O Come All Ye Faithful

This will be the last Christmas hymn I post this season. Not that Christmas is over, but I think I'll be able to make it now, having weaned myself from constant Christmas music over the past few days.

Let's end with a classic. For to us a child is born: Come let us adore him.

Unto Us a Boy is Born [Feast of the Holy Innocents]

It's the Feast of the Holy Innocents today, which has a lot more resonance this year for me. This is the hymn that came to my mind shortly after the Newtown massacre for its verse about Herod -- "all the little boys he killed" -- what a horrible, horrible story.

And there's a strange thing going on in this story I hadn't thought about before: about how other people suffered when Jesus came into the world. Other innocent people. I don't have much more than that; it's something I'll need to ponder.

Here's the collect for today, which I think is powerful stuff:

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

No subtitles today. This hymn isn't among Christmas' greatest hits. It is strange to be reminded of grief at Christmas, but important. The grief is there; burying it under layers of Christmas cheer is not to our benefit, I feel.

Unto us a boy is born!
The King of all creation,
came he to a world forlorn,
the Lord of every nation.

Cradled in a stall was he
with sleepy cows and asses;
but the very beasts could see
that he all men surpasses.

Herod then with fear was filled;
"A prince," he said, "in Jewry!"
All the little boys he killed
at Bethlehem in his fury.

Now may Mary's son, who came
so long ago to love us,
lead us all with hearts aflame
unto the joys above us.

Of the Father's Love Begotten

The Christmas sing-along continues with another hymn for you on this, the feast of St. John the Apostle, aka Man of Mystery.


Of the Father's love begotten,
ere the worlds began to be,
he is Alpha and Omega,
he the source, the ending he,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see,
evermore and evermore!

O that birth for ever blessèd,
when the Virgin, full of grace,
by the Holy Ghost conceiving,
bare the Savior of our race;
and the Babe, the world's Redeemer,
first revealed his sacred face,
evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heaven, adore him;
angel-hosts, his praises sing;
powers, dominions, bow before him,
and extol our God and King;
let no tongue on earth be silent,
every voice in concert ring,
evermore and evermore!

In the Bleak Midwinter

Merry Christmas!

You know the thing that gets me about the way we celebrate Christmas in this country is not that we play Christmas music throughout December, but that it just vanishes at the stroke of midnight on December 25. I'd like a little more Christmas, please!

This video has subtitles so you can sing along. I'll also post the words below. Love this hymn


In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Every wind of doctrine

Consider this your "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" Bible study post. But, hey, this passage will come up again:

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:14-16

Here's the thing that struck me reading it this time. So. It seems to me that people toss around that phrase "every wind of doctrine" to mean "every newfangled thought that comes along." Is that how you've heard it used? But it occurred to me that at the time the letter was written, Christianity was the newfangled thought. And Paul was an innovator even within this newfangled sect of Christianity, welcoming the uncircumcised, calling a slave his brother (and his owner's brother), expecting a radical equality among genders and races and incomes. He was doing crazily new stuff, way out of the mainstream.

So it makes me wonder if doctrine here doesn't mean new doctrine, but what we usually think of when we think of doctrine: those beliefs that are settled and static and cast in stone.

What if this isn't saying, "Don't be blown about by the latest fad," but instead is saying, "Don't be blown about by 'the way we've always done it'"? Don't be blown about by those forces that wish to deny new truths that have been brought to light through Jesus Christ. 

Remember that grim hymn "Once to ev'ry man and nation"? It has this great couplet:

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

And of course let us not forget the great Thomas Cranmer's delightful introduction to the first Book of Common Prayer (1549, of course): "There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted."

Darn right.

So the next time someone throws that old "every wind of doctrine" line at you, I'd recommend you say, "That's exactly why we need to speak the truth in love, so that we are not continually battered by doctrines that no longer fit our understanding of God and of the world." The winds of doctrine isn't about new ways of thinking; the winds of doctrine are the ones that try to blow us backwards as we attempt to make progress, promoting the body's growth.

A hymn for loud things

Lionel Deimel has written some alternate verses to the hymn Earth and All Stars which he calls a "frankly stupid hymn."  I hadn't thought about it before, having loved the tune enough to (mostly) ignore the text but it's true.  There's a lot that's laughable about the hymn.  In it, everything is loud:  loud boiling test tubes, loud humming cellos...I mean, please.  I think Lionel's verses are better than the original.  What do you think?  And what would you add?

iPods and Droids, loud clicking keypads,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Blackberry phones, loud sounding ringtones,
Sing to the Lord a new song!

