This Hope

How many times have I tried To bow my head in prayer When I know I have failed Him?
How can I look to His face When I see the pain I've caused in the tears that are falling?
But I know He's but there waiting for me to turn to Him.
I must find the strength He's given and claim His promise to forgive.


This hope I've found
In the mercy of my Lord,
That He paid the debt for me,
That my works could not afford.
I know that there is a hope:
This Hope I've found in Christ.


How can I stand before men When I know it's me who needs strength In these things that I'm sharing?
How can I bid you look up When I know it's me from the depths Of this world who is reaching?
I am not even worthy This message now to bring.
I must give Him all the glory For by His grace alone I sing.

In a world where the phrase "Christian Music" often conjures up all sorts of bad connotations:
1a. Trite and/or repetitive lyrics
1b. Songs that could equally well be addressed to one's significant other if their name were substituted for "Jesus"
1c. The theological understanding of a whiny 3-year-old
2a. The vocal prowess of the same whiny 3-year-old
2b. General lack of excellence
3. Money is the priority, rather than ministry
This Hope is a breath of fresh air.

Of course, they are not perfect, and their musical style may not fit everyone, but...
1a,b,c. Their lyrics are taken from Scripture, thoughtful integration of life experiences with Biblical principles, or hymns.  Trite and repetitive they are not.  Encouraging and thought-provoking they are.  
1b. There is no mistaking that these songs are sung to the Creator of the universe.
1c. I may  not always agree with everything theologically, but for the most part, they are spot-on.  
2a. Five men who can sing together in beautiful harmony - often acappella.  Need I say more?  
2b. I know they continually strive for excellence in this area as well.  
3.  They do make a living from their music, so it is understandable for them to charge money for merchandise and such.  Everything is reasonably priced, though, and at least here, their concert is always free.  It is clear: they have a heart for the ministry.


If this sounds like an advertisement, well, take it rather as a recommendation from a friend.  If you've never heard of them, they are worth at least checking out.  To start you off, here's one of my favorites:

"Break My Plans"

Favorite Christmas Carols

Everyone has one. Mine just happens to be one that is utterly unknown by your average college student.

So here's an introduction to what is, if not my very favorite carol, at least in my top 5 or so. I don't know the second song they sing, so feel free to skip it if you like. On the other hand, they have a beautiful sound, so why not enjoy it?

And to aid in your enjoyment, here are the lyrics.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.

It's December...

...and mosquitoes are in the air! I probably kill an average of one or two a day. Not a problem that is common in Montana in December.

(Oh, Happy first of December and Rabbits and all that. :)

I went to the Scottish Presbyterian church again on Sunday. You know what my favorite part is? They have music! I mean, like, hymnals where you can sight-read the music if you don't happen to know the song! They also sing hymns! The other churches I've been to (and our own vespers service) generally sing more "praise songs." Which isn't bad, but if you don't know the song, well, you're kind of out of luck because they're only going to sing through it once. The entire semester. Ok, so I don't want to be a grumpy, picky person, but I will say that is nice to be able to have music to look at while you try to learn the songs.

It was a rather busy weekend for me. I had a final and a paper due on Thursday and then two papers and a final today. Glad those are over! Now I just have two more finals. Hebrew is tomorrow and shouldn't be too bad. Archaeology is on Friday, and I am a bit more worried about that one. I think I will be eating, breathing, and sleeping archaeology for most of the rest of the week.

I leave for Egypt on Saturday! So exciting! That's going to be quite a trip.

Tonight I got to see the conjunction of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter. Over Jerusalem. Someone said that they last time they were in this formation was around 2 BC, but I haven't been able to find confirmation of that. At any rate, it's a beautiful sight.

Churches and such

Yesterday I had the chance to actually go to two different churches for two different reasons.

In the morning I went to St. Andrew's Scottish Presbyterian Church, just across the Hinnom Valley from my school. (Maria, I thought of you!) It was a pretty good service. (I liked the windows too.)
The message was on Matthew (specifically 25:31-46). Of course. I seem to be unable to escape Matthew. My pastor at home has been going through Matthew for a couple years now. I'm taking a class on Matthew this semester. I don't claim to know much about the church calendar for readings and such, but apparently the book of Matthew has been part of the scheduled readings for this semester. Therefore, since of the 4 times I've been able to attend church this semester, I've gone twice to an Anglican church and once to a Presbyterian church, those three services have been on Matthew. It's kind of funny, but hey, it's a good book, so I won't complain. Anyway, I'm not sure that I would agree theologically with everything that was said, but for the most part it seemed pretty solid. The preacher started out with a story of how world renowned violinist Joshua Bell had once gone to the train station in Washington DC and started playing like a student trying to earn some extra cash. He played for nearly an hour and only a couple people stopped to listen. He earned something like $32, when just nights ago hundreds of people had payed hundreds of dollars to hear him play in a large concert hall. How often are we so busy with our life that we miss things like that? In the context of Matthew 25:31-46, how often are we so busy that we miss opportunities to do good? Jesus here doesn't judge people based on the bad that they did but on the good they failed to do. Hmm...

