I never heard this carol before–Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. Sung here, a capella, by the McMakens. I’m always amazed by the way some people can actually use the human voice as a musical instrument… maybe because I can’t.
Suggested by Heidi, and thanks for the tip.
See the guy in the middle of the picture, groveling on the floor? This is an Assyrian political poster from the 9th century B.C., and the man kow-towing to the Assyrian king is identified in the inscription as someone representing “the house of Omri,” king of Israel. We know Omri from the Bible as the father of King Ahab.
I’ve recently encountered a genius who says there never was an Israel before the modern state of Israel was founded in 1948. He bases this claim on 1) his atheism, believing as he does that not one word of the Bible is true; 2) his complete lack of knowledge of ancient history; 3) his support for the Palestinians, and his fervent desire for them to be right; and 4) his firm conviction that he is smarter than anyone he happens to be talking to.
In fact, Assyrian records name at least nine kings of Israel and Judah who are also mentioned in the Bible. It helps a lot, not to know this. Other peoples of the Ancient Near East also recorded their various dealings with Israel. Knowing this would really hurt this person’s argument, so he doesn’t know it.
Of course you can know enough history to accept that there really was an Israel, long ago, and still be an atheist. What’s really troubling about this character is his claim to intellectual superiority–when in any random gathering, he’s apt to be the dumbest person in the room.
Maybe he just hates God so much, he can’t see straight. Although hating someone you claim does not exist does seem like a major waste of passion.
Hey, where is everybody today?
Well, for those who are here, we have a cat performing marvelous athletic feats in the course of his bug-hunts. If it wasn’t for the dopey music, you could hear him talking to the bugs. My cat Henry used to do that. “Come down off that ceiling, you coward!” This to a moth. “Come down and show me what you got!” It was all in cat-language, but the meaning was quite clear.
So, once again we’ve watched Scrooge, the 1951 classic treatment of A Christmas Carol, starring Alistair Sim.
Aside from its being simply a wonderfully fine piece of art, what is it about this movie that makes us crave it every Christmas season? Why does it never fail to deeply move us?
Because it’s about getting something that every one of us desperately needs: Redemption.
Take Scrooge’s tour of his own past, in which he sees himself turn, slowly but irresistibly, into a cold-hearted monster of selfishness, ingratitude, and amorality. As someone who does like a stroll down memory lane, I have to admit that there are certain dark alleys that I have to hurry past. But who hasn’t got scenes he would rather not relive, would not even wish to see again? And Scrooge is put through the whole nine yards, all his sins revisited.
And that’s just setting him up for a grim peek at his future…
But the good news, the best news, is that Jesus Christ is born and has the power to redeem us from our sins, to wash us clean of them; and He has already paid the penalty for them. That is the whole point of the story.
Imagine: you’re an old man with boxcar-loads of money which you’ve never spent, and suddenly your eyes open and your heart revives and you can turn that money loose to do an endless amount of good–and turn yourself loose, too. You are redeemed! Christ rules, and your sins have no more power to drag you into your grave. Suddenly, amazingly, you’re free. Free to love, and be loved; free to give, and be given to; free to hope, and to give hope to others–and you will never, ever run out of love and benevolence. The more you give, the more you can give.
That’s why Scrooge is so all-fired happy as the movie ends. And the Lord who has given him that happiness, as the Spirit of Christmas Present says, lives and acts not only on Christmas Day, but in every day throughout the year.
If that doesn’t make you feel like dancing the polka, what will?
This isn’t genuine Christmas music, but I always associate it with Christmas because if features prominently in my favorite Christmas movie–Scrooge, the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim. It’s used as the theme for Alice, the sweet young woman Scrooge loved once and should have married. We’re going to watch it this afternoon–a Christmas tradition at our house.
If you can’t quite make out the lyrics, never mind. The melody evokes gentleness, sweetness, and love: in the words of our esteemed colleague, “Unknowable,” the beauty of goodness.
I can’t put it better than that.
Hi, Mr. Nature here!
My neighbor’s son is home from college on Winter Solstice/Kwanzaaa Break; and because it has snowed this morning, the poor guy is hiding down the cellar, behind the oil burner.