He has done marvelous things.
I, too, will praise him with a new song.

Chevys and Fords, loud honking car horns,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Corvette and Jeep, loud roaring mufflers,
Sing to the Lord a new song!

He has done marvelous things.
I, too, will praise him with a new song.

There's a wideness in God's mercy

Courtesy of Scott at Seven Whole Days, I'm getting a hymn for each day of Lent that relates one way or another to the reading of the day. "There's a wideness in God's mercy" was the hymn for yesterday when the story of the prodigal son was the gospel of the day.

One of the great things Scott is doing is giving all the original verses and exploring different hymn tunes. I personally love the contemporary setting of "Wideness" in the hymnal and wish we sang it more often. The more familiar tune is, shall we say, a bit of a clunker.

I hadn't realized how much was missing of the original text in both of these settings, or how much the original text had been mixed and matched to fit the tune. What a pity that one of the verses that got left out was this one:

But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.

How different our church would be if this verse had worked its way into our collective understanding. Though you'd think Jesus' teachings might be enough. Seems that was kind of a theme, there. Somehow it's more catchy when you set it to music.

I had never thought to pair this hymn with the prodigal son before now, but when you see the whole text, it really is quite perfect.

Memorial Day

I'm not so happy this Memorial Day, seeing as we're still fighting in two wars and all.

I went to the iCasualties website yesterday, hadn't been for a while, to find that 4,300 U.S. and coalition forces have died in Iraq, and God knows how many other Iraqis.

Meanwhile, as we step up our military action in Afghanistan, over 1100 people have died there.

Afghanistan leaves me ambivalent. Iraq I feel is an out-and-out farce. Those people should not have died, and it enrages me.

This morning, I learned about an amazing project called Map the Fallen. It uses Google Earth to mark and remember each of the some 5,000 people who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. The creator of the program writes,

I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.

It's an impressive thing. I downloaded it this morning and used it to find people who were from places where I've lived.

I'd like to wish you a happy Memorial Day, but today, I just can't.

Weary of all trumpeting, wearing of all killing,
weary of all songs that sing promise non-fulfilling,
we would raise, O Christ, one song; we would join in singing
that great music pure and strong, wherewith heaven is ringing.

The best and the brightest

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.”
- Edward M. Liddy, chair of AIG

Well, aren't I just chopped liver, then. I and everyone I know who didn't work at AIG. I thought we were quite bright, but apparently we weren't the brightest. The brightest all went to work in the financial sector.

The best, too. Silly me for thinking that "the best" might include people with integrity, people who take responsibility for what happens, people who don't expect everything to be cushioned and comfortable no matter the circumstances. People willing to make sacrifices. (I like Bryan Appleyard's comment that "bankers' bonuses were so catastrophic precisely because they insulated bankers from a free market in anything.")

Here's the thing: they really believe that! They really think that they have the brightest and the best! Personally, I would be very satisfied with "bright and good," with an emphasis on strong values rather than extreme cleverness.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

George Herbert

Today is the feast day of George Herbert, priest and poet. Oh, how I love him. Two of his poems are two of my very favorite hymns: The Call, and "King of Glory, King of Peace," which is the poem Praise (II).

But for today I particularly love the story that's in Lesser Feasts and Fasts' little bio, as follows:

He used to go once a week to Salisbury to hear Evening Prayer sung there in the cathedral. On one occasion he was late because he had met a man whose horse had fallen with a heavy load, and he stopped, took off his coat, and helped the man to unload the cart, get the horse back on its feet, and then reload the cart. His spontaneous generosity and good will won him the affection of his parishioners.

What I love about this is that it's such a small thing, and yet made such an impression and was so clearly remembered. It seems obvious, to help someone who's right in the middle of the road, but I can just imagine myself saying, "Oh, I'm late!" and hurrying by. It seems to me that George Herbert got the basic point of Jesus' message. The hymns are just a bonus.

The best All Saints day hymn ever

And official hymn of tea drinkers everywhere, the classic, "I sing a song of the saints of God." Note the third verse.

I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor and one was a queen
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
they were all of them saints of God -- and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus' sake,
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there's not any reason-- no, not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,
there are hundreds of thousands still,
the world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.