Poetry Friday: Poetry of George Herbert

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

LOVE. (II)

IMMORTALL Heat, O let thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it : let those fires
Which shall consume the world, first make it tame,
And kindle in our hearts such true desires,

As may consume our lusts, and make thee way.
Then shall our hearts pant thee ; then shall our brain
All her invention on thine Altar lay,
And there in hymnes send back thy fire again :

Our eies shall see thee, which before saw dust ;
Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blinde :
Thou shalt recover all thy goods in kinde,
Who wert disseized by usurping lust :

All knees shall bow to thee ; all wits shall rise,
And praise him who did make and mend our eies.

I’ve posted poems by George Herbert, the seventeenth century Christian poet, on this blog numerous times. If one were to spend Lent and Eastertide just reading through the poems of Mr. Herbert, one a day, it would be devotional enough to last you through the season and to bring you to an awareness of poetry of faith.

Here are some of the posts from Semicolon about George Herbert’s poetry:
Love Bade Me Welcome
The Pulley
Christmas
The Dawning
The Sonne
A Wreath
Easter Wings

Other Links:
More poetry by George Herbert.
The God of Love My Shepherd Is by George Herbert at Rebecca Writes.

Hymns to Observe Lent

One way to remember Christ and his death and resurrection during the forty days of Lent and into the Easter feast is to remember and sing the great hymns of the church. In 2009 I took a survey and posted about the 100 favorite hymns of my readers. You’re welcome to use my list or just grab a hymnal and make up your own. Here are few miscellaneous quotations I jotted down back when I was reading about hymns and hymn writers.

“There is no getting away from the centrality of death as a theme in Victorian hymnody.” ~Abide With Me by Ian C. Bradley.

Horatius Bonar to the editors of Hymns, Ancient and Modern, a famous and influential Anglican hymnal of the late 1800’s: “You are welcome to the use of my hymns. As to the charge, it seems to me of little moment, and you can do with it as you please.”

” . . . hymns and other devotional writings are –or ought to be–an exception to the laws of copyright and property. They are, I think, written pro bono Eccclesiae and ought to be considered as public church property.” ~Francis Pott

“Let me write the hymns of the church, and I care not who writes the theology.” ~R. W. Dale.

“A good hymn is the most difficult thing in the world to write. In a good hymn, you have to be both commonplace and poetical.” ~Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

1840 letter to the British Critic: “There cannot be a more miserable bondage than to be compelled to join in the so-called hymns which, rising and spreading from the conventicles, now infest our churches. They are full of passionate and exaggerated descriptions of moods of mind and unqualified descriptions of spiritual experience.”

“Not allowed to sing that tune or this tune? Indeed! Secular music, do you say? Belongs to the devil, does it? Well, if it did I would plunder him of it. . . . Every note and every strain and every harmony is divine and belongs to us.” ~William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.

“That settles it! Why should the devil have all the best tunes?” ~WIlliam Booth.

“The pronouns ‘I’ and ‘my’ are rarely found in any ancient hymns. But in modern hymns the individual often detaches himself from the body of the faithful and in a spirit of sentimental selfishness obtrudes his own feelings concerning himself.” ~Bishop Christopher Wordsworth

I’m praying that an excursion through the hymns of the church will turn your focus God-ward during this Lenten and Easter season. . .

Semicolon Top 100 Hymns Project, 2009.
Center for Church Music
Homeschool Hymn Studies
Hymnary.org
Hymn Time: The CyberHymnal
LifeSpring! Hymn Stories
Oremus Hymnal
Wordwise Hymns

Pensees by Blaise Pascal

It’s Lent, and as a growing Christian you want to read something that will bring you closer and deeper in your relationship with Jesus. Or you’re not a Christian, but you think that this time leading up to the celebration of the resurrection of Christ would be a good time to explore the Christian faith and see for yourself what it’s all about.

I would suggest that first and foremost you read the Bible, but not just any old books of the Bible. If you’ve never read the Bible before I would suggest starting with one of the Gospels, the four books in the New Testament that tell about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Even if you’ve read the Bible several times from cover to cover, springtime and Lent and Easter are good times to review the story of Jesus and let God refresh you spiritually through His Word as it tells about the Greatest Love Story Ever Enacted.

Then, if you’re like me and still want some more reading to inspire and encourage you in your journey, try one or more of the recommended books in this series, 40 Inspirational Classics.

Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and philosopher. He was educated at home by his father and he grew up to be a talented scientist and mathematician. In 1654, Pascal had a mystical experience of the presence of God, a sort of “second conversion,” and he devoted himself to writing a book about the reasons for belief in God and in the Christian faith.

Pensees means “thoughts,” and these “thoughts” are really Pascal’s notes for a book of Christian apologetics that he planned to write, but never managed to finish. Pascal believed that to bring a person to faith in Christ it was necessary to make him want to believe.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

Make religion attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is. Worthy of reverence because it really understands human nature. Attractive because it promises true good.

The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which knows God, and not the reason. This, then, is absolute faith: God felt in the heart.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All our dignity consists, then, in thought.

…there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him.

Pascal’s Wager: “You must wager; it is not optional. Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God exists. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.”

I found Peter Kreeft’s edition of and commentary on Pascal quite accessible; it’s called Christianity for Modern Pagans. I wrote some reflections on the chapters of Kreeft’s book in these posts a couple of years ago:
Order and Fear of Religion
Sinners Need Silence and Ultimately, A Saviour
Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me
Animal or Angel?
Vanity, Vanity, All Is Vanity
Every Day in Every Way: The Vanity of Justice.

Free Kindle edition of Pascal’s Pensees.

The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence

40 Inspirational Classics for Lent

Brother Lawrence, born Nicolas Herman, was a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris during the seventeenth century. When he entered the monastery at the age of twenty-four, he took the religious name Lawrence of the Resurrection. He spent most of his religious life working in the monastery kitchen, cooking and washing dishes. Father Joseph de Beaufort, a priest who knew Brother Lawrence, compiled a booklet of Brother Lawrence’s letters and stories and maxims and published the book after Brother Lawrence’s death in 1691.

“The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”

“We ought not to grow tired of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”

“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.”

You can read or print your own copy of this twenty page booklet by a 17th century French monk.
Text and audio available at Christian Ethereal Library.
Librivox’s audio version of The Practice of the Presence of God.

“In this small book, through letters and conversations, Brother Lawrence simply and beautifully explains how to continually walk with God – not from the head but from the heart.”

Edwardian, Turn of the Century and The Great War

I’ve been spending a lot of my time in the years 1890-1920 for the past week or two, via fiction, nonfiction, a couple of British period TV series, and my history class. It’s a fascinating time period. I’ll tell you what I’ve been watching and reading, and then I’ll try to share some of what it all made me ponder and put together in my mind.

Fiction:
She Walks in Beauty by Siri Mitchell. I’m not sure exactly when this novel is set, about 1890 or the turn of the century. I read this one because it won the INSPY award for historical fiction this last year. It’s about New York City debutante, Clara Carter, who becomes the leading belle of the season with a little help from her overbearing aunt and her rich, social climber father. Unfortunately, Clara wasn’t really the “spunky, defiant heroine” that we all love and tend to expect in these sorts of historical romances. She’s a seventeen year old girl who’s been indoctrinated to believe that her only worth lies in her ability to attract a rich husband and restore her family’s honor. As Clara makes her way through the balls, dinner parties, and social visits of her coming out season, she changes very little and allows cultural expectations to mold her and pressure her to become what she actually hates. Only a family tragedy forces her to come to her senses and begin to make decisions that will give her a chance to live a real, authentic life. (The Kindle edition of this one is showing as free right now. Definitely worth your time if you like historical romance.)
After the Dancing Days by Margaret Rostkowski. We read this YA novel for my English/History class at homeschool co-op. Annie is a thirteen year old girl living in a small town in Kansas at the end of World War I. As she begins to visit the returning soldiers at the veterans’ hospital where her father works as a doctor, Annie is at first repulsed and frightened by the severely injured men. However, she comes to be friends with them, one in particular, even though her mother is opposed to Annie’s hospital visits and wants her to forget about the war and its consequences.

Nonfiction:
Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt. Semicolon review here. In this true story of a mother and daughter in 1896 who accepted a wager that saw them walk across the entire continent of North America, I found a couple of women who not afraid to strike out and do something unexpected and unacceptable to many of those in their community. Unfortunately for the two women, the book also tells how they paid a steep price in betrayal and social ostracism for their daring.
The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson. This book of social history covers the years 1918-1920 and tells lots of little stories, vignettes really, about people in Britain both great and small and their experiences in the aftermath of World War I. The book featured lots of fascinating people that I wish I had time to find out more about:
plastic surgeon Harold GIllies who repaired and reconstructed the faces of thousands of wounded WW I soldiers,
Joseph Enniver, inventor of Pelmanism, a secular program for strengthening of the mind and character,
nurse Edith Cavell, who helped two hundred allied soldiers escape to freedom in Belgium during the war before she was captured and executed by the Germans,
Coco Chanel, the greatest couturier of all time,
Nancy Astor, the American lady who became England’s first woman Member of Parliament, and many more. Look for a post of quotable stories from this book in the near future.

Television:
Lark Rise to Candleford. This series from the BBC is set in rural England just before the turn of the century, c.1895. The story is taken from a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels by author Flora Thimpson. In the novels Ms. Thompson tells about her experience as a young girl getting a job in a post office and seeing the changes that were coming to England as a result of industrialization and the new modes of transportation and communication that were coming into use during the time period. Laura Timmins, the character through whose eyes we see the stories of village life and cultural transformation, is a village girl and as such, much more adaptable than some of the upper class young women in these stories. She’s able to become independent and see the world as one in which she can rise above her circumstances and become an intelligent voice while retaining her femininity and her place in the community.

Downton Abbey. While I was waiting for the DVD’s of the several episodes of Lark RIse to Candleford to get here in the mail, I began watching Downton Abbey, another period piece set in the years just before WW I, from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 to the announcement that England was at war with Germany (1914). Downton Abbey is amazing in its deft characterization of both the upper classes and the their servants, and even the burgeoning middle class gets a nod in the appearance of Lord Grantham’s new heir, Matthew Crawley, a distant cousin who becomes the new heir after the death of a couple of closer relatives in the Titanic tragedy. Lord Grantham has only daughters, three of them, who are of marriageable age, but with very little inheritance to hook a husband since almost all the money in the family is tied up in the estate. The servants in this grand old English family are all intimately involved in family matters as well as in the working out of their own lives and relationships. Downton Abbey is something of a soap opera, but it just manages to transcend that genre because the problems and the issues that make up the plot are very real and identifiable and intriguing, leading to both reflection and a feeling of connection. The characters are appealing, sometimes frustrating, and the dialog is spot on and funny. I loved this series, and I was only sorry to see it end.

I’ll have to leave the pondering and putting together for another post. However, I would recommend any or all of the above for your viewing or reading pleasure.

And The Word . . . Dwelt Among Us

The Kimyal people of Papua, Indonesia receive the Bible in their own language:

What a celebration. Do we even begin to know what precious truth God has entrusted to us? “To whom much is given, of him much shall be required.” We in the West are abundantly blessed. God forgive us for the misuse and waste we have perpetrated with the blessing He has given us.

And won’t heaven be grand as we all worship the Lamb together, from every nation and tribe?

Sunday Salon: Books Read in February, 2011

The Sunday Salon.com

Bible:
Proverbs

Children’s and Young Adult Fiction:
Epitaph Road by David Patneaude. Semicolon review here.
Dirt Road Home by Watt Key.
Harmonic Feedback by Tara Kelly.
Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. Semicolon review here.
The Ink Garden of Brother Theophane by C.M. Millen. Semicolon review here.
Nothing To Fear by Jackie French Koller. Semicolon review here.

Adult Fiction:
Certain Women by Madeleine L’Engle. Re-read for Faith ‘N Fiction Roundtable. Semicolon thoughts here.
Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin.
Listen by Rene Gutteridge. Semicolon review here.
Imaginary Jesus by Matt Mikalatos.
Blackout by Connie Willis. Semicolon review and recommendation here.
All Clear by Connie Willis.

Nonfiction:
Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart by Tim Butcher. Semicolon review here.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Semicolon review here.
W.F. Matthews: Lost Battalion Survivor by Travis Monday. Semicolon review here.
Obama Prayer by Charles M. Garriott. Semicolon review here.
The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa by Josh Swiller.
Bold Spirit Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt. Semicolon review here.
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton.

Best Fiction: Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis.

Best Nonfiction Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.

I would suggest that you run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore, better yet, order on Amazon, any one of the three “best” above and read it. You will be glad you did. And no one paid me for that endorsement.

Saturday Review of Books: March 5, 2011

“Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.”~Stephane Mallarme

SatReviewbuttonIf you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. Here’s how it usually works. Find a review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week of a book you were reading or a book you’ve read. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. the Ink Slinger (The White Company)
2. Semicolon (Certain Women)
3. Semicolon (Ink Garden of Brother Theophane)
4. Semicolon (Nothing To Fear)
5. Semicolon (Bold Spirit)
6. Collateral Bloggage (What the Night Knows)
7. Collateral Bloggage (Gregor and the Marks of Secret)
8. Lemme Library (Horton Halfpott)
9. Fresh Ink Books (The Typist)
10. Marg (Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away)
11. Cindy Swanson@Cindy’s Book Club
12. Beth@Weavings (The Pen Commandments)
13. Donovan @ Where Peen Meets Paper (Why Business Matters to God)
14. Colloquium (Katie Up and Down the Hall)
15. Colloquium (A View from the Back Pew)
16. Colloquium (You Don’t Love This Man)
17. Lazygal (Amelia Lost)
18. Lazygal (Noah Barleycorn Runs Away)
19. Lazygal (The Friendship Doll)
20. Lazygal (Jasper Jones)
21. Lazygal (A Tale of Two Castles)
22. Lazygal (Family)
23. BookBelle (A Red Herring Without Mustard)
24. Janet (Alone Together by Sherry Turkle)
25. SFP (The Far Cry & Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund
26. Yvann (The House on Mango Street)
27. Alice@Supratentorial(Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother)
28. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Hitty: Her First Hundred Years)
29. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (One Crazy Summer)
30. Beckie@ByTheBook (A Trail of Ink)
31. Beckie@ByTheBook (The Perfect Fool)
32. Beckie@ByTheBook (Jane Austen Mysteries)
33. Between the Stacks (Illyria)
34. Word Lily (Messenger of Truth)
35. Word Lily (Certain Women)
36. 5 Minutes for Books (Kings of Colorado)
37. 5 Min for Books (Prince of Tides)
38. 5 Min for Books (Tugg & Teeny, w/giveaway)
39. Heather @ Books For Breakfast (Watch Out For The Chicken Feet In Your Soup)
40. Heather @ Books For Breakfast (Merry Merry FIBruary
41. 5 Min for Books (The Promises She Keeps)
42. Heather @ Books For Breakfast (The Man Who Lost His Head)
43. 5 Min for Books (Cinderella Ate My Daughter)
44. Girl Detective (Carter Beats the Devil)
45. jama’s alphabet soup (Noodle and Lou)
46. Hope(A Rose for Mrs. Miniver)
47. S. Krishna (Never Look Away)
48. S. Krishna (Hard Magic)
49. S. Krishna (The Tudor Secret)
50. S. Krishna (Learning to Swim)
51. S. Krishna (To a Mountain in Tibet)
52. S. Krishna (The Lake of Dreams)
53. S. Krishna (Suits: A Woman on Wall Street)
54. Reading to Know (North Avenue Irregulars)
55. Reading to Know (The Crossing)
56. Reading to Know (The Bible Story Handbook)
57. Home With Purpose (Discovering Jesus)
58. Nicola (Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, Vol. 4 by Hiroyuki Asada)
59. Nicola (Animal Hospital – A DK Reader)
60. Nicola (Trackers Book 2 by Patrick Carman)
61. Nicola (Irredeemable Vol. 5 by Mark Waid)
62. Nicola (The Hollow People by Brian Keaney)
63. Nicola (Incorruptible, Vol. 3 by Mark Waid)
64. Nicola (Swift’s Gulliver retold by Martin Jenkins. illus. by Chris. Riddell)
65. Melissa @ The Betty and Boo Chronicles (Tinkers)
66. Kathryn @ Suitable for Mixed Company (Holy Subversion)
67. Carol in Oregon (Hans Brinker)
68. Benjie @ Book ‘Em Benj-O (Escape from Church, Inc.)
69. Zee @ Notes from the North (Underbara dagar framför oss)
70. Zee @ Notes from the North (Rainbow Valley)
71. Zee @ Notes from the North (Rilla of Ingleside)
72. Amber Stults (Muslim Women Reformers)
73. Benjie @ Book ‘Em Benj-O (The Next Christians)
74. Library Hospital (Mrs. Tim Flies Home)
75. Woman of the House
76. Diary of an Eccentric (The Jane Austen Handbook)
77. Gina @ Bookscount (Ghandi’s Goat)

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Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things—
  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
  Landscape plotted and pieced— fold, fallow, and plough;
    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
        Praise him.

Megan at Homeschooling on the Run: “Here is my all-time favorite GMH poem – it smacks of glorious springtime, and happy abandon in the warming climes of creation.”
Kelly Fineman at Writing and Ruminating: “What I like about the second stanza is its ambiguity: is Manley telling all those things that are freckled, fickle, etc. to praise God, or is he praising God for having made them? The stanza reads well both ways, and I rather think that was on purpose.” (Kelly has a good discussion of the poem. You should read it if you’re interested in poetry in general or in Mr. Hopkins in particular.