Author Archives: cleithart

I am alive and have two legs. This state of affairs will hopefully continue for quite some time.

Nothing So Foolish or So Profound

Although it is not always easy to recognize it as such, marriage is the most remarkable and most courageous of all human acts—the promise of two human beings to share life together on all levels, physical, economic, spiritual—a promise made in the face of the certainty of death, the certainty of change, and the uncertainty of everything else. There is nothing else a human being might choose to do that is quite like this act, nothing so foolish or so profound.

Finding God at Home, Ernest Boyer, Jr.

Advent Listening Nos. 16-20

Here’s me, huffing and puffing, sprinting to catch up with a rapidly diminished Advent season. This album of Swedish Christmas music has enough goodness to count for the whole third week of the season. So, here you go.

More Advent poetry

God tries on skin
by Marjorie Maddox Phifer

Once, he stretched skin over spirit
like a rubber glove,
aligning trinity with bone,
twining through veins
until deity square-knotted flesh.

In a whirlwind spin
he shrank to the size of a zygote,
bobbed in a womb warm as Galilee’s shore.

In the dark,
he brushed up on Hebrew,
practiced his crawl.

After months scrunched in a circle,
he burst through his cellophane sac,
bloodied the teen legs
spread on the straw.

In his first breath
he inhaled the sweat
of Romans casting lots,
sniffed the wine mixed with gall.

Advent Listening No. 14

Peace be to you and grace from him
Who freed us from our sins
Who loved us all and shed his blood
That we might saved be
sing Holy, Holy to our Lord
The Lord, Almighty God
Who was, and is, and is to come
Sing Holy, Holy Lord
Rejoice in heaven, all ye that dwell within
Rejoice on earth, ye saints below
For Christ is coming, is coming soon
For Christ is coming soon
E’en so Lord Jesus, quickly come
And night shall be no more
They need no light nor lamp nor sun
For Christ will be their All!

Advent Listening No. 13

Another one from Billings for you.

Methinks I see an heav’nly host,
Of angels on the wing!
Methinks I hear their cheerful notes,
So merrily they sing,
So merrily they sing.
Let all your fears be banish’d hence,
Glad tidings I proclaim;
For there’s a savior born today,
And Jesus is His name,
And Jesus is his name.

Lord! and shall angels have their songs
And men no tunes to raise?
O may we lose these useless tongues
When they forget to praise!
‘Glory to God that reigns above,
That pitied us forlorn!’
We join to sing our Maker’s love,
For there’s a Saviour born.

Advent Listening No. 12

Love ’em or hate ’em, The Oh Hellos sure play expressive music. This rendition of the Coventry Carol has one of the most appropriate deliveries I’ve heard of the lines:

Herod the king, in his raging
charged he hath this day
his men of might, in his own sight
all children young to slay

Advent Listening No. 11

Excuse the prom suits and garish lighting and enjoy.

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Tempus adest gratiae, hoc quod optabamus
Carmina laetitiae devote redamus

Deus homo factus est natura mirante
Mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante

Ezechielis porta clausa per transitur
Unde lux est orta salus invenitur

Ergo nostra cantio psallat iam in lustro
Benedicat domino salus regi nostro

Rejoice, rejoice, Christ is born of the Virgin Mary!
Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice! Etc.

The time of thanksgiving is here, that which we have been hoping for.
Let us utter songs of joy with devotion!

God has been made man to the astonishment of all Creation.
The world has been made new by the reigning Christ.

Ezekiel’s closed gate has been entered.
Salvation is found from where the light has risen.

Therefore, let our chorus sing psalms of purification,
let us bless the Lord. Good health to our King!

Advent Listening No. 10

Many Christmas carols draw inspiration from winter. I think this works well with what might be called folk carols, like “Good King Wenceslas,” but there aren’t very many wintry Christmas hymns that make good sacred music. But there are some exceptions…