
music by Sir Arthur S Sullivan

His eyes should flash, and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude!
– Ralph, Boatswain and Carpenter, in HMS Pinafore

Today’s song hails from the “Rodgers and Hammerstein” of the Victorian Era: Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. They wrote 14 comic operas together and helped lay the groundwork for that great synthesis of music, drama, art, and dance that we know today as the musical comedy. Sir Arthur is also well-known for some enduring works of his own. He wrote Onward, Christian Soldiers and The Lost Chord among many other orchestral and choral works. When Sir Arthur died at the age of 58 following complications due to pneumonia, his wish was to be buried in Brompton Cemetery with his parents and his brother. Queen Victoria exercised her prerogative, however, and ordered that he be buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. It was meant to be a great compliment, but I wonder if, all things considered, he might rather have had his first location. Maybe he and his family are having a good laugh about it right now.

Gilbert & Sullivan’s moment in history was right square in the middle of Queen Victoria’s reign. It was the time when “the sun never set on the British Empire” and the British Navy, in particular, exemplified this fact. In HMS Pinafore (also known as The Lass That Loved a Sailor), Sir William and Sir Arthur set forth the Victorian ideal of a sailor in the Queen’s Navy:

A British tar is a soaring soul,
As free as a mountain bird,
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word.

Do you know what I love about writings from bygone eras (something that I fear we may be losing)? It is that people were so infused with the cadences of and allusions to Scripture that, even when writing secular works, Biblical references just leaked out and were everywhere present. In this first verse of “A British Tar”, two Bible verses come to mind. First, the great promises of Isaiah 40:31 –

. . . but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

And then I think of the whole “armor of God” in Ephesians, where our “energetic fists” should have the shield of faith in one hand and the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God) in the other (Ephesians 6:16-17).

His bosom should heave and his heart should glow,
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow.

As our British tars begin verse two, we see a sterner visage: one that is approved when faced with evil. This, too, is something I fear is being lost in our post-modern culture. While we are loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and also loving our neighbor as ourselves, we should not forget what Romans 12:9 reminds us: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good . . .”

His eyes should flash with an inborn fire,
His brow with scorn be wrung;
He never should bow down to a domineering frown,
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.

His eyes should flash, and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude!

Now, I know I’m a pretty old-fashioned guy in a lot of ways, but I wonder if a lot of the crises facing men these days (and impacting society in general as a result) could be dealt with by looking to the wisdom of the past. John Henry Cardinal Newman was one of England’s most famous converts to Roman Catholicism (G K Chesterton being another that jumps to mind). Cardinal Newman wrote a treatise in 1852, titled The Idea of a University. It was intended for English and Irish Catholics (who had just recently received civil rights) and who might be attending university. In it, Cardinal Newman seems to join Messrs Gilbert & Sullivan in expounding on the concept of a “gentleman”:

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make everyone at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blunder.

As I was thinking about these writings, I jumped forward to the present and to the cause of our celebrations today: exactly one hundred years after Cardinal Newman wrote his treatise, the world was blessed, in 1952, with another “gentleman” and “soaring soul”: my dear, dear friend, Jim Miller. Today, February 26, we celebrate Jim’s birthday. If you are blessed to know Jim personally, you know that his “eyes flash” and his “heart glows” with his love of the Lord. And, like Newman’s gentleman and Gilbert & Sullivan’s sailor, Jim’s “customary attitude” is one of love, concern, respect, and encouragement for all of God’s children. All of this is true, but it is not an end in and of itself: the really great thing is that Jim is able to link this behavior with the underlying and driving story of his life – his love of Jesus Christ the Lord.

Now, Jim would be the first to point out that he is just a regular guy, with all the same frailties, hopes, and fears as everybody else. That’s all true – and, to me, that’s all the more reason his story is compelling. Jim lives out the verse “for in Him we live and move and have our being,” (as St Paul quotes the Greek poets in Acts 17:28), as well as my favorite verse (Ephesians 5:10), “try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” If you have read anything in these paltry posts of mine this Lent and have found encouragement or insight, chances are I gleaned that insight from Jim.

