Lincoln and the will of God

"...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Once upon a time we celebrated the birthdays of our greatest Presidents on the anniversary of the actual day upon which each was born. Today is the birth day of Abraham Lincoln. And, appropriately, today I received the March issue of First Things with an article by Andrew Ferguson, "Lincoln and the Will of God," which they have made available online. Ferguson, of course, is the author of Land of Lincoln, a book about the meaning of Lincoln to Americans as much as about Lincoln himself. From the article:

.... For generations, Americans have liked to say they wanted their children to be like Lincoln: principled, resolute, patient, kind. But what we’ve really wanted is for Lincoln to be like us, whoever we are.

Nowhere has the appropriation been as relentless as in the matters of religion and Lincoln’s spiritual life. Mary Baker Eddy claimed the martyred president as an early proponent of Christian Science, though her discovery of Divine Healing came a year after his death. In the early 1900s, the California guru Paramahansa Yogananda announced that Lincoln had once been a yogi in the Himalayas.

Closer to earth, the evangelizing atheist Robert Ingersoll tagged him as a model of the freethinking skeptic, and the founders of the Ethical Culture Society agreed. In the 1920s, Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago asserted that Lincoln—who was reared by Baptists, married by an Episcopalian, and subjected in his adulthood to endless hours sitting in straight-backed pews being preached at by Presbyterians—was nevertheless a man of closeted Catholic faith, who delighted in laying out an altar for Mass whenever his Catholic aunt came to visit.

Not every attempt to enlist Lincoln is far-fetched, of course, and a good deal of energy has been expended in simply trying to figure out what religious convictions Lincoln held, if any. [....]

“I don’t know anything about Lincoln’s religion,” a longtime friend, David Davis, remarked after Lincoln’s death, “and I don’t believe anybody knows anything about it.” Though Davis’ skepticism should give pause to more historians than it has, he overstated the case. We will never know for sure whether Lincoln held orthodox Christian beliefs, whether he believed in the Trinity, the divinity of Christ or his resurrection, the life everlasting, the forgiveness of sins, the inerrant word of God as revealed in the Old Testament or the New.

But perhaps the country has benefited from not knowing. The uncertainty has made Lincoln our common property, whoever we are, from Robert Ingersoll to Cardinal Mundelein to Nettie Maynard. It may be indeed that Lincoln’s is the only kind of religious expression that will travel in a free country like ours. His religion has lasted a century and a half and has appealed to believers of all kinds, and to skeptics too, exactly because of its generality. Yet it still means something definable and concrete: The country, Lincoln believed, is the carrier of a precious cargo, a proposition that is the timeless human truth, and the survival of this principle will always be of providential importance. We assent to Lincoln’s creed, wide open as it is, when we think of ourselves as Americans. (more)

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

"Non-denominational"

Michael Spenser has been writing about "The Church" and had this to say about "non-denominational" churches:

There is no such thing. Historically, almost every non-denominational church is a kind of evangelical, semi or totally Baptistic, often charismatic gathering of people who simply want to believe that they opened the Bible and started from scratch.

I know that denominational names get in the way, but somewhere - not necessarily on the sign out front - its helpful to say “This is the stream of Christianity we come from.” Everyone has a family, even if you have reasons for wanting to avoid your connection to them.

Just being honest, every time I’m in a conversation with someone committed to the non-denominational label, there’s always an air of superiority that really gets tiresome. It stifles conversation, unity, fellowship and so much else.

internetmonk.com » Blog Archive » The Church: Flawed and Finished (Final F.A.Q.)

Who you gonna believe?

Last week The New Baptist Covenant Celebration met in Atlanta. [Note, according to Terry Mattingly at GetReligion, "...when a meeting opens with President Jimmy Carter, ends with Clinton and has Vice President Al Gore in the middle, you know that you are dealing with Baptists in the South, but not Southern Baptists."] Mattingly reported on Bill Clinton's speech, and says that Clinton told a story:

The guest of honor at the White House was the Rev. Ed Young, the Southern Baptist Convention’s new president. The two men went jogging near the National Mall and had breakfast on the Truman Balcony with Vice President Al Gore. The three Southern Baptists didn’t agree on everything, but the atmosphere was friendly — in large part because the president admired Young’s preaching so much.

