Friday, January 29, 2010

Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross

Watch me play and sing Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross here.

Jesus, keep me near the cross,
There a precious fountain
Free to all, a healing stream
Flows from Calvary's mountain.

Refrain:

In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever;
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.

Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Sheds its beams around me.

Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day,
With its shadows o'er me.

Near the cross I'll watch and wait
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand,
Just beyond the river.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Pride and Prejudice Review

It took me a long time to get into this book. I found it hard to follow. Having said that, I am thoroughly happy to have read it and would recommend it to anyone interested in 19th century English aristocracy, complicated family relationships, an entirely new method of speaking English, and romance.

However, if you are at all eager to get to the romance, you will be disappointed, or at least your patience will be tried. I just thought of a more appropriate title for it! "Patience and Perseverance." It takes the whole book for these people to finally get together. But, by the end you really do want them to get together.

They were all extremely concerned with social status, who would marry whom, and never tired of talking and writing long letters to each other on these topics.

I say a new method of speaking English and I guess that would technically be "old." I just wasn't prepared for how different it was. Spelling was often different, as were punctuation and capitalization. For instance, rather than using "ed" to indicate past tense, "t" was substituted only in certain instances like "learnt." Not to mention the extremely stilted tone to everything. I'm sure our informal language would sound like pure trash to them; it sounds like trash to me a lot of the time. I do think we have come a long way in the field of getting to the point over the past two hundred or so years.

There are some timeless themes: love of family, tragic misunderstandings, and, of course, lots of pride and prejudice. There are also some stereotypes that would never fly today; those are always entertaining to me. Namely the nervous, flighty, mentally fragile Mrs. Bennett, mother of Jane, Elizabeth and their sisters.

The photos are from some of the first illustrated versions of the book.

So, in conclusion, I became completely enthralled in the story but it took me three fourths of the way through to get there. More than anything, I appreciated the artful way Austen articulated her ideas.

I am also reading the One Year Bible on the seven year plan. I just got to the gospels and I love it!

The next non-Bible book I'm reading is "Inside of a Dog" about how dogs think by Alexandra Horowitz. That should be a perfect follow up to "great literature" right?

A Little Marital Advice


If you are married and have never experienced having a violent stomach virus at the same time as your mate, you don't really deserve to fully claim your marriage certificate. It is the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" for your marriage. For if one can remain in love after such travesties of the body which occur during these times, then you have truly experienced the refiner's fire.

This was actually the second time this has occurred for us, so I feel I have acquired some expertise in the field. In the light of these facts, I have compiled a list of suggestions for those of you who haven't been there yet.

1. Do not try to eat or drink anything until you are certain it is safe to do so. For whatever temporary pleasure may be gained in the moment from the crackers and Ginger Ale is sure to be canceled out by their dramatic return.

2. When your beloved is "in the act" you may try consolation, but nothing is to be gained from this. Just let them work it out on their own, for there are only so many toilets/trashcans in one bathroom.

3. If you should find pants, sheets, or any suspicious blankets, or clothing of any kind in a corner, do not let your curiosity tempt you. Just gingerly take them to the laundry room and set the dial to super heavy, triple soap, nuclear disaster if your machine has that setting.

4. Find the best photo of your wife/husband that you can and put it up in the bathroom so that you may remember that he/she is not the hurling, foul, Sasquatch that you actually see before your eyes.

5. You may try lighting candles, opening a window, spritzing your best pomegranate basil room spray, or placing scented "plug in's" in every outlet in the house... None of this is strong enough to come near alleviating the problem. Just get used to it. It might go away in the spring.

6. If you make it through all of this, and no one has issued a restraining order, there have been no serious mental breakdowns resulting in institutionalization, you still have a house, clothes, and each other, rejoice! For:

7. "We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:3,4.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Tell Me the Story of Jesus

It's Fanny Friday people. There she is in the photo. I totally forgot she was blind! What a gal.



To watch me play and sing "Tell Me the Story of Jesus" click here.

  1. Tell me the story of Jesus,
    Write on my heart every word;
    Tell me the story most precious,
    Sweetest that ever was heard.
    Tell how the angels in chorus,
    Sang as they welcomed His birth,
    “Glory to God in the highest!
    Peace and good tidings to earth.”
    • Refrain:
      Tell me the story of Jesus,
      Write on my heart every word;
      Tell me the story most precious,
      Sweetest that ever was heard.
  2. Fasting alone in the desert,
    Tell of the days that are past,
    How for our sins He was tempted,
    Yet was triumphant at last.
    Tell of the years of His labor,
    Tell of the sorrow He bore;
    He was despised and afflicted,
    Homeless, rejected and poor.
  3. Tell of the cross where they nailed Him,
    Writhing in anguish and pain;
    Tell of the grave where they laid Him,
    Tell how He liveth again.
    Love in that story so tender,
    Clearer than ever I see;
    Stay, let me weep while you whisper,
    “Love paid the ransom for me.”
Watch "Pants on the Ground" here.