The creative world of Gilbert & Sullivan was a fanciful and (to use one of their phrases) topsy-turvy one: fairies brushed up against British lords, gondoliers became monarchs, and a lowly sailor turned out to be the Admiral of the Sea. There’s another story making the rounds and it is far more topsy-turvy and amazing than any of these. In it, a lowly child born in a stable turns out to be the King of the Universe. In it, the meek inherit the earth. In it, the blind see. In it, prostitutes and tax collectors can enter the Kingdom of Heaven before Pharisees. In it, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for His sheep – and is raised to eternal life. It’s a story I’ve heard all my life and have always believed. And today, especially, I give thanks for my friend Jim, who – through his commitment to the Lord, Biblical knowledge, teaching skills, “inborn fire” of the Spirit, devotion to his family, care of the flock the Lord has entrusted to him, and friendship – has further illuminated for me this “greatest story ever told”.

Jim: as you blow out the candles tonight, know that there is a whole host of your friends throughout the entire Communion of the Saints who echo these wishes – and who could have expressed them much better than me. So maybe the words of Philemon 7 say it best for all of us:

“I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”

Happy Birthday, Powerhouse!

Part of Your World

2008-02-25T15:15:00.003-06:00

Part of Your World
lyrics by Howard Ashman
music by Alan Menken

Wandering free
Wish I could be
Part of that world
- Ariel, in The Little Mermaid

The year 1989 was an annus mirabilis for many reasons. First, the Berlin Wall came down. But even more relevant to today’s post (if you’ll pardon the comparison), the movie musical, about to go the way of the buggy whip and the LP record, was saved. Beginning with The Little Mermaid in 1989, the Disney people began to produce one hit musical after another. They were brimming with technical, musical, and literary excellence – and these were animated features. As these movies began to pave the way for new, critically acclaimed live-action musicals (Chicago, Moulin Rouge!), so Disney took their animated features and turned them into hit Broadway productions which, one could argue, helped to save the Broadway musical, as well. And, sure enough, The Little Mermaid – the first of the new era of Disney animated musicals, the one that brought the genre back to life – is now the latest to be brought to the stage; following in the hugely popular footsteps of Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Mary Poppins. I can’t wait to see how they have staged the underwater scenes: will they fly, will they dance, will they swim?

Our song today comes from The Little Mermaid, from which today’s composer and lyricist took home Academy Awards for Best Score and for Best Song (for another hit, Under the Sea). Ariel, our heroine, is King Triton’s daughter, a mermaid who dreams of more. When ships wreck, or items are lost overboard, they drift down “fathoms below” and she collects them. Ariel is fascinated by this “world up above” and has amassed quite a storehouse in an underwater cavern – lampstands, books, trinkets of all kinds. She reads the books but doesn’t understand many of the foreign terms (like “street” and “burn”). She even swims to the surface occasionally and chats with her friend Scuttle, a seagull, who, even when he doesn’t know the use for a particular object, makes up something anyway, often to comic effect. It made me think of all the times blessings have drifted down to us on Earth, whether in the form of inventions or in relationships or in words of Scripture, and we are “seeing through a glass darkly,” unable to quite grasp the whole picture.