But the crucial exchange in that 1993 meeting centered on a question about the Bible, said Clinton .... Clinton claimed that Young “looked at me and he said, ‘I want to ask you a question, a simple question, and I just want a yes or no answer. I don’t want one of those slick political answers. . . . Do you believe the Bible is literally true? Yes or no.’"

“I said, ‘Reverend Young, I think that it is completely true, but I do not believe that you, or I, or any other living person, is wise enough to understand it completely.’ He said, ‘That’s a political answer.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not. You asked a political question.’"

Interesting story, and Clinton is a very good story-teller. No doubt it went over well with a group that didn't include Southern Baptists - but Young says that exchange never took place:

“The main thing is that I have never asked anyone on this earth that question,” said Young. . . . “I have no doubt that someone, somewhere has asked Bill Clinton if he thinks the Bible is literally true, but it wasn’t me. That isn’t a question I ask. I mean, Jesus says, ‘I am a door.’ . . . How do you claim something like that is literally true?”

In fact, Young doesn’t remember mentioning “biblical inerrancy” during that White House meeting, the theological term at the heart of 30 years of conflict in the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest non-Catholic flock.

I don't know Young's reputation as a truth-teller, but Clinton's isn't too sterling. Mattingly goes on to observe:

I know lots of folks on the Baptist right and they don’t talk about “literalism” when it comes to the Bible. Perhaps that is what people like Clinton think that they say. The term they use, of course, is “biblical inerrancy”....

And that is something else.

He said, Clinton said » GetReligion

Manga Bible

Comic book versions of Scripture have been around for a long time, but this may be a bit different. It's called the Manga Bible and the author calls himself Siku.

Ajinbayo Akinsiku wants the world to know Jesus Christ, just not the gentle, blue-eyed Christ of old Hollywood movies and illustrated Bibles.

Mr. Akinsiku says his Son of God is “a samurai stranger who’s come to town, in silhouette,” here to shake things up in a new, much-abridged version of the Bible rooted in manga, the Japanese form of graphic novels. ....

Sales of graphic novels, too, have grown by double digits in recent years. So it makes sense that a convergence is under way, as graphic novels take up stories from the Bible, often in startling ways. In the last year, several major religious and secular publishing houses have announced or released manga religious stories.

The medium shapes the message. Manga often focuses on action and epic. Much of the Bible, as a result, ends up on the cutting room floor, and what remains is darker. (more)

Thanks to Cindy for the reference.

The Bible as Graphic Novel, With a Samurai Stranger Called Christ - New York Times

Jihad and Crusade

Christians feel guilty about the Crusades, so much so that the very term has become politically incorrect, and the irreligious bring them up often. There are certainly events in the Crusades that no Christian could possibly defend, but they were preceded by Jihad, and the unwillingness of Muslims to admit any error is revealing. Islam spread by conquest and most of the territory they conquered had been Christian. Roger Sandall:

.... the 463 years between the death of Muhammed in 632 AD, and the First Crusade in 1095, were extremely dangerous for Christian Europe. Instead of peace there were unrelenting Islamic wars and incursions; Muslim invasions of Spain, Italy, Sicily and Sardinia; raids, seizures, looting of treasure, military occupations that lasted until Saracen forces were forcibly dislodged, sackings of Christian cities including Rome, and desecrations of Christian shrines. And be it noted: all this went on for 463 years before any Christian Crusade in response to these murderous provocations took place.

Sixteen years after the death of Muhammed, in 648 AD, Cyprus was overrun. Rhodes fell in 653, and by 698 AD the whole of North Africa was lost. In 711 Muslims from Tangier crossed into Spain, set their sights on France, and by 720 AD Narbonne had fallen. Bordeaux was stormed and its churches burnt in 732. As Gibbon emphasised, only the resistance at Poitiers of Charles Martel in 732 saved Europe from occupation, and arrested the Muslim tide.

