[Just ask Madonna.]

Here is a magnificent text for all you cutting-edge linguistic hipsters to deconstruct, heteroglossically demythologize, and ontologically implode through polylectic subtextual analysis.

OMG -  it doesn’t get much better than this!       (…or DOES it ? )

Isn’t this where the expression “pull out all the stops” comes from ?

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the apostles’ glorious company,
who bearing forth the cross o’er land and sea,
shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
is fair and fruitful, be thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
and seeing, grasped it, thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
and win, with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
the saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
and singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

♥

William W. How   (1823-1897)

Thanks to:    http://www.oremus.org

And when he does,
the Elect get off  SCOT-FREE
like an antinomian Presbyterian, baby.

Ask your MAMA to look it up…

  Gots the lyrics for y’all from the free KIRK of Caledonia,
so   CHILL – cause when Li’l JOHN KNOX,
you KNOW the door  be swinging right off the HINGES!

Ralph Erskine was OG, cold-rhymin’ Calvinist paradigmin’ the Scottish Reformation to every nation  -
so GET DOWN, DON’T MOVE -
AND AINT NOBODY GON’ GIT HURT , YO…

Yesiree , my beloved hepcats and boogie-woogie enthusiasts -
get swell to this syncopated theophany,
only to be found HERE
in the center of YOUR VERY OWN UNIVERSE,
a.k.a. Connect / Hook:

Ralph Erskine (1685-1752)

Earth Despicable—Heaven Desirable

There’s nothing round the spacious earth
       To suit my vast desires;
To more refined and solid mirth
       My boundless thought aspires.

Fain would I leave this mournful place,
       This music dull, where none
But heavy notes have any grace,
       And mirth accents the moan:

Where troubles tread upon reliefs,
       New woes with older blend;
Where rolling storms and circling griefs
       Run round without an end:

Where waters wrestling with the stones,
       Do fight themselves to foam,
And hollow clouds, with thund’ring groans,
       Discharge their pregnant womb:

Where eagles mounting meet with rubs
       That dash them from the sky;
And cedars, shrinking into shrubs,
       In ruin prostrate lie:

Where sin the author of turmoils,
       The cause of death and hell;
The one thing foul that all things foils,
       Does most befriended dwell.

The purchaser of night and woe,
       The forfeiter of day,
The debt that ev’ry man did owe,
       But only God could pay.

Bewitching ill, indors’d with hope,
       Subscribed with despair:
Ugly in death when eyes are ope,
       Though life may paint it fair.

Small wonder that I droop alone
       In such a doleful place;
When lo! my dearest friend is gone,
       My Father hides his face.

And though in words I seem to show
       The fawning poets style,
Yet is my plaint no feigned woe;
       I languish in exile.

I long to share the happiness
       Of that triumphant throne,
That swim in seas of boundless bliss
       Eternity along.

When but in drops here by the way
       Free love distils itself,
I pour contempt on hills of prey,
       And heaps of wordly pelf.

To be amidst my little joys,
       Thrones, sceptres, crowns, and kings,
Are nothing else but little toys,
       And despicable things.

Down with disdain earth’s pomp I thrust,
       Put tempting wealth away;
Heav’n is not made of yellow dust,
       Nor bliss of glittering clay.

Sweet was the hour I freedom felt
       To call my Jesus mine;
To see his smiling face, and melt
       In pleasures all divine.

Let fools an heav’n of shades pursue,
       But I for substance am:
The heav’n I seek is likeness to,
       And vision of the Lamb.

The worthy Lamb with glory crown’d
       In his august abode;
Enthron’d sublime, and deck’d around
       With all the pomp of God.

I long to join the saints above,
       Who crown’d with glorious bays,
Through radiant files of angels move,
       And rival them in praise:

In praise to JAH, the God of love,
       The fair incarnate Son,
The holy co-eternal Dove,
       The good, the great Three-one.

In hope to sing without a sob
       The anthem ever new,
I gladly bid the dusty globe,
       And vain delights, Adieu.

Download all of Ralph’s lyrics HERE

Credit and thanks to:
http://involutedgenealogies.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/law-death-and-gospel-life-ralph-erskine/

…A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

From: Kubla Khan by Coleridge ( 1772- 1834)

From Yaitopya to YOU
by way of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
only on Connect/Hook! 

Let’s start 2012 out with this lovely Psalm sung by Senait Engda.
And may Ethiopia stretch out her hands according to the Scriptures in this new year:

Princes shall come out of Egypt;
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.

Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth;
O sing praises unto the Lord; Selah:

To him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens,
which were of old; lo, he doth send out his voice,
and that a mighty voice.

Ascribe ye strength unto God:
his excellency is over Israel,
and his strength is in the clouds.