Look at this stuff
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl
The girl who has everything?
Look at this trove
Treasures untold
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you'd think
Sure, she's got everything

I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty
I've got whozits and whatzits galore
(You want thingamabobs?
I got twenty)
But who cares?
No big deal
I want more

When The Little Mermaid was released to universal acclaim, people thought it was a revolutionary way to do an animated feature. In reality, it was a hearkening back to the old-fashioned musicals (with real and animated characters) that have always been so successful: from Gilbert & Sullivan, to Snow White to Oklahoma! to Ashman and Menken’s previous collaboration, Little Shop of Horrors. I saw an interview with composer Alan Menken where he explained how they came up with Ariel’s first number. He said that every musical needs a song, pretty much right after the big, splashy (no pun intended) opening number where the protagonist comes out by themselves and tells the audience what’s on their heart. And from that moment on, the audience is rooting for them. So, Ariel takes center stage and captures our hearts:

I wanna be where the people are
I wanna see
Wanna see 'em dancin'
Walkin' around on those
(Whad'ya call 'em?) oh – “feet”
Flippin' your fins you don't get too far
Legs are required for jumping, dancing
Strolling along down a
(What's that word again?) “street”

Up where they walk
Up where they run
Up where they stay all day in the sun
Wandering free
Wish I could be
Part of that world

I remember thinking, when The Little Mermaid came out and the inevitable raising of Ariel into the Disney character pantheon occurred (with all the autograph signings and character breakfasts that would follow at the theme parks): wouldn’t it be nice if Ariel could be played by a young woman who couldn’t use her legs? She could be all decked out, fins and all, and seated on a motorized coral or rocky throne and could be an inspiration for kids like her. Maybe that happened. I think I need to go back to Disney World and check it out – strictly for research purposes, you understand!

Anyway, back to the story. One day, Ariel rescues a young man from drowning. She instantly falls in love, but knows that they are worlds (or rather, oceans) apart. As she deposits him safely on shore, she sings to him. What she doesn’t know is that she has rescued the crown Prince Erik and that, as he is coming to and hearing Ariel’s singing, he has fallen in love with her, too.

What would I give
If I could live
Out of these waters?
What would I pay
To spend a day
Warm on the sand?
Betcha on land
They understand
Bet they don't reprimand their daughters
Bright young women
Sick of swimmin'
Ready to stand

Well, Ariel makes a deal with Ursula, the Sea Witch (Note to self: never a good idea – all these Faustian bargains always end badly). Ariel will have three days on land, as a human. If she can get Prince Erik to fall in love with her (as evidenced by a kiss) before sundown on the third day, Ariel can remain forever human. If not, she will be the Sea Witch’s property forever. There’s also one small hitch: Ursula is holding Ariel’s voice as collateral, so she will not be able to sing her beautiful songs to the Prince. Of course, like Peter after his brave declaration to Jesus that “everyone else may abandon you, but I never will”, poor Ariel has no idea what she is up against. The Sea Witch doesn’t play fair (imagine that) and it takes Ariel’s father, King Triton, agreeing to take Ariel’s place in a selfless act of propitiation (this, also, should sound familiar – from Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which, in turn, comes right out of the Gospels) to win Ariel’s freedom.

And ready to know what the people know
Ask 'em my questions
And get some answers
What's a fire and why does it
(What's the word?) “burn?”

Of course, the Sea Witch is eventually killed and all the “poor, unfortunate souls” who have been held captive in Ursula’s underwater lair are released and restored to their former selves. Triton, retaking his rightful place as King of the Sea, consents to a Royal Wedding for Ariel and Erik, and merfolk and humans live happily ever after.

When's it my turn?
Wouldn't I love
Love to explore that shore above?
Out of the sea
Wish I could be
Part of that world.

It got me thinking, that in our world, the travel between worlds was first the other way. Jesus, “for us and for our salvation, came down from Heaven”, as we say in the Creeds: He came to be part of our world. There’s that beautiful poem in Philippians 2:5-11:

In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

One more thing, if you’ll permit me: the Disney animators get buoyancy and gravity better than anybody. There’s a discussion in one scene in The Matrix (not a Disney movie) where Morpheus is explaining to Neo the various rules written into the programs of the Construct. He tells him that there are physical laws that must be obeyed, but that they can be bent a little. Well, that’s a page straight out of the Disney playbook. Watch Peter Pan sometime and see how perfectly Peter, Wendy and the others fly: it is totally believable because it is the perfect intersection of physical laws and imagination. Similarly, the buoyancy of all the characters under the sea is just right in The Little Mermaid. Of course, that’s nothing compared to what we are about to celebrate in the Christian calendar. In Lent, we are preparing for that glorious Resurrection Day of Easter. And (not that He needs me to tell Him this, but) I think the Lord got gravity – and buoyancy – just right.

