This elf was offline almost all day yesterday, so we didn’t have a chance to post any Independence Day links. Here are three pieces we found worth reading:

1. I particularly appreciated Sarah Hey’s reflection “Happy Birthday America” over on Stand Firm, which inexplicably has no comments. (Maybe it should have been posted as a feature, not under news?) Sarah provides some links and excerpts to several Independence Day op-eds and then ask us to consider:

What does that liberty mean for you, here in America?

For me, it means that whatever I imagine, whatever I hope for, whatever I dream in, no matter how foolish, quixotic, unimaginable, trifling, serious, extravagant, impractical, noble, as long as it does not violate the rights of others [and of course, personally, as long as it does not violate the Christian faith] . . . I am free to pursue it. Others may denounce my foolhardiness, or ignore me, or cheer me on, or wonder why, or roll their eyes, or hope for my success — but no matter what, I am at liberty.

What about you?

————

2. Several blogs I try to follow noted Michael Gerson’s op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post: Why we Keep this Creed

The privileged and powerful can love America for many reasons. The oppressed and powerless, stripped of selfish motives for their love, have found America lovely because of its ideals.

It is typical of America that our great national day is not the celebration of a battle — or, as in the case of France, the celebration of a riot. It is the celebration of a political act, embedded in a philosophic argument: that the rights of man are universal because they are rooted in the image of God. That argument remains controversial. Some view all claims of universal truth with skepticism. Some believe such claims by America amount to hubris.

Which is why some of us love this holiday so much. It is the day when cynicism is silent. It is the day when Americans recall that “all men are created equal” somehow applies to the Mexican migrant and the Iraqi shopkeeper and the inner-city teenager. And it is the day we honor those who take this fact seriously. Those in our military who fight for the liberty of strangers are noble. Those dissidents who risk much in Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea and China are heroic. Those who work against poverty and injustice in America are patriots — because patriotism does not require us to live in denial, only to live in hope.

In America we respect, defend and obey the Constitution — but we change it when it is inconsistent with our ideals. Those ideals are defined by the Declaration of Independence. We have not always lived up to them. But we would not change them for anything on Earth.

————–

3. Evangelical Outpost blog has a quote from CS Lewis posted under the heading “Democracy and the Fall.” It’s interesting to read this in light of all the rhetoric from TEC bishops and other leaders of late about Democracy and the Episcopal Church.

From C.S. Lewis’ essay “Equality” on the relationship between democracy and mankind’s fall from grace:

I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. (“Equality,” in C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, ed. by Lesley Walmsley [London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000,] p. 666).

Wishing all our U.S. readers and your families a wonderful 4th of July! Since I (elfgirl) will be offline pretty much all day, I thought it might work well to set up an Open Thread for the holiday. A couple discussion starters…

— What’s your favorite 4th of July memory?
— For what are you most thankful as an American?
— What are you praying for our country today?

May the Lord help each of us who know Him today to rejoice in the freedom that Christ has won for us.

“Today we stand on an awful arena, where character which was the growth of centuries was tested and determined by the issues of a single day. We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses; not alone the shadowy ranks of those who wrestled here, but the greater parties of the action–they for whom these things were done. Forms of thought rise before us, as in an amphitheatre, circle beyond circle, rank above rank; The State, The Union, The People. And these are One. Let us–from the arena, contemplate them–the spiritual spectators.

“There is an aspect in which the question at issue might seem to be of forms, and not of substance. It was, on its face, a question of government. There was a boastful pretence that each State held in its hands the death-warrant of the Nation; that any State had a right, without show of justification outside of its own caprice, to violate the covenants of the constitution, to break away from the Union, and set up its own little sovereignty as sufficient for all human purposes and ends; thus leaving it to the mere will or whim of any member of our political system to destroy the body and dissolve the soul of the Great People. This was the political question submitted to the arbitrament of arms. But the victory was of great politics over small. It was the right reason, the moral consciousness and solemn resolve of the people rectifying its wavering exterior lines according to the life-lines of its organic being.

“There is a phrase abroad which obscures the legal and moral questions involved in the issue,–indeed, which falsifies history: “The War between the States”. There are here no States outside of the Union. Resolving themselves out of it does not release them. Even were they successful in intrenching themselves in this attitude, they would only relapse into territories of the United States. Indeed several of the States so resolving were never in their own right either States or Colonies; but their territories were purchased by the common treasury of the Union. Underneath this phrase and title,–“The War between the States”–lies the false assumption that our Union is but a compact of States. Were it so, neither party to it could renounce it at his own mere will or caprice. Even on this theory the States remaining true to the terms of their treaty, and loyal to its intent, would have the right to resist force by force, to take up the gage of battle thrown down by the rebellious States, and compel them to return to their duty and their allegiance. The Law of Nations would have accorded the loyal States this right and remedy.

“But this was not our theory, nor our justification. The flag we bore into the field was not that of particular States, no matter how many nor how loyal, arrayed against other States. It was the flag of the Union, the flag of the people, vindicating the right and charged with the duty of preventing any factions, no matter how many nor under what pretence, from breaking up this common Country.

“It was the country of the South as well as of the North. The men who sought to dismember it, belonged to it. Its was a larger life, aloof from the dominance of self-surroundings; but in it their truest interests were interwoven. They suffered themselves to be drawn down from the spiritual ideal by influences of the physical world. There is in man that peril of the double nature. “But I see another law”, says St. Paul. “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.”

–Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914)

“”¦’I am a nut about community, and what is missing in the Church for me is any realness between people. So many communities want pseudo-community and are not willing to do the work to have real community. They don’t want authenticity and reality. They want to hear a sermon that is going to make them feel better, but they don’t want to get real with each other and hear each other’s pain and talk about that kind of this. They don’t want to talk about the real stuff of life. That is very sad. Jesus said, ”˜I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.’ Many churches I go to are not very [alive] places. You get the feeling that, beneath the smile and the singing and the clapping, there is no real life underneath.’ ”¦”

—M. Scott Peck as quoted by Arthur Thomas (via Prodigal Kiwi’s Blog)

We usually try to post this weekly feature on Monday’s but didn’t have any time available to do so yesterday. Here are the most-commented-upon blog entries for the week June 18-24. Comment totals as of 06:30 EDT Tuesday, June 26.

Neal Michell: What the Kenyan Initiative Means (92)
Follow-up to Seattle story (Muslim ECUSA priest) — Updated (87)
More from Cherie Wetzel on Executive Council (77)
Wall Street Journal: Christopher Hitchens Book Debunking The Deity Is A Surprise Hit (51)
Second Lawsuit Filed Against St. John’s Anglican Church by Diocese of San Diego (48)
From IRD: The Episcopal Church’s Second Strike (47)
Breaking: Extremely Narrow DEFEAT for local option of SSBs at Canadian General Synod (46)
Britain’s Brown Vows to Learn From Iraq (46)
The Case For and Against the of Blessing Homosexual Unions in the Anglican Church of Canada (45)
7 in 10 Americans Say Economy Is ‘Getting Worse’ (44)

And for those keeping track, if we based this list on total number of comments received in a week, instead of limiting it to entries posted in a given week, the Seattle Times story on the Rev. Ann Redding would have made the list for a second week, as it received approximately 64 comments after we listed it as our top ten “winner” last week. It is now the new T19 overall leader with a total of 138 comments.

Watch it all.

With seven days of meetings running from 6.30 A.M. to 9.00 P.M., the patience and stamina of delegates seemed likely to be tested to the maximum. With a strictly controlled agenda and the rather directive stance taken by the Council of General Synod in presenting its own motions on some of the most contentious issues, it was also questionable how much time and opportunity delegates would ultimately have to work through the implications of very significant decisions.

—John Oakes at Canada’s General Synod

It seemed obvious all week that the most hotly discussed blog entries would be related to the Executive Council meeting and last week’s news about the Anglican Church of Kenya’s announcement that Canon Bill Atwood will be consecrated as a missionary bishop for North America. However, a late entry posted yesterday afternoon just barely eclipsed those entries to emerge as the past week’s comment leader.

Here are the stories from June 11-17 with the most comments as of 14:00 EDT / 18:00 GMT today, June 18. It was definitely an interesting week in the Anglican blogosphere.