From 800 on, incursions into Italy began. In 846 a Saracen force of 10,000 landed in Ostia, assaulted Rome, and sacked and desecrated the Basilicas of St Peter and St Paul. In 859 they seized the whole of Sicily. After capturing a fortress near Anzio, Muslim forces “plundered the surrounding countryside for forty years”. In southern France at the end of the ninth century they held a base near Toulon from which they ravaged both Provence and Northern Italy, and controlled the passes over the Alps, robbing and murdering pilgrims on their way to Rome. Genoa was attacked in 934 and taken in 935. In 1015 Sardinia was taken, occupied, and held my Muslim forces until 1050.

In 1076 the Seljuk Turkish capture of Jerusalem finally exhausted the patience of Islam’s victims in Christian Europe. Only then were concerted moves begun to drive back the infidel, launch the First Crusade, and retake Jerusalem. .... [more]

ROGER SANDALL Spiked - Religion and Violence

Truth outlasts tunes

Bob Kauflin responds to concerns raised in Greg Gilbert's provocatively titled "Against Music." Both should be read by anyone concerned about congregational worship. From Kauflin's comments:

Congregations need to be taught that being emotionally moved by music is not the same as being morally changed by the Spirit. That misunderstanding can occur both in both modern and traditional contexts. Churches must be taught that worship is not the same as music and extends far beyond it, and that Christ’s accomplishments matter more than ours when it comes to worshipping God. They need to learn that it’s the Gospel that unites us, not a musical style, and that truth outlasts tunes.

Links to Gilbert: Against Music, and Kauflin

Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog

John Piper on evil

Jared Wilson posts this extremely good message from John Piper:

The Gospel Driven Church: The Fall of Satan and the Victory of Christ

Heaven

Time interviews N.T. Wright on Heaven. The interview is titled, rather misleadingly, "Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop," but, in fact, he is contrasting his description with the common, or popular view, which is also held by some Christians. Most of what he says reflects a quite orthodox view. Wright, as a scholar, seems to be almost universally respected, although some areas of his work have been controversial.

TIME: At one point you call the common view of heaven a "distortion and serious diminution of Christian hope."

Wright: It really is. I've often heard people say, "I'm going to heaven soon, and I won't need this stupid body there, thank goodness.' That's a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional.

TIME: How so? It seems like a typical sentiment.

Wright: There are several important respects in which it's unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.

TIME: Is there anything more in the Bible about the period between death and the resurrection of the dead?

Wright: We know that we will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed. Paul writes that it will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish text from about the same time as Jesus, says "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," and that seems like a poetic way to put the Christian understanding, as well.

TIME: But it's not where the real action is, so to speak?

Wright: No. Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. [the interview]

Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop - TIME

Faith 2008

The Berkley Center for Religion has put up a site that catalogs every religious statement by 2008 Presidential candidates.

GetReligion notes:

Which presidential candidate last mentioned church and state issues? It was Democratic candidate Barack Obama. In fact, Obama was the last to mention the issues of morality, society and global religious matters. Obama has been quite religious in his speeches and statements lately.

Leading Republican candidate John McCain hasn’t mentioned a religious issue according to the site since Oct. 17, 2007, and that was at the Values Voter Summit. Former Democratic candidate John Edwards hasn’t said a word about religious issues since Dec. 4, 2007.

In general, except for former Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee, the Democrats are mentioning faith issues in much greater frequency than their GOP counterparts

Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs | Georgetown University

Insanity

How do those who worry about theocracy react to this sort of thing?

The Archibishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams thinks the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable". He said the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

In a democracy, anyone has the right to advocate change in the law, but different laws for different groups is a prescription for the disintegration of a society.

Update: The Prime Minister reacts with good sense:

The Prime Minister rapidly distanced himself from Dr Williams's view. Gordon Brown's spokesman said: "Our general position is that sharia law cannot be used as a justification for committing breaches of English law, nor should the principles of sharia law be included in a civil court for resolving contractual disputes.