O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places:
the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power
unto his people.

Blessed be God.

Psalm 68:31-36     (KJV)

PSALMS=POETRY=PSALMS=POETRY=PSALMS=POETRY=PSALMS

Antiochus IV Epiphanes ain’t got NUTHIN on Craig Robinson, yo.

I saw him on that Jewish cable station.

He’s the Chanukah heavyweight in the Festival of Lights.

I didn’t even realize it began days ago.
Dang – guess I don’t have enough LIGHT (nor latkes) in my dwelling this year…

Chappy Chanukah if you celebrate it.

]]> http://connecthook.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/golden-tradition/feed/ 0 ahook777 http://connecthook.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/the-clausifixion-of-santa/ http://connecthook.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/the-clausifixion-of-santa/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:00:01 +0000 drew http://connecthook.wordpress.com/?p=2268 ]]>

I don’t know this YouTube artist from Adam – but he’s pure genius!

Santa Claus is a fat excuse foisted upon children by atheists and religious folk alike who, consciously or not, have aligned themselves with a culture of mindless consumerism.  He is the last bloated burp of a shopaholic glutton who began overindulging on Halloween, right through so-called Thanksgiving into the tinseled, beribboned present. Santa is a tacky old man of dubious origins and intentions.

Tragicomic/ironic that a season held sacred by pagans and Christians can be reduced to soulless marketing and propaganda to buy more stuff. But it remains a glorious holiday with a vibrant past worth exploring. I love the Roman/Nordic heritage from Saturnalia/Yuletide as well as the medieval elements of Christmas.  For several years my grade-school music teacher was John Langstaff who founded the Christmas Revels. As a wise-ass kid I mocked and derided the show every time well-meaning parents dragged me to see it. Now I love the Revels (The  1980′s pre-PC version that is…I listen to it on a cassette tape – but it is also available on CD).  For me, the Christmas Revels showcase the best and truest of what the holiday contains. Christians and pagans ought to work together to protect the essentials of the season from the infernal data-driven marketing machine. It is wrong and it is evil to make a spiritual tradition into a materialistic blow-out. One way to resist this phenomenon is to analyze it.

I used to teach 7th graders. I was surprised at how upset many of them were when told about the formulation of Santa Claus and the accompanying shopping-mall trappings of Xmas in the U.S.A. These were spoiled suburblings for the most part – they were  peeved that anyone would dare inform them of any reality beyond their distracted lives of  plenty.  I felt like sending them to Southern Sudan most of the time.

Saint Nicholas Saves Three Innocents from Death

The role of the Coca Cola corporation in consolidating the image of  St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas)  more than a century after his makeover in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nick” by a Columbia professor of  ancient literature is well documented. But behind these recent pop-culture ploys looms the figure of an old  bishop in a conical hat (not worn in the magnificent painting by Russian Ilya Repin at left) who was known for his acts of faith and for helping the poor of his native Mysia in Asia Minor during the 4th century.

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (or for God-hating PC progressives “A Winter Celebration Fantasy“) was published 20 years after Moore’s St Nick poem – which I did not know until researching this post. One of the highlights of Christmas for me is hearing the entire story read on the radio. Blessed be NPR for that, at least… Dickens’ fable  captures, in a more overtly Gospel way, what Christmas should be about. I always get teary during the visit of the spirits and when Scrooge gets saved at the end.

Christmas is about what is Holy and what is Profane. It an ineffable recurring mystery and the light of eternal Truth invading the present darkness. It is defined by the concept of a freely-given Gift.

That’s why I still love Christmas.
Have a merry globally diverse human-centered winter festival.

PS: I couldn’t care less when He was actually born

Artist: Elisabeth Jvanovsky

Harry Belafonte and Mahalia  Jackson both recorded it in 1956, and many other singers and bands have covered it -  but I know it as the pop-disco hit by Boney M. What I did not know until researching this post is that the composer was Jester Hairston (1901-2000), born in North Carolina.  I have also heard a Caribbean calypso version, but the song is an American composition originally. J. Hairston appeared in a number of well-known films and lived to be 98.

I never liked Boney M very much when they were at their height in the 70′s.  They came from the Caribbean but became stars living as immigrants in (West) Germany. I remember a bunch of poppy dance tunes with silly names like Daddy Cool etc. I never heard Mary’s Boy Child until around the year 2000 – but with every passing winter I love this song more and more. It grows on me every year when the radio stations drag it out for the obscenity of Christmas in the USA. It is perfect in theology, it is heartfelt, it is transparent, it is eternal truth and it has a disco beat. It catalyzes all the absurd contradictions of the holiday season.