1. A Seattle Episcopal Priest says: “I am both Muslim and Christian” (74)
2. Nigerian Gay Rights Advocate Addresses Executive Council (72)
3. Network welcomes Kenya’s decision to care for U.S. Anglicans (58)
4. Two More Articles on the recently concluded Executive Council Meeting in New Jersey (50)
5. Statement from the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi (47)
6. From AP: Episcopal panel rejects Anglican demand (46)
7. Homosexuality & the Church: Two Views from Eve Tushnet and Luke Timothy Johnson (41)
8. Carolyn J Sharp Responds to the Proposed Anglican Draft Covenant (39)
9. Executive Council Rejects Primates’ Pastoral Plan; Insists on Diocesan Accession Clause (39)
10. Newark Diocese Addresses Executive Council, Moves Forward on Same-Sex Blessing (34)

A young man has quite the story to tell after his wheelchair got lodged in the grille of a semi truck, which pushed the chair and the man inside for five miles down a road.

Muscular dystrophy forced Ben Carpenter, 22, of Alamo into a wheelchair eight years ago. He was on one of his twice-weekly outings, this time in Paw Paw around 4 p.m. Wednesday.

As he crossed Red Arrow Highway in front of a semi truck, he didn’t make the traffic light. The truck driver apparently didn’t see Carpenter and a collision occurred, causing the wheelchair’s handles to become lodged in the truck’s grille.

Carpenter remembers the sound. “Kind of like train cars coming together, something like that,” he told 24 Hour News 8.

Unable to hear Carpenter’s cries for help over the hum of the diesel engine, the truck driver continued down Red Arrow Highway at speeds of approximately 50 mph.

“It was fast, I know that. Faster than this chair was made to go,” Carpenter said.

“I was thinking, the cars keep going by and nobody bothered to stop.”

Read it all and if you have time listen to the 911 calls.

The posts from June 4 – June 10 which received the most comments.
Comment totals are as of June 11, 13:30 EDT / 17:30 GMT

Bishop Sergio Carranza: The Soul of Anglicanism (69)
Bishop Richard Randerson Profiled: A devil for the detail (55)
3 Democratic candidates talk of their faith (54)
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori speaks to Bill Moyers (52)
They Really Saw Him: A look at Richard Bauckham’s Most Recent New Testament Work (47)
Bishop Jack Iker on the March Meeting of the American House of Bishops (45)
Did you Know? (43)
The religious left lifts its voice in campaign 2008 (41)
Today’s Question from the Elves (38)
Today’s Quiz (38)

Hey, we elves made the top 10 list with one of our posts! Woohoo! 🙂

On the eve of the First World War, home ownership in Britain stood at _____ per cent. Take a guess.

CHELSEA, Vt. (AP) — A prosecutor has dropped charges against a woman who was arrested for staring at and making faces at a police dog Hutchinson, 33, of Lebanon, N.H., was charged with cruelty to a police animal she approached Protzman’s cruiser, where his dog Max was waiting, putting her face within inches of the window and “staring at him in a taunting/harassing manner,” Protzman wrote in an affidavit

Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond; was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?

… when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier’s salutation, from the ‘order arms’ to the old ‘carry,’ the marching salute.

Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual ”” honor answering honor.

On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!

— Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain [1828-1914], The Passing of the Armies, on the surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865

After nine years at Glasgow, he moved in 1962 to be Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York. He became known very widely and lectured all around the world. During this period he also changed his ecclesiastical allegiance and became an Anglican priest.

This was a gradual process influenced in two particular ways. In his book on spirituality he described the experience of attending the service of Benediction at the extreme Anglo-Catholic Church of St Andrew’s, Willesden Green, just after the war. From then on an Anglican Catholic spirituality began to imbue his life.

For many years he was a priest associate of the Order of the Holy Cross (an American Anglican Benedictine religious order).

The other influence was his colleague, John Knox, the New Testament theologian. Knox became convinced that episcopacy was an essential element in the continuing expression of “the Christ myth”. Knox became an Anglican, and Macquarrie followed him.

In 1968, when he had been an Anglican for only three years, Macquarrie was invited to be a consultant at the Lambeth Conference, a role he again took ten years later. In 1970 he was appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Canon of Christ Church. After New York, he found Christ Church quaint and eccentric but attractive. He enjoyed its traditions and lifestyle. His and his wife’s friendship and hospitality were widely appreciated.

Macquarrie delivered the Gifford Lectures in 1979 and turned down the opportunity to become a bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church. He served on the Church of England Doctrine Commission and was often engaged in ecumenical dialogue. In his Christian Unity and Christian Diversity (1975) he argued that both were needed in the Church. He could see a place for a reformed papacy in a united Church.

