Category Archives: Uncategorized

Betjeman and Toplady

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This is an addendum to the post about altered hymns.  And an addendum to the post about WWII reading.

Last night I picked up Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks by the poet John Betjeman (pronounced Betchman).  Random flipping brought me to a talk about Augustus Toplady (how would you say his name?), the author of the hymn Rock of Ages. Betjeman’s words:

“One further fact about the hymn, before going on to its author: in my hymn books the last verse has been revised to start:

When I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyelids close in death…

Toplady’s words are far more vivid and less mellifluously Victorian: they are more characteristic of Quarles and the seventeenth-century poets Toplady loved:

When I draw this fleeting breath
When my eyestrings break in death…

I always sing that line myself, despite the rest of the congregation.”

The heat and intensity with which Toplady and John Wesley publicly quarrel is a bit of a shock.  Controversy in the church is nothing new.  One last quote from the article, an Augustus Toplady quote:

“The deathbed of a Christian is the antechamber of heaven, the very suburbs of the New Jerusalem.”

~     ~     ~

I am fascinated, intrigued and just plain interested in John Betjeman, a man about whom C.S. Lewis (his tutor at Oxford) wrote “I wish I could get rid of the idle prig.”  Yet a book critic called him “one of the pleasantest minor writers in the world.”

Several of Betjeman’s books now populate my wish list, but there is one I plan to buy soon: Sweet Songs of Zion: Selected Radio Talks.  From the product description:

…these talks concerning hymns and hymn writers were Betjeman’s swan song as a broadcaster. ‘Hymns are the poems of the people’, Betjeman observed in his first talk, and went on to show how variously this insight has been borne out over generations. Rich in anecdote and packed with information, these timeless talks will appeal to fans of Betjeman and newcomers alike, and will inspire everyone who has a fondness for hymns, and delights in Betjeman’s unique voice.  
 

World War II Reading Challenge

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I asked Hope at Worthwhile Books what WWII books she would suggest. She introduced me to the War Through the Generations Reading Challenge. 

I love the discipline of a reading challenge: I get heftier books read, ones that don’t always go down easy, when I plan my reading in advance.  Because, the truth is this: I’m never quite ‘in the mood” to read Mein Kampf.  

I’m starting the challenge with books from my bookshelf. 

Winston Churchill:

Adolf Hitler

Stephen Ambrose

Dick Winters

William Manchester

Tadeusz Borowski

Leo Marks

Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941-1945
Leo Marks is the son of the owner of the Marks & Co., the bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road.

Tom Brokaw

Elie Wiesel

Richard J. Maybury

John Betjeman

Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks
This isn’t specifically a WWII book, but many chapters are BBC radio talks during the war.

Thomas Keneally

Stewart Binns and Adrian Wood

Theodor Seuss Geisel

I also plan to listen to Shaara’s WWII books: The Rising Tide and The Steel Wave.   

Trolling through other participants’ reading lists, got me jonesing for more books.  Hope will write one of her stellar reviews and I’m sunk.  But I will begin with what I have available to me.  The problem with WWII literature is that the vast number of books written on this subject makes one dizzy.

I’m thankful for a summer and fall immersed in reading, viewing and listening to all things “Great War.”  That gave me the foundation (and perhaps the fortitude) to tackle and understand better another grim war. 

Onward, then.

A Light and A Glory

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The Song of Simeon by Rembrandt

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles,
and the glory of thy people Israel.

~   ~   ~

This song grabbed my soul when I was 15 years old.
We sang this text in high school choir.
I have never found the musical setting of that “Song of Simeon”.
Every year I look.
When I was 15, I didn’t think to write a composer’s name down.

I wish I could find it.
Because I’d love to share it with you.
No Nunc Dimittus I’ve heard comes close
to the glory of the tune I know,
even though some are quite good.

Rembrandt’s painting is compelling.
I love Simeon’s hands and eyes.
Rembrandt capture’s Simeon’s heart full of joy.

Merry Christmas!

Preston Has Arrived

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(Oregon) Baby Preston is here, after a sudden c-section


smiles all around


I don’t think he’s hungry…(he hadn’t had his first meal yet)
…naw, he’s practicing to sing The Messiah, his Nana thinks.


Supreme contentment…Preston has eaten, he’s back at home base,
his very own haven of rest.

