Today in church, we sang one of my favorite hymns, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Time and again, the words of this poem have been for me a source of solace and encouragement, the prayer of my heart.
I won’t reproduce the entire thing here, but I encourage you to read it and reflect thereon. All 5 verses, too — there’s some excellent food for the soul that doesn’t appear in most of our hymnals.
To help me learn how to better engage in literary criticism, my wife encouraged me recently to read The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles and report on a few particular aspects thereof. Results follow.
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles (Julie (Andrews) Edwards, 1974) relates the journey of the three Potter children, guided by one Professor Savant from the local university. On a dare, the youngest, Lindy, knocks on the door of a reputedly haunted house while trick-or-treating with her brothers (Ben and Tom). The house turns out to the be residence of Prof. Savant, and he tells them of the Whangdoodle, a fantastic creature that roamed the earth many generations ago. However, as humanity became more rational and prone to doubt the existence of such creatures, it faced near-extinction and the last went into exile. The Professor takes the children on a quest to go to Whangdoodleland and see the Whangdoodle.
While visiting a friend this weekend, I picked up his copy of a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories, and began reading The Call of Cthulhu. Upon returning home, I found an online copy and was able to finish reading it.
I appreciate the way Lovecraft conveyed his dark tale. The opening lines paint a chilling portrait of his vision of humanity as an insignificant spec in the midst of cosmic powers:
The first verse of O Holy Night contains this pair of lines:
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, ’Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
So Jenn & I have been married for two years now. Life without her seems like a vague and distant memory.
I’m glad she’s my wife :). Jennifer, I love you!
It’s official. I’m an Emacs user.
I’ve been using it a fair amount for the last two to three weeks, and have grown rather comfortable. I’ve done several configuration things, and am working on building up a decent configuration base for it.
I checked another active book off my list today — The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges.
Bridges wrote a book, The Pursuit of Holiness, a couple decades ago. Later, he wrote Transforming Grace. Some people didn’t see how the same author could write both books. The Discipline of Grace bridges this gap. It explains how God works with us to make us holy.
A story is told of an interview someone once had with singer/songwriter Rich Mullins. I can’t find a source on it right now, so I can’t vouch for its veracity, but true or not, the story has something to say to us.
It is said that, in this interview, Mullins was asked how it felt to be used so greatly by God. His response was that God can use anyone — he used Nebuchudnezzar and others — and that he considered it a far greater honor to be loved by God.
Oh, sweet satire. I finished reading Gulliver’s Travels (by Jonathan Swift) last night. That was a fun trip.
Not much has changed since Swift’s time. He describes a humanity continually embroiled in senseless wars, injustice, and dispute, while all the while thinking we’ve had it made. Much of what he describes — the perversions of justice, the foolish workings of politics, the general inhumanity with which man can treat man — all ring true with with our present world. And in the end, we are a bunch of filthy, messed-up Yahoos.
Today, I think that I will merely place a hymn before you for reflection and meditation:
Years I spent in vanity and pride, Caring not my Lord was crucified, Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary?
(Chorus) Mercy there was great, and grace was free; pardon there was multiplied to me; there my burdened soul found liberty at Calvary.
By God’s Word at last my sin I learned; then I trembled at the law I’d spurned, till my guilty soul imploring turned to Calvary?
Now I’ve given to Jesus everything, now I gladly own him as my King, now my raptured soul can only sing of Calvary.
Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan! Oh, the grace that brought it down to man! Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary!