Morten Lauridsen/King’s College, Cambridge

Bliss.

Posted by: Melanie

Add comment | February 17th, 2010

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Chesterton quotes from his book ‘Orthodoxy’ in no particular order. If you’ve never read Chesterton I highly suggest you do so.

“Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain.”

“Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense.”

“Greek heroes do not grin: but gargoyles do – because they are Christian. And when a Christian is pleased, he is (in the most exact sense) frightfully pleased; his pleasure is frightful.”

“A perpetual tendency to touch fewer and fewer things might – one feels, be a mere brute unconscious tendency, like that of a species to produce fewer and fewer children. This drift may be really evolutionary, because it is stupid.”

“Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.”

“The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of Carlyle – the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else is Christian, this is heathen.”

“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”

“In Christian morals, in short, it is wicked to call a man ‘damned’: but it is strictly religious and philosophic to call him damnable.”

“Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism.”

“How can we say that the Church wishes to bring us back into the Dark Ages? The Church was the only thing that ever brought us out of them.”

“All living Christians are dead pagans walking about.”

“Every man is womanized merely by being born.”

“Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul.”

Posted by: Melanie

2 comments | February 2nd, 2010

Jesus Christ = Beautiful

“There met in Jesus Christ all things that can make man lovely and loveable. In his body he was most beautiful. This is known first by the tradition in the Church that it was so and by holy writers agreeing to suit those words to him. ‘Thou art beautiful in mould above the sons of men.’ ”

“Another proof of his beauty may be drawn from the words proficiebat spientia et aetate et gratia apud Deum et homines (Luc. ii 52). ‘He went forward in wisdom and bodliy frame and favour with God and men’; that is, he pleased both God and men daily more and more by his growth of mind and body. But he could not have pleased by growth of body unless the body was strong, healthy, and beautiful that grew. But the best proof of all is this, that his body was the special work of the Holy Ghost. He was not born in nature’s course, no man was his father; had he been born as others are he must have inherited some defect of figure or of constitution, from which no man born as fallen men are born is wholly free unless God interfere to keep him so. But his body was framed directly from heaven by the power of the Holy Ghost, of whom it would be unworthy to leave any the least botch or failing in his work. So the first Adam was moulded by God himself and Eve built up by God too out of Adam’s rib and they could not but be pieces, both, of faultless workmanship: the same then and much more must Christ have been.”

“…for myself I make no secret I look forward with eager desire to seeing the matchless beauty of Christ’s body in the heavenly light.”

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins
(From “Christ Our Hero,” preached Sunday evening, November 23, 1879. Text: Luke 2:33)

Posted by: Melanie

2 comments | January 27th, 2010

Time for Wisemen, but I’m Stuck on Shepherds

I figured after a dull book review y’all might like something that was actually good. This is another song our church choir performed several times throughout the Christmas season, one of my favorites and I forgot to post it. So, here ya’ go!

-Melanie

Add comment | January 6th, 2010

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

A brief summary and review by Melanie Hall.

Love that lasts a lifetime. Every person dreams about it at one time or another, some find it, many give up the search, others continue to dream but seek in vain. Those who have found this priceless treasure know that their fellow man has, to use the cliche, a God shaped hole in their heart. Annie Dillard seems to be looking still, as do her characters in The Maytrees.

“It began when Lou Bigelow and Toby Maytree first met.” From that starting line in this story of “loving and longing”, Dillard paints in a flood of words the life of the Maytree’s. Their quiet courtship and gradual falling in love, their engagement, marraige and birth of their son, Petie. Fourteen happy years of love and leisure, then, Maytree leaves with Deary. At this point Dillard begins to describe the lives of Maytree, Lou and Petie sparately. Over the years, Maytree settles in his mind that he loves Lou but he is commited to Deary and couldn’t face Lou anyhow. Besides, marraige is only supposed to last six or seven years and they made it to fourteen. Lou, though deeply hurt, succeeds over time in mastering her emotions and would welcome Maytree and Deary with open arms if only they would come. Pete, no longer little Petie, not surprisingly winds up in a bit of a tail spin. Not until he is married and has a child of his own, many years later, can he truly forgive his father.