Read it all.

The top comment-getters of the past week (May 28 – June 3). Have you read them all?

Comment totals are as of June 4, 17:30 EDT.

Amy Johnson Frykholm: Formerly gay? (70)
Diana Butler Bass: Different Bible Translations Guided My Way (50)
Norah M. Joslyn: On being Christian and Muslim (47)
One Episcopal Church’s Adult Sunday School Offering in 2005 (45)
Unmarried Anglican priest quits top job after becoming pregnant (45)
Church of Uganda will uphold Road to Lambeth Statement (39)
Bishop Pierre Whalon Describes a recent Meeting of the Church of England House of Bishops (32)
Truth and Consequences? (30)
New Hampshire law makes same-sex civil unions legal (29)
Report from A recent Virginia Clergy day with the Presiding Bishop (27)

Malle and Wat were burning garden rubbish; the heap was crackling merrily; below the busy flames were sliding their quick fingers about the dry wizened stalks, feeling along, licking up; above, smoke, reeking of rottenness, poured out, leaned sideways, swirled wide and swept over half the garden. Malle and Wat, casting down fork and rake, fled out of it to the clear air to breathe, and leaned together upon the wall.

”˜Wat,’ said Malle, ”˜have you thought that He has stained Himself, soiled Himself, being not only with men, but Himself a man. What’s that, to be man? Look at me. Look at you.’

They looked at each other, and one saw a dusty wretched dumb lad, and the other saw a heavy slatternly woman.

Malle said: ”˜It’s to be that which shoots down the birds out of the free air, and slaughters dumb beasts, and kills his own kind in wars.’

She looked away up the Dale towards Calva, rust-red with dead bracken, smouldering under the cold sky.

”˜And it wasn’t that He put on man like a jacket to take off at night, or to bathe or to play. But man He was, as man is man, the maker made Himself the made; God was un-Godded by His own hand.’

She put her hands to her face, and was silent, till Wat pulled them away.

”˜He was God,’ she said, ”˜from before the beginning, and now never to be clean God again. Never again. Alas!’ she said, and then, ”˜Osanna!’

–H. F. M. Prescott, The man on a donkey (New York: Macmillan, 1961), pp. 455-456

When, more than half a century ago, the homily went into serious overtime at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in West New York, N.J., young Donald Samick found a welcome distraction in the rich colors streaming from the stained-glass windows. “I remember looking up at the windows and thinking how pretty they were,” said Mr. Samick, 64, now the head of J&R Lamb Studios Inc., the oldest continuously operating ecclesiastical art and stained-glass concern in the U.S.

Lamb, which celebrated its 150th birthday last month, has had commissions from every state in the union. These range from the creation of a double lancet stained-glass window for Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church and stained-glass windows for various chapels at Camp Lejeune, the North Carolina Marine Corps base, to the restoration of the Robert E. Lee memorial window in Richmond, Va.’s historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church — made necessary when a sailor on leave and in his cups heaved a rock through it.

In the work room of the studio, a modest two-story structure on a busy suburban street here, an artisan was assembling a stained-glass window for St. Albans Episcopal Church in New Brunswick, N.J., one of a series of four that will replace large sheets of colored glass. At a neighboring work table, an employee examined a window with missing pieces — a memorial tribute to one Helen C. Dickinson Gesner — that had been brought in for evaluation from Christ Church in Ridgewood, N.J.

There’s a 60/40 split between commissions for new windows and restoration projects. While much of the work is ecclesiastical in nature, Lamb does a few domestic jobs — diamond shaped leaded glass, say, for the occasional architect building a Tudor home. A current project is the restoration of a skylight for a house in nearby Hoboken. Whatever the scope and nature of the work, it’s done exclusively by hand with soldering irons and glass cutters, pattern shears and lead knives.

Read it all.

It is one of his best.

Read it all.

Here’s a list of the posts that have gotten the most comments in the past week. Check out any of the discussions you may have missed during the blog transition. Is a “hot topics” category of interest (perhaps for threads of 50+ comments)? or perhaps a regular feature like this entry highlighting the most active discussions? Let us know.