“He doesn’t want the snow wraiths to get him,” the father explained. “What the heck are snow wraiths, anyway? You’re Mr. Nature, you tell me.”
Well, I’ll try.
See that picture up there, with the spooky faces in it? Those are snow wraiths–evil spirits that come out when it snows. Sometimes they take human form, sometimes they don’t: but always they are on the lookout for someone’s essential life force to consume. They suck it right out like an Electrolux.
“He’s afraid the snow wraiths are gonna get him because he’s not inclusive or diverse enough,” my neighbor says.
It would not comfort him if I told him that, according to tradition, snow wraiths are especially attracted to out-and-out idiocy. But then I don’t believe in snow wraiths, and I don’t know anyone else who believes in them, either–except for a few individuals who learned about snow wraiths in college and haven’t outgrown it yet.
As for the spooky faces in the sky–well, I’ve never seen ’em. Have you?
This carol was first performed sometime around 1360, and it’s still with us today. In fact, we sang this in seventh grade as part of our school’s Christmas concert. This was before we learned that a single atheist killjoy can veto a whole community’s Christmas celebration. But we do show signs of waking from that troubled slumber: I pray it may be so.
Now I have to run off to the nursing home, and I hope to have received some hymn requests from among my vast host of readers by the time I get back.
Remember this TV classic? Sky King, starring Kirby Grant, was one of the earliest TV Western hits, running from 1951-1954. They brought it back in syndication in 1959, which was when I saw it.
Sky King was billed as “America’s favorite flying cowboy.” Was there a lot of competition for that title? Anyhow, it was great fun, watching him chase down the bad guys in his airplane.
Ignore the earnest young woman trying to pass herself off as Peter Pan. Hey, a job is a job, right?
Look at these guys go! Don’t you wish you had that much energy? Don’t you wish you could get that fired up over a plastic ball or a stuffed mouse? Although the thought of some of us rolling around on the floor with a stuffed mouse is… well, daunting…
Every bit as good as the “Everybody Does It” Defense, albeit not quite so universally applicable, is the “We Was Hacked!” Defense.
This was pioneered in 2009 when hackers got into the computers at the Climate Change Unit at East Anglia University, UK, and released thousands of confidential emails that proved, beyond even an unreasonable doubt, that the whole Global Warming jihad rested on lies, suppression of data, intimidation of critics, political payoffs, and other misdeeds: the scandal known as “Climategate.” If you don’t know much about it, that’s because the “mainstream” nooze media did their utmost to bury the story.
Here’s the argument: You are not allowed to consider all this chicanery because the information was obtained by hackers. Never mind that if it weren’t for the hackers, we never would have known about it. You have to ignore it, and still believe in Man-Made Climate Change, because… hackers provided all that information and hacking isn’t nice!
The success of this gambit inspired Democrats to resort to it again, after Donald Trump’s election as president. “Russian hackers made us lose! No fair!”
Thanks to hackers, thanks to Wikileaks, we learned some unsavory things about Hillary Clinton and her mob. To wit:
The DNC rigged the Democrat primary against Bernie Sanders. But you’re not allowed to know that.
Big-time “journalists” actively colluded with the Clinton campaign, and some of them were paid for it. But you’re not allowed to know that.
Off camera, candidate Hillary was anything but “presidential”–cursing people out, flying into rages, throwing things at staffers, and drinking herself silly now and then. But you’re not allowed to know that.
And of course there was much, much more, none of it flattering to Team Hillary. But we weren’t supposed to know about it. And we wouldn’t have, if not for hackers.
Consider this bizarre argument. Because the information was put out by hackers, we are expected to disregard the lying, the cheating, the bribery, and the candidate’s profound dishonesty, plus her revolting personality–and goldarn it, that whole election oughta be overturned because the Russians and Wikileaks hacked the Democrats’ emails! All that stuff was supposed to be a secret! No fair, no fair!
Absent from the discussion is any serious attempt to claim the information wasn’t true. Well, that wouldn’t get them very far, would it?
All right, it’s too bad we have to rely on hackers to get the truth about our politicians and our–ahem!–scientists.
But coming from the crowd who praised the stolen “Pentagon Papers” as the greatest act of public spirit since Paul Revere climbed onto his horse, it rings a bit hollow.