Believing sinners (such as me) and unbelievers alike get swept up in the season against their own wills.  I try to hold out against the  holiday brainwashing and media-driven frenzy – but I eventually catch the “peace and goodwill” infection every year.  It steals up on me when I least expect it – usually after a fit of Scrooge-like brooding negativity.  This song is partly to blame. It condenses the mystery of Christ’s incarnation into 5 minutes of hummable pop. And yet it is timelessly profound  – and if you listen closely, through 20 centuries over Judea in Palestine, your soul may be broken on the rock that is salvation. Who knows what the shepherds heard in the air that night, or what they saw; one wonders if they beheld celestial beings in disco garb singing this song from behind the sky …

Mary’s Boy Child                   by Boney M  (1978)

*There is a stanza missing from the YouTube.
Not sure why – but the radio version contains it.  I included it below.

Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day...

Long time ago in Bethlehem, so the Holy Bible say,
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.

Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.

While shepherds watch their flock by night,
they see a bright new shining star,
they hear a choir sing a song,
the music seemed to come from afar.

Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.

For a moment the world was aglow, all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted:
“let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace“.

And then they found a little nook in a stable all forlorn,
and in a manger cold and dark, Mary’s little boy was born.

Hark, now hear the angels sing, a king was born today,
And man will live for evermore, because of Christmas Day.
Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas Day.

Now Joseph and his wife, Mary, came to Bethlehem that night,
they found no place to bear her child,
not a single room was in sight.

For a moment still worth was a glow, all the bells rang out
there were tears of joy and laughter, people shouted:
“let everyone know, there is hope for all to find peace“.

Oh my Lord
You sent your son to save us
Oh my Lord
Your very self you gave us
Oh my Lord
That sin may not enslave us
And love may reign once more …
Oh my Lord
when in the crib they found him
Oh my Lord
A golden halo crowned him
Oh my Lord
They gathered all around him
To see him and adore
(This day will live forever)
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
They had begun to doubt you
Oh my Lord (He is the truth forever)
What did they know about you
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
But they were lost without you
They needed you so bad (His light is shining on us all)
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
with the child’s adoration
Oh my lord (He is a personation)
There came great jubilation
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
And full of admiration
They realized what they had (until the sun falls from the sky)
Oh my Lord (Oh praise the Lord)
You sent your son to save us
Oh my Lord (This day will live forever)
Your very self you gave us
Oh my Lord (So praise the Lord)
That sin may not enslave us
And love may reign once more…

~♥~

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord;
and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.

 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2nd Corinthians 4:3-6  [KJV]

In 1st grade I played Tiny Tim in a production of A Christmas Carol!

My only line in the entire play was “God bless us  -  everyone”.

They would probably cut those words out of a contemporary adaptation.

Hmmm.    What would they even CALL Dickens’ great tale if he tried to publish it today?

Some oh-so-PC suggestions for you:

• A Winter Celebration of Diversity
• A Traditional Holiday Song
• An Old Winter Solstice Melody
• A Traditional Tale (from the Anglo/Saxon cultural context), about the global need for sustainable spirituality and human imagination in effecting  social change
• A Kwanzaa Festival Chant from Victorian England
• A Celebration of our Collective Humanity

Yuck.
Political correctness makes me feel like vomiting all over my
Christmas  Yuletide    Winter Festival  Holiday cheer.

Christmas Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Credit is due to Steely Dan once again…

This song goes out to all of the herd animals in a buying frenzy.

Snap up those bargains, people!

When Black Friday comes
I’ll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor

When Black Friday comes
I’ll collect everything I’m owed
And before my friends find out
I’ll be on the road…

When Black Friday falls you know it’s got to be…

Don’t let it fall on me…

When Black Friday comes
I’ll fly down to Muswellbrook
Gonna strike all the big red words
From my little black book…
Gonna do just what I please
Gonna wear no socks and shoes
With nothing to do but feed
All the kangaroos

When Black Friday comes I’ll be on that hill…
You know I will

When Black Friday comes
I’m gonna dig myself a hole
Gonna lay down in it ’til
I satisfy my soul
Gonna let the world pass by me
The Archbishop’s gonna sanctify me
And if he don’t come across
I’m gonna let it roll…

When Black Friday comes
I’m gonna stake my claim
I’ll guess I’ll change my name

LYRICS: http://www.steelydan.com/lyrkaty.html#track1

I love Thanksgiving. It’s the one holiday the infernal machine has a hard time commercializing. They do it – yes, they try to reduce it to the crassness of Christmas or Easter – but it is more difficult to commodify.  Turkey farms and cranberry bogs aside,  it is a tough task to reduce thankfulness for God’s blessings to a slick marketing campaign. I’m sure pumpkin growers are glad for the season of sales however…

