Called To Be

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I’m not normally a fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams, him being one of those notoriously blaring, dissonant, Romantic-Modern transition composers; but I find that some of his work can be wondrous, especially where the English background shines through. Today we sang Today We Are Called To Be Disciples of the Lord, a hymn based on one of Vaughan William’s English country song arrangements, and it was one of those rare blends of words and music that simply reaches out of the hymnbook pages and seizes heart and mind to shake the Spirit into you. (Ironically, Vaughan Williams himself was an agnostic. The words to this hymn were added in 1985.)

The structure of the hymn is fairly straightforward: quarter notes and half notes with a 4/4 signature. A small change happens, however, towards the end of the third verse of each stanza: a rest, followed by words briefly speeding into a descending series of eighth notes, breaking the steady rhythm for a measure, as if to drum those words into the soul more pointedly before resuming the flow of music.

Today was a full day for the choir: rehearsal and worship in the morning, followed by more rehearsals, a choir-appreciation lunch (great fun, that), even more rehearsals with a brass ensemble and two visiting choral groups, and then a Christmas Candlelight Carol Service. The day was full of music and fellowship, but all said and done, the singing of this hymn was the high point of my day, and it got me thinking about things.

Today We All Are Called To Be Disciples of the Lord

Text: H. Kenn Carmichael, 1985

Music: English Country Songs, 1893, arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906

Today we all are called to be disciples of the Lord / To help to set the captive free, make plowshare out of sword / To feed the hungry, quench their thirst, make love and peace our fast / To serve the poor and homeless first, our ease and comfort last.

God made the world and at its birth ordained our human race / To live as stewards of the earth, responding to God’s grace / But we are vain and sadly proud; we sow not peace but strife / Our discord spreads a deadly cloud that threatens all of life.

Pray justice may come rolling down as in a mighty stream / With righteousness in field and town to cleanse us and redeem / For God is longing to restore an earth where conflicts cease / A world that was created for a harmony of peace.

May we in service to our God act out the living Word / And walk the road the saints have trod till all have seen and heard / As stewards of the earth may we give thanks in one accord / To God who calls us all to be disciples of the Lord.

Mind the Gap

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This Tube map parody is pretty funny, even if I don’t get most of the London in-jokes. Can someone from there please explain the blue “Dee-dee-dee-dah-dah-dum” curve in the Thames? And what’s with the “gap” between Kensington and Buckingham Palace?

(Link via Kottke. Makes me want to do one for the DC Metro. Speaking of which, there were bomb threats holding up the Blue and Orange lines today.)

Update: Sparticus tells me it’s Eastenders. Now I’m interested.

Mary Sue and Me. And Jesus.

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Mary Sue: “A variety of story, first identified in the fan fiction community, but quickly recognized as occurring elsewhere, in which normal story values are grossly subordinated to inadequately transformed personal wish-fulfillment fantasies….”

Guilty as charged. As far back as grade school, I remember building mental images of myself as Superman, bringing fictional characters from all genres to Disneyworld in an elaborate imaginary crossover. I even kept souvenir guides from Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center, and I would pore over them, planning those fantasized trips for hours and hours.

And oh, those high school days, when I would type up (I used a typewriter back then) nascent Star Trek novels (Classic and Next Generation), always starring a big, strong, silent, intelligent, furry, felinoid anthopomorphic lion-hero who could scuba dive, had psychic powers, and would eventually hook up with a beautiful feral furry felinoid partner from his home planet. (Broke the pattern just once to write up one about an anthropomorphic mutant rat on Captain Picard’s crew.) And those endless role-playing game campaigns, where I would always play the mysterious warrior-wizard with a lion familiar, or the mysterious Veritech-piloting scientist and time traveller from the future. (I was really attached to that lion familiar, too. I remember overturning a chair in anger when it was killed by an evil-aligned teammate. You know who you are, Fry. I will avenge that lion yet. ;)

Found via Reenhead and McWetlog. Be sure to follow the links from the Mary Sue entry for more of that bad-fanfic goodness.

Related: “Quantum Kirk.” And has it ever occurred to anyone that one reason some Apocryphal Gospels didn’t make it into the Canon was because they read like bad Mary Sue fiction? Seriously, Thomas’ noncanonical Boy Jesus Account — transforming clay into sparrows and killing the annoying neighbor kid with a word — sounds a lot like how a fanfic would read if early Gnostic teenagers were the ones writing Harry-Potter-like fiction on clay tablets.

“Admiral, if we were to go by the book…”

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Internet Monk. Michael Spencer has written so much great stuff that I barely know where to start. His creationism essay is what originally attracted me, following a link from comments in I.T.I.N.A.S.D. on Genesis: 1, 2, 3. (Please note that the linked Josh, being a Lutheran incarnation of Maddox, may have a tendency to curse the air blue.)

Being a noncommittal old-earther myself, the 24-hour creation day was left behind me ages ago. But that doesn’t mean I look down on the faith of literal young-earthers, nor did I choose to denounce old-earthists when I was once a vapor-canopy-seeker. As with differences over speaking in tongues, liturgical worship, and baptismal methodology, I regard the creationism debate as one which pales before the joy of our salvation, assured in Christ alone. We can talk about it as brothers (and sisters) today, just as we will laugh over our past theological differences when we get to the Kingdom, sipping from goblets of ambrosia.

Bonus points to anyone who figures out the reference in this post’s title and its relevance to the topic.

Update: The Star Trek reference should be evident to any die-hard Wrath of Khan fan. Spock coded his message to Admiral Kirk using “hours seeming like days,” which I used as an allusion to the “days-as-ages” of Genesis 1. And of course, one of the movie’s pivotal plot elements was Project Genesis, the Instant-Creation device stolen by Khan. I will stop right there before I start sounding like a CBG.