Post Title (Comments as of May 28, 16:00 EDT)

A Note on User Registration and Posting Comments (74)
Speaking in tongues: Faith’s language barrier? (72)
A Statement from Gene Robinson (70)
OPEN THREAD: “Bugs” “Turkeys” “Requests” (54)
Is Everything Fine in the Episcopal Church? (45)
A Letter from Bishop Martyn Minns (31)
Ephraim Radner–Fractured Identity and Broken Trust: TEC’s Invention of Itself (31)
Colorado Congregation Votes to Leave the Episcopal Church (30)
The Episcopal Church ”˜mishandled the debate on human sexuality’ (30)
Bishop Marc Andrus: The Most Noxious Point of the Windsor Report Becomes Reality (30)

By the way: you can search the blog for the posts with the most comments yourself, using the Advanced Search feature. Here’s how:

Go into Advanced Search
Enter “the” as your keyword (Search on Titles, Entries and Comments to make sure you’ll get all posts.)
Choose Titusonenine
Choose Any Category
and then over on the far right choose: “Sort Results By: MOST COMMENTS”

Here’s a link that might work:
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/search/t19results/2fabeeed201ee735f52d70c6d4f29ef0/

Note you could also limit the date range of your search, example “this week and newer.” Try it out!

A 2005 survey showed 2,604 high school teams, compared with 851 in 1995.

Guess first before looking.

I walk down the garden-paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden-paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the splashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover.
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon–
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
“Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se’nnight.”
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
“Any answer, Madam,” said my footman.
“No,” I told him.
“See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer.”
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.”
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?

–Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925), Patterns

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up””for you the flag is flung””for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths””for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

”“Walt Whitman (1819”“1892)

“”¦that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ”” that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain”¦”

”“Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

”“Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In thanksgiving for all those who gave their lives for this country in years past, and for those who continue to serve”“KSH.

Read it all.

When the Holy Spirit gets hold of us, everything changes . . . our view of life, our value systems, our will toward our neighbor, our aims and goals in life, our perception of the world, our self-image, our “yeses” and our “noes,” our appreciation for things that never caught our attention before . . . absolutely everything. For the Holy Spirit opens to us a vision of what ought to be even though it is not yet; a hope greater than that to which any earthly hope can give words even though it is a hope yet beyond sight; a foresight of eternity even though we are bound to time; a love yet to be realized in its fullness even while it is known in shadowy form in our present estate. It is, as Peter said, quoting the prophet Joel, “when he pours out his Spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17, 18)

None of that can quite be put into words, yet it clearly speaks of being in the world in a new and different way; of seeing what is not yet as though it already were and living by that vision; of reaching beyond what can presently be reached as though it were already near enough to be touched; of speaking about things that sound like speaking in tongues while they are already understood in the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord to whom the Spirit is constantly pointing; to whom the Spirit is constantly drawing and binding us; to whom we are constantly praying for the life of the world and our own life; for whom all of creation “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Rom. 8:19)

Ah, what a vision the Holy Spirit gives us! He who first began the ordering of creation when he separated the light from the darkness and the waters above the earth from the waters under the earth as he “hovered over” that first creation (Genesis 1:2) still hovers over his creation, raising eyes to see what is yet unseen; filling hearts with a visionary hope in the midst of the darkness of this world; causing lives to be lived with boldness and confidence as though they were already beyond the reach of sin; who touches you and me through his revealing word, through water, bread and wine, and calls us ever so gently – although he is not above pressing on us when we resist – to trust the one who speaks in our text as though he were still with us.

We are not left as orphans! The Christ whom the disciples knew remains with us today as the Spirit of truth comes from the Father bearing Christ’s presence among us.

—Hubert Beck.

She has a magnificent voice.

In A FAREWELL TO ARMS, Ernest Hemingway famously wrote about the dim possibility of adequate commemoration for those lost in the slaughter of World War I:

“I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the number of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”

When Hemingway wrote, war poetry was still poised between the old and durable need to honor the dead and acknowledge with both regret and proper gratitude the dire nature of their civic contribution, and the second and more unsettling need to voice the sometimes dishonored and dishonoring terms of that sacrifice — the anguished appearance of war guilt for crimes perpetrated during the course of war by some of these sacrificial victims, the soldiers.

By the second half of the last century, war poetry came to embody an antiwar ideology. Judgments about politics and history have thoroughly rearranged the conventions of the war poem and have changed the way we look at courage and honor, as well as sacrifice. Part of what has happened is also an awareness of the bastardizing of public language, although I shrink from any judgment that things are any worse now for words than they ever were.

Read it all.