@expatminister
Are we not what we consistently love? I love: Christie + 4 Starfleet cadets, UMC pastoring, sci-fi, words, hosting meals & tending bar, Middle-earth, theology, Rice Owls, baseball (go Astros!), making music, all things British. Jesus. Coffee.
Feast of George Herbert, poet and priest, today, but also the anniversary of the death of Leonard Nimoy, in 2015. Both holy people IMO. May Leonard's memory be a blessing. George, pray for us. ⚓
All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
🕯️ #AshWednesday #Lent
Lord, open our lips.
The Sermon on the Mount, by Beryl Lewis, before 1965, 📸 by @ScottStrazzante
Remembir everye daye ys a goode daye to reach out to a friende and tell them how much you love them. Maybe buy them a booke. Bringe up an olde inside joke. All the sillye thinges and the serious thinges about friendeshippe, thei are all infinitelye valuable. Tyme spent thus wil nevir be regrettid.
In the neverending discussion of what’s the best #startrek episode, I see your “City on the Edge of Forever” and raise you a “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.”
Love hearing John O’Donohue quoted on The Pitt (S2E3) tonight. I’ve been using his book of blessings, TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US, for more than a decade & his poetry for another decade or more before that. What a gift! Check it out for yourself:
bookshop.org/p/books/to-b... 🕯️
A good way to spend the day. Looking forward to one day raising a mug there in his memory.
Hey now: leave Chuck alone. Poetry, not heresy. Otherwise we wouldn’t sing *any* hymns or carols.
#9LC 🕯️
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn king!”
And now it’s Christmas — Merry and Happy Christmas to you all!
#9LC 🕯️
“Christ, who by his incarnation, gathered into one things earthly and heavenly, fill you with peace and goodwill, and make you partakers of the divine nature…”
That’s the blessing!
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father,) full of grace and truth." In case anyone forgot, THIS is the reason for the season. It's always about grace. It's always been about grace. It will always be about grace. #9lc
"When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled..."
Tyrants are always afraid of love, terrified of grace and mercy because it undermines their coercive grip on power. By God's grace, the Herods of this world don't have the last word. #9lc 🕯️
#9LC 🕯️
“Go! And search! Diligently for the child!” LOVE IT. Just right for Herod before his mask slips.
"King of quires supernal" is an amazing attribution! #9LC
#9LC 🕯️
Love this Willcocks arrangement with angry organ on the Herod verse. Plus who doesn’t love self-referential organ merriment!
I do wish they would print, just for myne owne enjoyment, the original text of this:
Ther is no rose of swych vertu
As is the rose that bar Jhesu.
etc.
===
like:
For in this rose conteynyd was
Heuen and erthe in lytyl space,
Res miranda
#9LC
I mean put me on an IV drip of every sequence in Bruckner short-form choral music. #9LC
#9LC 🕯️
Enjoying the pacing of “There is no rose,” some beautiful punctuation of the text/tune.
Alleluia.
Gaudeamus.
Transeamus. &c.
oh i do love the joy in the reader's voice on the word "blessed" -- that little upward lilt makes all the difference (also a woman reading this lesson? PERFECTION) #9LC
The way the Portman just tailed off after the last line - "Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew / And I was unaware" - poignant. #9lc
Wow. This commissioned carol makes bleakness beautiful, entrusts the gospel to the thrush's song, and weaves harmony into hope. I will sit with that one for a long time. What a triumph. #9lc
it is gutsy to set these lines, GUTSY i tell you #9lc
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware
#9LC
“and every spirit upon earth
seemed fervourless than I.”
Then that solo! Just a gorgeous way to illuminate Hardy’s moving text.
#9LC now have been able to sing the most-forgotten verse, but maybe most important, of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear twice this year! Such a beautiful summons to a tangible & real peaceable news in God’s light.
north american student reading "all the nations be blessed" feels like trolling in the best way #9lc
#9LC
“All out of darkness we have light
that made the angels sing this night!”
Just chills y’all.
#9LC “For Rex Pacificus is come!”
What a cheerful message to sing, especially paired with Isaiah’s zealous God establishing the Prince of Peace for always.
#9LC Listening to the second reading on the blessing of Abraham’s descendants to be a blessing — coming right after he almost sacrifices Isaac — reminds me that in English, “blessed” was originally from “bloodied.” Sobering to view obedience from that place.