In the end, all appears to come full circle. Forgiveness and hope play large parts in this narrative, yet the over all theme of love, especially between husband and wife, Maytree and Lou, seems lacking, shallow and fickle. “Lou rejected religion.” She rejected Buddha and Tao, she rejected God, Christ. All told, she rejected love.

The center of this story is about love that lasts, but you can’t quite put your finger on it for neither Lou nor Maytree can seem to find it.

A brief note on Dillard’s writing style. The Maytrees was, honesly, difficult to follow. It hopped from one person’s perspective to another nearly every paragraph leaving me feeling wiped out after a short while of reading. But the language she uses, her vocabulary and tone are beautiful and amazingly descriptive. I’d heard an excerpt from another of her prose books and very much enjoyed it. I do believer her work is worth exploring despite the letdown of The Maytrees.

1 comment | January 4th, 2010

Hello!

Hi! This is Felicity here. I thought I might as well say hi so I think I should tell y’all how things going around here. Well here goes. Well my sister Josi is back from college and I’m very happy!  Melanie has gone coo coo with piano and I mean it! So she’s been at the piano so much I think I’ll go crazy, but I am doing fine! Our trip to and from Texas was fine. We  saw all our friends and family! Now we are busy up here! And I can’t believe that Christmas is past and New Years is so close it’s crazy! But, their are 12  days of Christmas  so it’s not exactly over. So merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Felicity

4 comments | December 28th, 2009

Magnificat by Arvo Part

Sorry it’s so wide. Enjoy!

-Melanie

4 comments | December 2nd, 2009

The Fruit of Love

This Sunday, en route to Texas, I was thinking about church and how much I was missing it and I started feeling “poety”. This is the result.

The Fruit of Love
by Melanie Hall
November 22, 2009

A child, crying for the world and it’s cruelty,
Predestined by Adam a failure, a sinner,
To be lacking in goodness and true fidelity,
Born to die and be damned.
If this be the fruit of love,
What pleasure therein can be found?

A child, perfect, with no fault in his being,
Predestined by himself to be God with us,
Come to cleanse and redeem all living,
Born to die and conquer death.
If this be the fruit of love,
What joy therein can be found!

4 comments | November 24th, 2009

TEXAS OR BUST!!!

a. k. a. life update from Guess Who. Maybe we’ll bust anyway.

This is for Paul and anyone else who’s interested.

Let’s see now. Times have been happier than when I last posted. Saturday, November 7th, the moving gang from church came and, well, they moved us. Across the river and to the opposite side of town. We are now living in a charming little yellow house with a relatively small yard but only a few steps from a sweet park. Actually, it’s only a few steps from just about anywhere that’s anywhere ’round here. I walked to and from my piano lesson yesterday. That was fun (and cold). It’s two blocks up from downtown (library and church office), a ten to twenty minute walk from several beloved Trinity saints and, get this, it’s just three blocks to Dad’s favorite fast food restaurant… Jack In The Box! He says, now we are living life.

Here ’tis:

About Texas, LOOK OUT ‘CAUSE HERE WE COME!!! We’re driving down the 20th through the 22nd and staying for a limited time only. If you want to see us you better get a hold of us now. E-mail, or call or something. Oh, I guess y’all need our new phone number, so e-mail!

I realize this post is most dull and uninteresting and I apologize for not being “infinitely cleverer” but, sometimes that’s life!

-Melanie

7 comments | November 14th, 2009

Praise Him

Sick dog, sick Dad, sick sister. Ornery sister, college-bound sister. No Mom, ailing great-grandmother. Messy house and teaching a piano lesson. Such is my lot in life today. Yahweh be praised for all I have to be thankful for!

Ephesians 5:20
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

Psalm 150:6
Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

Posted by: Melanie

7 comments | October 19th, 2009