"The Prime Minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values."

The Belmont Club: Canterbury tales, Brown slaps down Archbishop's call for Islamic sharia law to operate in Britain| News | This is London

Civility is overrated

Robert T. Miller at First Things:

When you’re having dinner with your in-laws, graciously downplaying disagreements about politics and religion is the thing to do, for such discussions usually lead nowhere and often engender bad feelings. It should be different, however, among people who make their living by speaking and writing about issues of public concern, among professors and pundits and politicians. These people voluntarily enter the public square in order to contribute to the common good by persuading their fellow citizens about what that good really is. There are important things at stake here—with abortion, for example, the issue really is one of life and death—and so it’s absurd to say that we should minimize our differences or agree to disagree or fail to bring forward our best and toughest arguments against our opponents lest we hurt their feelings. Quite the contrary, we should state as clearly as possible what we think and why we think it—including why we think our opponents are wrong. We owe this to the public we are seeking to persuade and even to our opponents themselves, for, as Aristotle says, in philosophy we must love the truth more than our friends.

.... Once a person chooses to speak in the public square, he should welcome criticism of his views, even the sharpest criticism. If the criticisms are unjustified, he will in no way be harmed by them, and at least he’ll learn why certain arguments against his views fail. If, on the other hand, the criticisms are justified, then he will have been saved from error and learned something important. The wise man never takes offense when people tell him what he has said is wrong, even when they do so quite bluntly. When people tell him that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he recognizes that they might be right, for, on a wide range of things, he really might be ignorant and uninformed. In most cases, critics will find that he has already considered and rejected the arguments people bring against his views, but every once in a while he hears a new argument and will have to change his mind. His feelings aren’t hurt when this happens. On the contrary, he is grateful to such people and considers himself in their debt. Reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still (Prov. 9:8–9). This, I think, should be the attitude of everyone involved in public life.

First Things » Blog Archive » Catholic Civility

Greater goods and lesser evils

Yesterday James Dobson announced that he couldn't vote for McCain, Clinton or Obama under any circumstance and given those choices wouldn't vote for President at all this year. Michael Cromartie responded to that approach at Christianity Today, making what should be an obvious and elementary point about politics:

Politics is about making choices between relative goods and lesser evils and not about having perfect choices. It’s a wasted vote on Dr. Dobson’s part. It’s irresponsible on his part to give that kind of leadership. He should sit down with McCain and see if he can be persuasive. What he should be saying is, "I’ll wait to see what the candidates have to offer." It’s premature to emphatically say, "I’ll never vote for anybody."

Winston Churchill famously said “democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Which, of course, means that among all of the actual governments that have existed, democracy is the best — or least bad, which is the same thing. Those are the kinds of judgments that have to be made in the world that actually exists (and not just in politics). Our system presents us with the necessity, almost always, of choosing from among unsatisfactory choices. But when it comes down to it, one option or the other is almost always better — or, if you will, less bad. Not choosing is effectively helping the candidate you like least.

Cromartie calls Dobson Irresponsible for His Un-dorsement | Liveblog | Christianity Today

The Evangelical vote

Sarah Pulliam at Christianity Today interviewed Southern Baptist Richard Land about the Evangelical vote in the Presidential election this fall:

... Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty, believes that the majority of evangelicals will be particularly passionate about one issue next fall.

As long as there is a bright line distinction between the two parties on the life issues, it’s going to suck up all the oxygen in the room when it comes to voting. If evangelicals are forced to choose between a climate policy they like and a pro-life policy they like, they’re going to vote for unborn children. If the price of having the climate policy they like is to vote a candidate to vote for a woman to kill her own baby, it’s too high of a price.

I asked Land what it would take to get evangelical support.

They’ll have to talk about the issues that matter to evangelicals and make it clear that they’re going to be defenders of the unborn, make it clear that they’re going to nominate only strict constructionists, original intent jurists to the Supreme Court, make it clear they’re going to pro-family policies both economically and socially, and for a good portion of evangelicals that they’re support a strong national defense, and they’re going to make it a high priority to keep the country safe from foreign attack. ....

If McCain is the nominee, Land believes evangelicals will eventually rally behind him.

The vast majority are going to vote for McCain because he is pro-life and he is pro national defense and pro protection of America. Even if he’s not their first or second choice in the primaries, the vast majority of them will vote for them. In the last presidential election, 78 percent of evangelicals voted for Bush and 22 percent voted for Kerry. I don’t think it’s going to change much if it’s McCain versus Clinton.

Richard Land Believes Voting Agenda will Rest on Abortion | Liveblog | Christianity Today

The myth of Galileo

Joe Carter relates the history of the conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church, demonstrating that the story most people know is a simplistic morality tale not born out by the actual events. He writes:

I find that the real moral is not so much in the story itself but in the fact that the story even needs to be told in the first place. While I first heard the story of Galileo in elementary school, it wasn't until long, long after I had graduated from college that I finally learned the truth. No doubt some people are just now hearing about it for the first time. How is that possible?

I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that for centuries people like Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Carl Sagan, Bertolt Brecht, and the Indigo Girls have been passing on the myth. I don't think any of them were intentionally lying. In fact, I doubt any of them ever bothered to examine the facts themselves. They didn't need to. The story fit what they already believed — that science and religion were natural enemies — and that was all they needed to know. (the story)

the evangelical outpost: The Myth of Galileo: A Story With A (Mostly) Valuable Lesson

Bodies

This exhibit is going from city to city in the United States:

The 15,000-square foot exhibit shows 20 human cadavers and 250 internal organs, all preserved by a process called polymer preservation. Mounted by Premier Exhibitions of Atlanta, the intent is to educate the public on the workings, intricacies and proper care of the human body.

The controversy surrounds the way the bodies were obtained: They’re unclaimed or unidentified Chinese citizens who gave no consent to be exhibited after death. A small group protested Thursday night.

Critics claim that, given China’s record of human rights abuses, they could well be political prisoners who were starved or tortured to death.

Premier vice president of exhibitions Tom Zaller denies that and says all bodies were obtained legally and the only reason there’s no permission on record is because the bodies are unclaimed or unidentified.

But even if they were obtained legally, how should we think about something like this? Rev. Michael A. Seger in the Cincinnati Enquirer:

How does this exhibit touch upon the respect due to the human person as an embodied spirit?

As an integral unity of spirit and body, my body as a personal reality expresses and communicates my deepest spiritual values. We love with our bodies, we mourn with tears, we nourish with our bodies, we comfort with compassionate embraces. Our bodies bear the marks and movements of our life story. The plasticized bodies of this exhibit rip a person from the context of her or his life story. They stand before us sadly anonymous: not mourned and not reverenced.

Does this sort of thing devalue the dignity to which each human individual is entitled?

The Enquirer - Visitors praise 'Bodies' exhibit

Whatever of the good, the true, and the beautiful

At Touchstone S.M. Hutchens engages in a wonderful rant about what has happened to worship, and especially to music in worship:

Yet another painful experience of modern Evangelical “worship,” once the fury and chagrin has drained away, awakens in my mind this scene from my boyhood:

It is a summer Sunday evening service in a little Baptist church in rural Michigan, hard by the fields and woods. Everyone who plays an instrument (all “acoustic” in those days), young or old, skilled or not, has been invited to accompany the congregational singing, for that is what is done on Sunday evenings, when the service is less formal. The minister stops the music near the end of the hymn, taps the pulpit, and says, “Last verse a cappella.” Everyone knows what this means and in four-part harmony a hundred voices, men, women, and children, sing,

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
Heav’ns morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

The sound drifts from the open windows and fills the glade, the hymn ending, as life does, unaccompanied by anything that can be heard or seen. Even as a small boy I find this almost unbearably beautiful, and must choke back tears. ....