Mama, a Rainbow

2008-02-23T20:26:00.000-06:00

Mama, a Rainbow
lyrics by Hal Hackaday
music by Larry Grossman

Today’s song, Mama, a Rainbow, hails from a little known musical named Minnie’s Boys. Loosely based on the early lives of the Marx Brothers, Minnie’s Boys opened at the Imperial Theatre in New York in 1970, on March 26. It ran for 80 performances. If for no other reason than today’s song, I would wish it was still packin’ ‘em in. Minnie (played by Shelley Winters) is the matriarch of the Marx family. Harpo (neé Adolph Marx), you may remember, was a man of few words on screen. However, he saved them all up for this beautiful tribute to his mother:

What do you give to the lady
Who has given all her life
And love to you?
What do you give
To the reason you`re livin`?
I could windowshop the world
Before I`m through.

Mama, a rainbow,
Mama, a sunrise,
Mama, the moon to wear.
That`s not good enough,
No, not good enough.
Not for mama.

Mama, a palace.
Diamonds like doorknobs.
Mountains of gold to spare.
That`s not rich enough,
Not half rich enough,
Not for mama.
Mama, a lifetime,
Crowded with laughter,
That`s not long enough,
Not half long enough.

What can I give you
That I can give you?
What will your present be?
Mama young and beautiful.
Always young and beautiful.
That`s the mama I`ll always see,
That`s for mama with love from me.

Lent does not extend to Mother’s Day, so I’m including this song as a reflection and tribute for all our mothers, especially mine. I remember that powerful scene in The Passion of the Christ where Jesus falls on his way to Golgotha. His mother, Mary rushes to his side and there is a flashback to days when Jesus was a child. They are beautiful heart-wrenching scenes. And then, we come back to the present and we hear Jesus, through a blood-streaked face, tell his mother, “See: I make all things new.”

If I could, mother, I would make all things new for you. But thank you for your deep faith, for your unconditional love, for your holding the larger family together, and for your constant, intuitive prayers (and if you are a friend reading this blog, the chances are very high that those prayers at one time have been, and maybe even now are, for you).

Mama young and beautiful.
Always young and beautiful.
That`s the mama I`ll always see,
That`s for mama with love from me.

Stereophonic Sound

2008-02-22T21:42:00.002-06:00

Stereophonic Sound
by Cole Porter

If you want to get the crowd to come around, you gotta have
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound!

It’s Fun-Time Friday once again! Today’s song is from Cole Porter’s penultimate musical, Silk Stockings. Set smack dab in the middle of the Cold War, the show roughly involves Soviet envoy Nina Yaschenko, who is dispatched to Paris to retrieve three Commissars who have fallen prey to “western decadence.” Plans go awry, however, when she meets theatrical agent Steven Canfield and he woos her with the fruits of capitalism (the “silk stockings” of the title). Thus, true love carries the day. As a secondary plot, motion picture swimming star Janice Dayton (think Esther Williams) has her sights on Peter Boroff, Russia’s greatest composer, to write her a musical adaptation of War and Peace. Based on the original story Ninotchka (the diminutive name of the lead character Nina), Silk Stockings opened on Broadway in 1955. A film version in 1957 starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.

In Act One, Steven and Janice sing about how it is becoming increasingly harder to bring in the audiences these days:

Today to get the public to attend a picture show
It's not enough to advertise a famous star they know
If you want to get the crowd to come around, you gotta have
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound

I can relate to this theme on many levels. First, I have come to believe that we are the last family in America that does not have an HDTV. All my friends have been repurposing their armoires back into clothes closets (for the third time in the armoire’s life) as they hang their flat screens on the wall. And, I will admit, the results are glorious, breath-taking, and even hyper-stereophonic.

If Zanuck's latest picture were the good old-fashioned kind
There'd be no one in front to look at Marilyn's behind
If you want to hear applauding hands resound, you gotta have
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound

Churches are also wrestling with how to incorporate new technology and modes of worship into their services. On the one hand, any new innovation was probably revolutionary when it was first introduced – think of what the pipe organ must have looked like to the first people who witnessed it in worship. But there may be times when something out of character with the setting may actually impede worship. In our own church, we are trying to figure out a way to work in a video screen (if indeed we can) into the beautiful, gothic Sanctuary. Do we try to add something that would undoubtedly aid in worship and instruction; would it be as obtrusive as that monolith in the bedroom in the final scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey if we did; or do we just wait until holograms are commonplace, thereby obviating the need for screens?

The customers don't like to see the groom embrace the bride
Unless her lips are scarlet and her bosom's five feet wide, in
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope,
or Cinerama, VistaVision, Superscope, or Todd-A-O
and stereophonic sound
and stereophonic sound

And there is the current discussion about styles of worship. On the one hand, we are blessed around the world with as many styles of worship as there are cultures, maybe even more. And there is an argument to be made that youth, especially, are drawn to newer forms of worship. So, some of the Emergent Churches look more like Starbucks than sanctuaries. But there is also that old adage, “what you win ‘em with is what you win ‘em to.” At what point do we quit trying to chase after the culture and, instead, present the Gospel, unplugged? It’s a tough call.

You all remember Lassie that beloved canine star
To see her wag her tail the crowds would come from near and far
But at present she'd be just another hound, unless she had
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound

I have this theory I call “the Tomorrowland Terrace Syndrome”. As a teenager in the sixties, I remember when Disneyland, in an effort to be more “relevant (remember that term?)”, opened up the Tomorrowland Terrace to various “rock” groups – except they were actually more “pop” groups. I remember Gary Puckett and the Union Gap and the Osmonds (and I believe the Carpenters got their start there), but I don’t ever remember Led Zeppelin or the like. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing (in fact, I think it would have gone against the perceived Disney brand if they had), but I wonder how many people thought it was a lame attempt to be “in” by presenting pop groups as cutting edge rock.

I lately did a picture at the bottom of the sea
I rassled with an octopus and licked an anchovee
but the public wouldn't care if I had drowned, unless I had
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound

I thank God for every technological advancement that enables His Gospel to be more effectively presented. Next time you’re sitting in worship (or searching Scripture passages on your computer, or watching a sermon on your iPhone), think of everything that brings glory to God and enhances your worship experience. Then consider if it was, at one time, a revolutionary technology (from pipe organs, to printed hymnals, to stained glass windows, to flying buttresses, to sound systems, to computer screens – and the list goes on and on). Then, let’s ask God to guide us as we move forward, always keeping in mind an unfiltered proclamation of His Gospel and an intimate connection with his other children:

There was a time when dancing was so intimate and sleek
A fellow hugged his partner as they cuddled cheek to cheek
Now he doesn't even know if she's around, because they're in
Glorious Technicolor
Breath-taking Cinemascope
and stereophonic sound

Maybe St Paul can give us some pointers in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2:

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And you know, sometimes that ought to be enough.