Great with Child(ren)

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Having two births imminent colors, textures and illuminates this Advent season. 

I have great respect for the complexity and fragility of human life, and never take a healthy birth for granted.  I’ve thought more this year of Mary, awkward with baby, traveling to Bethlehem.  There is no way she could find a comfortable position on or off a donkey.  Really, how would she even get on a donkey? Her first birth, away from family, in a strange place, questionable hygiene, Joseph at her side.  They were not what one would call, in the parlance of medical speak, favorable conditions.

My Oregon daughter-in-law has been in labor through the night.  I am waiting to hear an update. 

Today is her due date.  Tomorrow is my Washington daughter-in-law’s due date.  Deep, cleansing breaths!!

I love the Lutheran Book of Prayer with its section “Prayers for Special Occasions in the Family Circle or in the Life of the Individual.”  In this section is a prayer Of a Woman with Child. 

O Great God, heavenly Father,
Thou art Creator and Preserver of life.
Marvelous are Thy works.

I magnify Thy holy name for having blessed me.
In humility I appear before Thee
with petitions for my unborn child and myself.
Thou, O heavenly Counselor and Helper,
knowest our needs.
Keep away from us what might be harmful,
and daily bestow health and strength.
Guide me through Thy Holy Spirit
that I may constantly be mindful of my privilege
and my responsibility as a mother.

At all times let me place my trust in Thee
and Thy fatherly care,
knowing that from generation to generation
Thy mercy is upon those that fear Thee.
Grant that, relying on Jesus,
my dear Redeemer,
and His glorious sacrifice,
I may face the future calmly,
cheerfully,
and in quiet happiness.
I ask all this in His name.
Amen.

The Love of a Good Man

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Over the weekend I  had a lengthy conversation with one of my husband’s co-workers.  We are discovering more points of commonality and talked about having lunch in the near future. 

“She is eager to get to know you,” my husband reported. 

“That’s odd,” I mused, “We’ve barely met.”

“Well,” the good man confessed, “she’s heard a lot about you from me.  And…whenever she rants about her husband, I always respond by praising you.”

Cha-Ching!  That’s fuel that will get me a long way down the road!

As If I Have Nothing To Do

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my, cough cough, dryer lint collection

I’m having a hard time…focusing.
Fourth Sunday of Advent.
Wrapping presents.
Two daughters-in-law going into labor any time now.
One induction was postponed until tomorrow.
Praying one baby doesn’t come during the typhoon predicted in Seattle.

And there are major life questions to ponder…
Do you or do you not collect dryer lint?
I didn’t.
Until.
A friend said that it makes great fire starters.

You use three leftovers.
Using leftovers makes my world rock.
Dryer lint.
Old candles.
Used egg cartons.

Redemption.  Recovery.
A beautiful thing.
(smile)

Gaudete!

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Sandy at Maple Grove wrote about Madrigal Memories, which brought up my own memories of madrigal singing in high school.  A madrigal is Renaissance music about love sung in parts. My audition madrigal, Come Again, has permanent residency status in my brain. 

Sandy asked about a favorite rare Christmas Carol.  No hesitation on my part: Gaudete fits the bill.  Sung by a boys choir called Libera, this carol captures the joy of the Incarnation. 

Gaudete! Gaudete! = Rejoice! Rejoice!
Christus est natus = Christ is born,
ex Maria Virgine = of the Virgin Mary.

Do you have a favorite out-of-the-mainstream carol?

Simple Pleasures in December

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If you’ve been around Magistra Mater for a while,
you know how much I loathe–despise–plastic inflatable Santas.
Detesting the abominable creatures was getting a bit out of hand.

Thankfully, I’ve found something to love.
We are opposing crass ugliness with simple beauty.

A wreath with a bow


And my new favorite Christmas/Winter decoration:
a star in the window.

My friend Katie has had one of these in her window for over a year.

It reminds me of this verse:
We have seen His star and have come to worship Him.


a view from the inside

Not For Present Use Alone

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Reading over last year’s Christmas letters (yep, I keep them and re-read them), I saw this quote.  It is especially good, I think, for homeschool moms to ponder.  The part about stones being “sacred because our hands have touched them” makes me think of the music books I prize because my mother wrote my name on the cover.  Having her handwriting on those books makes them precious to me. 

When we build, let us think that we build forever. 

Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone.

Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, “See! This our father did for us.”

~ John Ruskin