If Boomers failed to learn this in church, they learned it in rehab.
BTW: No matter what sort of pain you are in, this ameliorates it.
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Previous post: Lingams of the Labyrinth
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Gerard Van der Leun
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Thank you for sharing
“No matter what sort of pain you are in, this ameliorates it.”
Well, maybe. With no criticism intended for the Christian faith of you or anyone else here, it got real old being told over and over what a wretch I am. That hymn is one of the things that drove me from the church.
Daniel K Day, if I was driven from the church by a hymn I sure wouldn’t tell the whole darn world. Sounds to me like you just preferred the “wages of sin” to “the gift of God”.
@Daniel K. Day
This may help you. Mormons are not Christians. They carry a Holy Bible sometimes but they are not of the Christian belief system. Check it out for yourself.
edaddy, I said “one of the things”. Telling the whole world our viewpoints is what a lot of us, including you and me, use the internet for.
As for what I prefer, you’re presumptuous.
Terry: Mormonism looks like a branch of Christianity to me, but they sure do have some non-Biblical customs. I’m not a Mormon. I don’t debate whether they’re really Christians or not, that’s an internal matter for Christians and none of my business.
Maybe you’ve just not had enough loss and brokenness yet. Some folks don’t.
As for me,
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
‘Twas Grace that brought me safe thus far,
And Grace will lead me home.
The view that even the lowliest human being, no matter his or her lack of usefulness to the elite, nor their dispproval of him, has innate worth nobody can deny comes from Christianity and nowhere else.
Western Civilization and individual liberty evolved across centuries from it.
If you God ever fails you, my sword and my shield stand between you and all the forces of Hell.
Deus Vult.
Very hard to believe that beautiful woman was ever a “wretch”. Couldn’t even listen after that. That’s a song for the gravel-voiced. Afterall, it was composed by a slave-trading, sea-faring, stinker.
Amazing Grace is among a select few songs that cause my eyes to immediately become misty. I relate. I’m the Prodigal who, after squandering my portion of my father’s inheritance, stand before him hoping to beg scraps of food. Instead, this man whom I considered to be dead; this man who yearned and watched for his troubled son’s return home every day, put rings on my fingers, dressed me in the finest robes, and killed the fatted calf to celebrate my homecoming. So yeah, I’m a wretch. To those who cannot or will not regard themselves in such a contemptuous term as wretch I say, congratulations on having lived a life so well as to have no regrets, no sleepless nights as a result of personal failures and injuries committed unto others. So as one empty barrel would have it: I’m a deplorable all right, but a REDEEMED deplorable at that.
The first 30 or so years of my life were lived without any regard for Jesus and I hated Him but then I had a couple of soul shattering experiences with Him that rocked my entire life. I immediately became a true believer and I embraced my new Truth but my sin, delusion and anger were deeply embedded and it probably took another 30 years for me to (finally) completely surrender everything in my life to him. That conscious act was indescribable and the weight of all of my sins and fury evaporated in a moment.
I have discovered more personal peace and happiness since then than I could have ever imagined and those discoveries didn’t arise from belief alone. They came from simple obedience and surrender, from realizing that I cannot control one second of my life and in reality neither can anyone else, despite all of their claims to the contrary. I’ve turned the whole shooting match over to Jesus and win, lose or draw I know that He will take care of me and those I love and see us through. 60 years or more to find it….I’d have never guessed.
A beautiful song for a fantastic year. Thank you Gerard
Bravo. Details of churching aside.
And yes the lyrics and context are indeed amazing. But I do have a serious problem with the video and the singers:
There is no one in a wheelchair
No deaf singer
No singer of color
No professed lesbian
No trans or other gender
No singer standing strong against the power
So how can everyone relate?
Oh. What? None of that bullshit matters?
They must have been standing in that creek for some time. Or, it was shot over a couple of days. Either way, it’s a beautiful piece.
Now that the Supremes have said that anyone can marry anyone, or anyones, I wonder if the official CJCLDS will now discover new revelations that explain how the revelations of the late 1800s that banned plural marriage were mistaken. There would be a whole lot of celestial kingdoms needing to be filled with gals like these.
“Now that the Supremes have said …. “Baby love, my baby love, I need you oh how I need you”
Beat me to it.
I was going with “Come See About Me” but it’s all good.
I’ve been listening to Amazing Grace for 67 years and have never heard this horrible version
I have heard many sects of Christianity profess many wonderful things and as soon as the church door hits them in the ass at Sunday Noon, they have not a smattering of ethics. And that goes for the Ministers, Pastors, Priests and any assorted claimed titles.
These anointed individuals are the very ones who will declare you in a breach of orthodoxy, screech heresy and convene an auto dà fé, followed by a community picnic.
“Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.” — Emo Phillips
Daniel K Day, if I was driven from the church by a hymn I sure wouldn’t tell the whole darn world. Sounds to me like you just preferred the “wages of sin” to “the gift of God”..
Gerard, you truly are a sorry bastard! It’s a good thing that Jesus and your momma loves you, cuz we been tryin’ for years. 🙂
In my humble opinion, your comment pretty much encapsulates the religion of my youth. Nowadays, though, it’s all good. Church is just guitars and cappuccinos so it doesn’t matter what anyone believes. Enjoy the church of your choice, cuz principles don’t really matter.