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Dream


Watch Dr. Martin Luther King's speech that changed history. Click here.

Share this with our children. We must never forget this great American who affected us all in such a deep and profound way. To say that this is an important speech is completely insufficient. To tell you that this is moving is like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch. This is the kind of eloquent truth that changes people from the inside out.

Dr. Martin Luther King Junior on August 28th, 1963:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check. A check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our Nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment, this sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, and have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friend, and so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will they be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Friday, January 15, 2010

To God Be the Glory

Watch me play To God Be the Glory here.

I'm playing my 1979 Hammond Aurora organ.

To God be the glory, great things He has done;
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in.

Refrain

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory, great things He has done.

O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

Great things He has taught us, great things He has done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.


Another classic Fanny Crosby hymn. Maybe the perfect hymn of praise. It informs our brains while lifting our souls. That is how it is supposed to be.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

It's Not You, It's Me


Lately I have been reading Pride and Prejudice. Honestly, it is kind of a tough read for me so far. I guess I'm trying to fill in the blanks left over from my days as a high school slacker who could barely be motivated to read by a gun pointed at my head.

Jane Austen's language is like this wonderful flourless chocolate cake that Amanda makes. You have to take little bites. The cake will make you go cross-eyed it's so dense, and insanely decadent. I'm working on my pallet to expand my reading taste for great literature.

I'm pretty good at liking the cake, so surely if I keep reading what generations before me have deemed to be great, then I will start to "get it" at some point. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

Our pastor introduced this concept with us at church regarding reading the Bible. He used the example of the beginning of Mathew's gospel. If a modern editor had spoken with the author of this book, he surely would have told Mathew that starting out with a a tedious account of lineage was hardly the best way to hook readers into what he had to say.

But it's there, and we have to consider that God wanted it there for a reason. We then must ask why. Maybe our taste for lineage needs to be cultivated. That is a clue!

Lord, please help me not to be so selfish as to consider your word boring. In other words, it's not you, it's me.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Praise Him! Praise Him!

So for the next four months, Fridays on this blog will be "Fanny Friday." I am starting with the first Fanny Crosby hymn in The Celebration Hymnal, my favorite hymnal, and I'll posting a video of myself singing and playing every one of her hymns in the order they appear there.



1. Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
Sing, O Earth, His wonderful love proclaim!
Hail Him! Hail Him! Highest archangels in glory;
Strength and honor give to His holy Name!
Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard His children,
In His arms He carries them all day long.
* Refrain:
Praise Him! Praise Him! Tell of His excellent greatness;
Praise Him! Praise Him! Ever in joyful song!
2. Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
For our sins He suffered, and bled, and died.
He our Rock, our hope of eternal salvation,
Hail Him! Hail Him! Jesus the Crucified.
Sound His praises! Jesus who bore our sorrows,
Love unbounded, wonderful, deep and strong.
3. Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
Heav’nly portals loud with hosannas ring!
Jesus, Savior, reigneth forever and ever;
Crown Him! Crown Him! Prophet, and Priest, and King!
Christ is coming! over the world victorious,
Pow’r and glory unto the Lord belong.

I have so many memories of singing this song at Gilliam Springs Baptist Church in Arab, Alabama where I grew up. Not to mention leading it at other churches where I have worked, visited, and worshiped. It is one of those songs that I would still be singing in my head long after the sermon was over, every head bowed, every eye closed, except mine, the car ride home, the roast with mashed potatoes, carrots and onions, fried okra, cornbread, tea, and coconut pie, all the way into school the next week.

Her songs are not only lyrically beautiful, uplifting, and just amazing, they have that staying power. So memorable, so singable, just pure Fanny, pure praise, pure joy. That is what this song is to me. No, it may not be the way we talk today, but maybe that is our problem, not Fanny's.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Really, Really Cold

The tree is sitting in a big pile by the sidewalk with all of the dead greenery that had been hanging over our fireplace. The lights are all packed up, and the work is done. The house is a little darker, quite a bit less colorful, and outside it is really, really cold. Now we hunker down and begin the wait for warmer weather.

Here is a list of the things we CAN do now:
Have friends over, laugh
Nap
Eat stews, soups, root vegetables and winter greens, and the grass fed, organic beef in our freezer
Have some tasty beverages
Play lots of card games, tournaments even!
Work out at the gym
Do a puzzle
Paint, draw, write
Make funny YouTubes, watch funny YouTubes
Go to the movies
Watch movies in bed
Send cards/letters to friends
Play with Ginny and her friend, Lucy
Read, pray, sing, play the piano/organ
Blog
Ski (if we can come up with the money)


How do you deal with the winter "what do we do nows?" What are your ideas?