The Purpose of Life

“...the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: ...We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

(Thanks to Kay for this quote)

Quote on Song and Silence

We are living in a culture that doesn’t value melody; one that seems to have lost touch with this primal means of expression. We are surrounded by sounds so insistent, so varied in intent and clangor, that we’ve forgotten how to listen to a single line. In fact, we don’t really listen to each other speak anymore because there are too many distractions luring us away from the unadorned human voice. We’ve lost the basic, easy connection between speech and song that makes speech musical and song communicative. We’re perilously close to losing silence: in the electronic world, silence means disconnection…

Through the media’s constant barrage, we are subjected to endless chatter, listening to tune written in an unceasing quest for momentary fame and ingesting surface information that rarely delves below the surface. We are being deprived, through overload, or our principal senses.

—Alice Parker, The Anatomy of Melody

O'Connor Quote

"I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."

Flannery O'Connor, "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction"

Happy New Year

Today is the day in which the circumcision of Christ is usually remembered. Following is a hymn to that effect. It is also a good day to read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight since this Feast Day plays a role in the story.

O happy day, when first was poured
The blood of our redeeming Lord!
O happy day, when first began
His sufferings for sinful man!

Just entered on this world of woe,
His blood already learned to flow;
His future death was thus expressed,
And thus His early love confessed.

From heaven descending to fulfill
The mandates of His Father’s will,
E’en now behold the victim lie,
The Lamb of God, prepared to die!

Lord, circumcise our hearts, we pray,
Our fleshly natures purge away;
Thy Name, Thy likeness may they bear:
Yea, stamp Thy holy image there!

O Lord, the virgin born, to Thee
Eternal praise and glory be,
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Ghost forevermore.

Se­bas­tien Bes­nault, 1736

Review on Reformation21

My review of The Incarnation in the Gospels is now available on the Reformation21 website.

Street Name Change in Moscow

A street in Moscow renamed for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has some residents up in arms--they prefer the former name: Big Communist Street. The Guardian has a story with the details.

Christmas Toy Jeers

Little Tykes has a line of toys for toddlers (6 months and older) that play songs—so far so good. These trains, mobiles, and toy guitars, drums, and keyboards are part of the “Pop Tunes Big Rocker” line of toys. As the advertising line says, “Plays songs to get kids moving with music that parents can appreciate.” These songs include versions of: “Love Shack” by The B-52's, “Hot Hot Hot” by Buster Poindexter, and “Wild Thing” by The Troggs. These are hardly songs or messages appropriate to toddlers.

Quote about Freedeom and the Arts

Jeremy Begbie in Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music

"For the Christian, to be free is not fundamentally to enjoy some supposedly blank space before us, or to increase options, but to be at peace with God and one another and thus at home in a God-given world."

Current Reading

Bama 12-0

Anxiously anticipating Saturday's game with Florida. Roll Tide!