Good Friday is the most somber observation on the Christian calendar, marking the day Jesus was crucified.
Of course, the grief is tempered because we know how the story ends. The only good thing about “Good Friday” is what happened Sunday morning.
It’s a time to reflect on man’s inhumanity to man. If we could subject the perfect man to this level of torture and death, no wonder we commit evil against common men and women.
All that perfect man was trying to say was it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s sad that he was considered dangerous for saying so.
There are so many wonderful things in the words, that is to say, things that fill the soul with wonder — grand canyons, the aurora borealis, spiral galaxies, the eyes of a fly —
I pity anyone who does not have a sense of wonder, whose breath has never been taken or has never been left speechless by anything and all that is awesome in this incredible universe.
“It’s a big magical world out there, isn’t it?” said the little red-haired girl, bringing a huge smile to her adoptive father’s face.
“It surely is, Summer, it surely is,” Daddy replied. “Why, you could start your day as a sweet golden retriever and become a beautiful little girl by sunset.”
“You always said I am your beautiful little girl,” she said with her big puppy eyes.
“Yes, but even more so this evening,” he said. He tousled her hair and rested his hand on her shoulder, and they watched the sun set.
(Thanks to Meta AI for a serendipitous mistake translating our selfie into anime.)
“At some point you just jump off the cliff and you do the thing, and the thing is going to be good if it comes from inside of you.” — Ron Collins
“The act of being a writer, the point of being a writer, is to find joy in your life and to bring that out of you.” — also Ron Collins
I have backed Ron Collins’ Kickstarter, which will give me On Becoming (And Becoming Again) A Writer and two other books, and these quotes from his promotional video have already been helpful.
The first quote is a variation on one of my favorite Ray Bradbury quotes, “Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.”
There is a fun and a special kind of joy in writing, and I need to get back in touch with that reality/truth.
It’s the seeing a cute or clever turn of phrase and being delighted that it came from somewhere inside you — it’s the scene spilling onto the page from a chamber of delight you didn’t know you possessed — I used the word delight twice because it is appropriate to the feeling. Good writing is a joy, a blessing and, well, a delight. I am grateful that among God’s gifts to me are this ability to turn phrases and smith words.
Collins has already helped me reach inside to find that joy again. I look forward to the book, and more, I look forward to what comes out after I reach in.
I found myself Sunday afternoon wondering about the origins of the familiar short hymn we sing at the end of worship service and the people who wrote it.
Praise God from whom all blessing flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
My brief search at brittanica.com led me to the following.
The words come from Thomas Ken, who was Anglican Bishop of Bath and Wells from about 1685 to about 1691 and served as royal chaplain to King Charles II. He had a falling out with Charles’ successor, James II — long story short, over religious differences — that led to Ken spending some time in the Tower Of London and put on trial for sedition along with six other bishops. They were subsequently acquitted.
Despite that ordeal, Ken remained loyal to James and, when the king fled the country and William and Mary were crowned monarchs, Ken refused to swear allegiance to the new regime and was deprived of his office. “He spent the remaining 20 years of his life in retirement.”
The music is from the Genevan Psalter, a hymnal initiated by John Calvin in 1539 and published in a complete edition in 1562. The 150 Psalms were translated into French and set to music by Loys Bourgeois, Calude Goudimel and others. Bourgeois gets top billing because he’s responsible for about 85 of the melodies.
Bourgeois spent a day in jail, charged with the horrendous crime of tampering with the accepted Psalm tunes without authorization. Calvin got him out, and the alterations were eventually approved.
What struck me, besides the fact that the melody is more than 450 years old and the Doxology has been sung for more than 300 years, is that both of the men spent time behind bars for the manner in which they chose to praise God. It’s a reminder why the Founders of the new nation forbade Congress from prohibiting the free exercise of religion as the first tenet in the First Amendment to their Constitution.
I put on my “CCM” (contemporary Christian music) playlist and am now torn — I want to do some reading, but it’s hard to concentrate on the book when I’m listening to the music.
Some might call it multitasking, but those are two tasks that are mutually exclusive to me. The words on the page demand my attention, and the music demands to be heard. I can do one or the other, but not both.
Oddly, I’m listening to the music while I write, and that is not a challenge. Perhaps they both involve the creative part of my soul, and the book taps another aspect that requires concentration of a different kind. I suppose the people who study these things could explain it to me.
It’s interesting how the songs fling me about. Here is “Get Together” by Randy Stonehill, and I’m in the 1980s happy to hear a CCM artist embracing the spirituality of a pop song from a decade and a half earlier. Now comes “The Lord’s Prayer” by Sister Janet Mead, and it’s the seventies and I’m tickled to see a God song reach the Top Ten but a little timid about sharing my faith.
The Shuffle feature always splits up “He is Exalted” and its prologue, “Release of the Spirit,” even though they belong together. I remember how thrilling it was to hear Twila Paris at the piano building up to the song, much like the classical opening to Amy Grant’s “Sing Your Praise to the Lord.”
And here’s “John the Revelator,” and I’m reliving the first time I heard Phil Keaggy’s magnificent album Crimson and Blue. Here’s a funky extended song with lots of flashy guitar. Most artists would be content to make this the centerpiece of the album’s climax, but Keaggy goes from this into “Doin’ Nothin’,” another extended track with lots of flashy guitar. For a believer with a rock and roll heart, the two songs back to back comprise an exhilarating 16-minute romp, followed by the mellow and worshipful cool-down of “Nothing But the Blood” to finish the album beautifully.
I will definitely need to silence the phone before I can hear John Piper’s words in my brain this morning. My, Keaggy laid down some mighty fine music.