My generation, my abysmally stupid and culpably foolish generation, had the opportunity to keep the good — for there was very much good here — discard the bad, and bring in a golden age of church music, an age of beauty and invention, now in obedient harmony with the Great Tradition, with good theology instead of bad, and with an eye trained upon the history of whole Church and its music. Instead, however, it went as bad as it possibly could, seizing upon all the old mistakes it could find and amplifying them.

Instead of cultivating the use of the human voice combining in part-harmony that reflects the glorious differences of age and sex in the congregations of the faithful, it took away the good its church already possessed, electronically increasing and augmenting the instrumental voices, promoting the soloist and “praise team,” reducing the congregation to a unison accompaniment by taking away the hymnals and (being weighed in the balances and found wanting) projecting the words on the wall. ....

Not everything that has been produced in the last forty years has been bad. Some of it is excellent, especially songs that put scripture to music. That is the right track, and I would say to these young people that it is not one you need to follow alone. You should reject the mistakes of not only your parents’ generation, but those of your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great grandparents — and your own — all the while appropriating whatever of the good, the true and the beautiful you have found among them. .... (more)

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Reverie in E-minor

Help, advice, tips - no gospel

Jared Wilson:

I have visited three churches in as many weeks. Only three, granted. But none of them talked about Jesus in any substantial way, and I'm being generous in saying that because I don't recall any of them even mentioning Jesus at all. Just want to make an allowance for my memory being faulty. Lots of "you should." Lots of help, advice, tips. No gospel.

These are contemporary, non-denominational churches. Do people have to go "traditional" if they want to hear about Jesus?

The Gospel-Driven Church: Preaching that Draws a Line in the Sand

A conversation stopper

Albert Mohler encapsulates different worldviews by quoting from a novel:

The clash between fundamental worldviews is often difficult to capture, but sometimes literature does what a news report cannot. Consider this passage from Cormac McCarty's novel, No Country for Old Men. In this passage, one of the main characters reflects on this clash:

Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talking about the right wing this and the right wing that.

I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin something bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on.

Finally told me, said: I don't like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I don't think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don't have much doubt but what she'll be able to have an abortion. I'm goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.

That exchange also pretty much sums up the clash of worldviews. Sometimes literature captures a universe of meaning in a minimum of words.

A Worldview Clash in View -- A Gift from Literature

"Without a compass...."

In the current National Review [Feb. 11], Jay Nordlinger quotes former Secretary of State George Shultz on Ronald Reagan:

As Shultz talks about Reagan, he makes a familiar point, but makes it particularly well: Reagan had underlying beliefs, and these beliefs went deep; and his policies derived from them. “That’s one reason he was so consistent, I think.” .... “The ideas serve as your compass. And maybe you have to tack and whatnot, but your compass tells you where you’re going.” Eventually, you arrive at your destination, no matter what the zig-zagging. But without a compass, “you’re just moving around.”

From death into life

Bonnie at Intellectuelle:

This morning I was late to church. But you can't say I missed worship...

As I started the car, strains of Mozart's Requiem Mass flowed from the radio, part of a broadcast honoring the 252nd anniversary of Mozart's birth. As I left the driveway, sounds of the Lacrimosa began to sink in, and soon I was undone. It's a good thing the church is only 8 minutes away and traffic is minimal. (The rest of my family had left earlier.)

I sat, then, in the church parking lot, listening, and allowing the Requiem to take me (if briefly) through the process of mourning. I only regret not tuning in sooner. First was the Lacrimosa, slow, tender, and deeply sad:

Mournful that day
When from the dust shall rise
Guilty man to be judged.
Therefore spare him, O God.
Merciful Jesu,
Lord grant them rest.

Then the intensity, and peacefulness, of the Domine Jesu (Offertorium): Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the bottomless pit...

and the Hostias: We offer unto Thee this sacrifice of prayer and praise. Receive it for those souls whom today we commemorate. Allow them, O Lord, to cross from death into the life which once Thou didst promise to Abraham and his seed. ....

Then, the exuberance of the Sanctus and its concluding fugue:

Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

(more)

The power of music (Intellectuelle)