Un Bel Dì

2008-02-21T18:25:00.000-06:00

Un Bel Dì
libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
music by Giacomo Puccini

This will all come to pass as I tell you
Banish your idle fears, for he will return
I know it
– Butterfly, in Madama Butterfly

The next couple of posts may be a little sparse, so I apologize in advance. Today, though, let’s look briefly at the beautiful aria “One Fine Day” (Un Bel Dì) from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly. Mr Puccini, an Italian, wrote one of the classics of all operadom, set in Japan and sung in Italian, about a US Naval officer and a beautiful, naïve, Japanese girl. In Act One, Butterfly and Lieutenant Pinkerton are married in an arranged ceremony. He returns to the United States and Butterfly spends all of Act Two and most of Act Three waiting for his return. We learn in the Second Act that the Lieutenant seems to think that the Japanese wedding “didn’t count”, and tragedy ensues in Act Three after Pinkerton returns to Japan with his American wife and child. In the middle of Act Two, though, Butterfly sings hopefully to her friend Suzuki about “un bel dì” in the by and by:

One fine day we’ll notice
A thread of smoke arising on the sea
In the far horizon
And then the ship appearing

The descending melodic line, vaguely pentatonic in nature, is as serene and beautiful as a cherry blossom floating earthward, or maybe a butterfly alighting. It captures Butterfly’s wistfulness and her knowledge that the outcome is not in her control. It also reminds me of a verse from that beautiful and powerful love story in the Bible:

What is that coming up from the wilderness,
Like a column of smoke,
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
With all the fragrant powders of the merchant?
- Song of Solomon 3:6

We Christians, on this side of Easter, recognize the Song of Solomon as a sensuous and sensual depiction of Christ and His bride. Here is Butterfly singing again:

There is coming a man,
A little speck in the distance,
Climbing the hillock.
Can you guess who it is?
And when he’s reached the summit,
Can you guess what he’ll say?
He will call “Butterfly” from the distance.

And again from Solomon’s song (2:10-13):

My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise my love, my fair one, and come away;
For now the winter in past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth:
The time of singing has come,
And the voice of the turtle-dove
Is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
And the vines are in blossom;
They give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
And come away.’

Butterfly looks forward to hearing again the affection inherent in the nicknames given her by her beloved:

He will call, he will call:
“Dear little wife of mine,
Dear little orange blossom!”
The names he used to call me when he came here.

As my friend Jim says, “the Lord knows you by your nickname.” We also learn of lovely names in chapter two of the Song of Songs:

Rose of Sharon

Lily of the Valley

Well, we know that Madama Butterfly ends in tragedy. But, thanks be to God, we have “a future and a hope” in the Lord. The story of His love for us is writ large on every page of the Bible, from the first chapter of Genesis to the final chapter of Revelation. Let’s close with this beautiful verse (22:17) from that last chapter:

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

And, in this context, Butterfly got it exactly right:

This will all come to pass as I tell you
Banish your idle fears, for he will return
I know it

Little Rock

2008-02-20T16:35:00.002-06:00

Little Rock
by Bob DiPiero, Gerry House and Pat McManus

He sure loves his money
And I’m the one who pays the price

Hello, again. It’s Full of Woe Wednesday and I’m your host, Fuelgrip Skip. I told my brother Fireplug Doug that I might not be able to write for his little blog every week: believe it or not, I just can’t think of that many songs that I dislike. As I mentioned last week, there are probably thousands of songs that would set my teeth on edge (rap, punk, disco, atonal opera), but I just don’t listen to them. But then I remembered one of those “cheatin’ songs” in the Country Songbook. So here is this week’s candidate for Least Favorite Song, Little Rock by Reba McEntire.

Dennis Miller once said, “I got to thinking the other day that Mickey Mouse’s best friend is Goofy, who is a dog. And Mickey Mouse’s pet is Pluto, who is also a dog. And I just don’t think that’s right.” That, in essence, is my problem with this song. I'll try to explain.

I actually like Ms McEntire quite a bit. She’s a good ol’ Oklahoma gal from Stringtown, a champion barrel racer and a bit of a Renaissance Man (in that female country and western singer sort of way): albums, concerts, TV series, websites, perfumes, frozen dinners and other product lines – they all bear the Reba name. And I like her voice. She sings with that incipit (kind of like a little yodel) in her voice that is the hallmark of heirloom country singing – I’ll never forget the first time I heard LeeAnn Rimes warble her way through Blue – it was sheer Heaven. And even though I am horrified by what most other singers are doing these days with melisma (basically trying to cram as many notes into one syllable as possible), when Ms McEntire does it, it doesn’t bother me (although, thankfully, I’ve never heard her try to ululate through The Star-Spangled Banner – that would definitely change my opinion).