Political Correctness  dislikes Thanksgiving – at least the overtly Christian aspects of it. Apparently some haters of history and progress even sit out on Plymouth Rock every November, whining about things that cannot be changed.  Today’s social studies (that’s history in case you forgot) students are dumbed-down further with insipid lessons and readings on “the diversity of harvest celebrations” and suchlike pabulum.   This is nothing new – as far back as the early 1900′s the day was beginning to be molded into a sentimentally idealized memory of  merry English Calvinists feasting with friendly noble savages in mythical Massachusetts – which I  see  as the first step in severing Thanksgiving from what it should be – a day to reflect on the Creator’s goodness to the nation as a whole.  Sentimentalizing history and scripture are the first baby steps toward revising or even demolishing the same. Later on comes the Rethinking Columbus brand of multi-culti revisionism that seeks to subvert the Western cultural paradigm and remove it altogether.

Somewhere between these two spins on Thanksgiving (the bourgeois sentimentalizing of the early 1900′s and the anti–Christian one-worldism of the Multi-Culti Left) is the Liberal rewriting of the old Dutch hymn Wilt Heden Nu Treden. The song was first written in 1597 by Adrianus Valerius to celebrate a Dutch military victory against Spain. Strangely, in the original it is a martial  hymn; no harvest feasting imagery in it at all.

I learned this liberalized PC version at my  elementary school in Cambridge, MA sometime in the early 70′s. The words are still graven in my memory and I always remember them at this time of year:

“We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing

to work for a world without fear, without war.

Unite all our people, bring peace to every nation

Oh help us in our efforts; Oh Lord make us free.”

These  sentiments are all very noble and good – but they  are a man-centered deviation from the original version, a version I never heard until much later. I believe the above words are from a late 60′s or 70′s Congregational hymnal but I cannot find them anywhere online.
Here is the original English translation (1894) of Valerius’ hymn  for you to compare:

PILGRIM PICTURE:  http://bigsislilsis.com/2008/11/27/give-thanks-and-gratitude/

Or Truth veiled in Mystery…?

(Perhaps they are the same.)

Canto de esperanza

Rubén Darío  (1867-1916)

Un gran vuelo de cuervos mancha el azul celeste.
Un soplo milenario trae amagos de peste.
Se asesinan los hombres en el extremo Este.

¿Ha nacido el apocalíptico Anticristo?
Se han sabido presagios y prodigios se han visto
y parece inminente el retorno de Cristo.

La tierra está preñada de dolor tan profundo
que el soñador imperial, meditabundo,
sufre con las angustias del corazón del mundo.

Verdugos de ideales afligieron la tierra:
en un pozo de sombra la humanidad se encierra
con los rudos molosos del odio y de la guerra.

¡Oh, Señor Jesucristo! ¿Por qué tardas, qué esperas
para tender tu mano de la luz sobre las fieras
y hacer brillar al sol tus divinas banderas?

Surge de pronto y vierte la esencia de la vida
sobre tanta alma loca, triste o emperdernida
que, amante de tinieblas, tu dulce aurora olvida.

Vén, Señor, para hacer la gloria de ti mismo.
Vén con temblor de estrellas y horror de cataclismo,
vén a traer amor y paz sobre el abismo.

Y tu caballo blanco, que miró el visionario,
pase. Y suene el divino clarín extraordinario.
Mi corazón será brasa de tu incensario.

Song of hope

Translated by Salomón de la Selva

Vultures a-wing have sullied the glory of the sky;
The winds bear on their pinions the horror of Death’s cry;
Assassinating one another, men rage and fall and die.

Has Antichrist arisen whom John at Patmos saw?
Portents are seen and marvels that fill the world with awe,
And Christ’s return seems pressing, come to fulfill the Law.

The ancient Earth is pregnant with so profound a smart,
The royal dreamer, musing, silent and sad apart,
Grieves with the heavy anguish that rends the world’s great heart.

Slaughterers of ideals with the violence of fate
Have cast man in the darkness of labyrinths intricate
To be the prey and carnage of hounds of war and hate.

Lord Christ! for what art waiting to come in all Thy might
And stretch Thy hands of radiance over these wolves of night,
And spread on high Thy banners and lave the world with light?

Swiftly arise and pour Life’s essence lavishly
On souls that crazed with hunger, or sad, or maddened be,
Who tread the paths of blindness forgetting the dawn and Thee.

Come Lord, to make Thy glory, with lightnings on Thy Brow!
With trembling stars around Thee and cataclysmal woe,
And bring Thy gifts of justice and peace and love below!

Let the dread horse John visioned devouring stars, pass by;
And angels sound the clarion of Judgment from on high.
My heart shall be an ember and in thy censer lie.

Have a nice day.
And don’t forget to read lots of POETRY !

Picture:
http://onefinethread.blogspot.com/2011/07/in-honour-of-mirella-riccardi.html