New HEM Music on the Way

Troubles

“Often the same thing that makes one person bitter makes another better.” J.C. Ryle

“God often digs the wells of joy with the spades of affliction.” Isaac Watts

“To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowermost depths. The way to heaven all too often leads through hell.” Herman Melville

“Affliction is often that thing which prepares an ordinary person for some sort of an extraordinary destiny.” C.S. Lewis

Melodies of Solace

Music can be salve for the battered heart and soul. Shakespeare rightly wrote, “When gripping griefs the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind oppress, then music with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.” When I am tempted to melancholy, there is nothing that can more quickly right the balance of my heart quite like music. “The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,” Shakespeare asserted, “is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are as dull as night, and his affections as dark as Erebus: let no such man be trusted.”

Socialism

"The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher

Singing

As I prepare for my sermon this coming Lord's Day, I have been thinking a good deal about the character and nature of singing. I ran across this old journal entry on what singing indicates in the heart and character of a man:

Iam lucis orto sidere
Deum precemur supplices,
ut in diurnis artibus
nos servet a nocentibus.

The harmonic drone of the chant for this Medieval Latin hymn is unvarying--like Medieval manners, customs, and generations. It has an ironic quality in it which savors at once both the pathetic and the steadfast. Its few notes recall those ancient themes which conceal something of the dreadful fallen estate of man but are yet buoyed by his supreme dignity and by the majestic purpose of the human will yielded to divine providence. Its Latin phrases ring out in the still morning air--and across the centuries--connecting us to the truth of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, to the hope of the Kingdom that transcends all other kingdoms, and to the strength of a united Christendom against which even the gates of Hell may never withstand:

Deo Patri sit gloria,
eiusque soli Filio,
cum Spiritu Paraclito,
et nuc et in perpetuum.

Singing such hymns lifts the heart, shortens the way, and advertises a man's reputation. It is an admirable thing. A man who so sings--loudly, clearly, and well--proves, more often than not, to be of good character. He is master of himself. He is strict and well managed. He is prompt, alert, swift, and to the point. He is unafraid and jolly. He is disciplined and congenial with a clear conscience before both God and men. There is method in him. All these things may be in a man who does not sing, of course. But singing makes them apparent.

Missed Opportunity

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." --Thomas A. Edison

Into the Jungle

J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, "It is a dangerous business going out your front door." Once again, Karen and I are testing that premise as we head out the door to Colombia for the next week and a half or so. We'll be ministering in Bogota for a few days and then head down to the Amazonian rain forest to speak at a retreat with our missionaries there. Please do pray for us.

Colombia Trip

The Quo's Status

"Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status." --Laurence J. Peter

Or, Maybe Not

"Surely Wagner's music is better than it sounds." -- Edgar Wilson Nye