But Little Rock is a bridge too far. Actually, it’s two verses and a chorus too far, if you’ll pardon the expression. I know that many of you may be thinking that I’m actually taking out my frustrations on a certain former President through this song’s common zip code, but there is another country song titled Little Rock by Colin Raye and I think it’s terrific. Here’s a sample from Mr Raye's song:

I haven’t had a drink in 14 days
My eyes are finally clearing from the haze
I like the preacher down at the Church of Christ
Sorry that I cried when I called last night

I think I’m on a roll here in Little Rock
I’m solid as a stone, baby, wait and see
There’s only one small problem here in Little Rock:
Without you, baby, I’m not me

But I’m not here to write about good songs (that’s Fireplug’s job), so let’s hear from Reba:

Well I'm married to the good life
I said I'd be a good wife
When I put on this ring
I drive a new Mercedes
I play tennis with the ladies
I buy all the finer things
But all that don't mean nothing
When you can't get a good night's loving

There was a period when she went through a rash of songs about infidelity. Seems like she was really suspicious there for a while. Of course, looking back now at “When Whoever’s in New England’s Through with You” with the benefit of hindsight, I say “methinks she doth sing too much” about it.

Besides Ms McEntire, there seemed to be a whole spate of life imitating art moments in the country music world involving extramarital relations around this same time (see also Gill, Vince and Grant, Amy). Now, I’m certainly not here to stand in judgment of someone, and this isn’t some call for censorship, but I do wonder if people with artistic talent and a public forum could just think a little bit about the influence they might have on impressionable minds. I’m not saying there’s a straight line from Helter Skelter to Charles Manson or from The Matrix to Columbine, or even from Kenny G to brain-melting lasers, but to deny that art lacks any influencing or transformative power is, to me, a bigger slap in the face of the creative Muse than the people calling for censorship: at least those folks realize that creative energy, once loosed, is kinetic and not just potential. And for those of you who want to defend Ms McEntire with “a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do and, it’s just ‘art’, after all”, I just have two words for you: Leni Riefenstahl.

Actually, Ms McEntire has her own Triumph of the Will moment, when she reveals in the chorus the double meaning of the song’s title:

Oh, little rock
I think I’m gonna have to slip you off
Take a chance tonight and untie the knot
There’s more to life than what I’ve got . . .

Clever, huh? It actually is rather, and to me, that’s the whole problem with the song. Without reference to its message, I’d tell Dick Clark I gave the song an 86 (good beat, easy to listen to – I don’t dance). Of course, the problem is, the infectious, bouncy music has already set the song’s hooks in me before I’ve started processing the words.

Oh, little rock
You know this heart of mine just can't be bought
I'm gonna find someone who really cares a lot
When I slip off this little rock

Well, we already know what’s going to happen and we know that nothing’s going to stop her, but for some reason, she feels the need to use all of verse two to further build her case:

Well I wonder if he'll miss me
He doesn't even kiss me
When he comes home at night
He never calls me honey
But he sure loves his money
And I'm the one who pays the price
But when he finds this ring he'll see
He keeps everything but me

Look, I’m not trying to be callous: this guy sounds like a loser. And the sad thing is, it sounds like Ms McEntire’s denouement is a win-win – she gets her freedom and he gets his stuff. I’m just saying there should be more. I’d like to have seen a verse that talks about counseling and prayer and heart-wrenching decisions – or maybe if the song could have just been slower and in a minor key. Instead, we get a yee-haw, pedal-to-the-metal, fire-all-the-guns-at-once, good-timin’ song about two-timin’. And I just don't think that's right.

If I may try my hand at the chorus:

Oh woe, whoa,
Little Rock