After the service we stayed around for a bit and talked to people. I gather that it's normally a pretty small congregation. There were probably about 10 of us from JUC and then there was a group of about 20 visiting from Edinburgh. All together, we must have made up over half the congregation. The only people I ended up talking to were the visitors, but they were very pleasant people. It makes me sad, though. There are so many huge church buildings over here representing so many different denomonations, and they have such tiny memberships. I kind of get the feeling that they are just surviving, not thriving. I do hear, though, that the palestinian church is growing quite a bit, which is encouraging.

As we were heading out Vernon showed us the sight of "Ketef Hinnom" (meaning "the shoulder of Hinnom"). This site was excavated by my own archaeology professor, Gabby Barkay. In fact, it was kind of the sight that made him famous. It also provides numerous problems for the minimalists, which is always a good thing. :) I don't know much about it, but maybe I'll ask in my next archaeology class.

Last night, after finishing my Matthew paper, I headed out with some people to the Dormition Abbey for a free brass ensemble concert! I hadn't been inside the Dormition Abbey before, and it was pretty impressive. As Cameron said, one wonders where they get the money for that sort of a building. (I guess in this case, Kaiser Wilhelm probably provided most of it.) And I wonder if the money could be better spent elsewhere? I mean, how important is it for a church building to be beautiful? I don't think that it's entirely unimportant, but it seems like there are so many other things that should take precidence. Anyway, the concert was a lot of fun. The group was, I believe, from Germany, which means that most of the explanations were done in German. Unfortunately, I understand very little German. Oh well. I enjoyed the music anyway, and recognized some of the songs. And yes, they definitely played Mary Bennet's song ("Slumber dear maid....") It made me smile and wish for someone who would get the joke. They may have not been the best ensemble ever, but since pretty much the only concerts I've been to in recent years have been High School bands, well, I thought they were pretty decent. :) It was fun hearing the resonance in the church too. It made me think fondly of all my brass playing relatives and friends. Miss y'all!

Oh, and while we were there, Peter noticed something about the floor of the church. You may remember a while ago from our Galilee trip I mentioned that a lot of Synagogues in that region had the Zodiac in mosaics on their floor? Well this church did too. Which I find very odd. Why would they do such a thing? It makes even less sense than it did in Jewish Synagogues. Odd.

Randomness!

Today I went to volunteer again. I helped in a 3rd grade classroom, which went fairly well. I don't think I would have the patience to teach there full-time, though. The kids are pretty wild and the school seems pretty disorganized (both in discipline and other areas.) Anyway... Melissa, who had been going with me, was again unable to go today. I always miss her, but I am also growing in my confidence to go about the city by myself when necessary. Apparently I'm starting to look like I belong too. Today I was walking back to school from the bus stop and a lady stopped me by Jaffa gate to ask about "Mamilla." I think she was Muslim (by her head covering) and I think she was speaking Hebrew, so that's about all that I understood. I pointed her to the Mamilla Mall (hopefully that's what she wanted) and was thanked in Hebrew. Anyway, not sure why she choose to ask me, but I guess I'll take it as a compliment. :)

I heard a fairly strong indictment of Christian music the other day. I was talking to a friend here who likes to listen to rap music. He apparently especially likes this Muslim rapper from Chicago. I must have looked skeptical or something becaue he tried to assure me, saying something like "It's clean - pretty much the same as Christian music." If all we expect of Christian music is that it be clean and otherwise indistinguishable from the music of any other worldview (secular humanism, Islam, Budhism, etc.) then our standards are far too low. (In defense of him, that's probably not quite what he meant, and he would probably agree that Christian music should have higher standards, but I think that his statement, whether he meant it that way or not, reflects the attitude of a lot of people. We listen to Christian music because it's clean, not because it's specifically CHRISTIAN in its worldview.)

Today is election day in Jerusalem. Interesting issues in this city. An article I read the other day said that Jerusalem rated pretty low in "livablity" when compared to other Israeli cities - lots of trash, fewer city services, bad parking. Jerusalem is also on the border between Israel and the West Bank, which means it has a larger Arab population. In addition to the Arab population there are Religious Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Secular Jews, all of which have very different ideas of how thing should be. I didn't know this before coming here, but apparently the Ultra-Orthodox don't work so they can spend all day studying Torah and Mishnah. They also have lots of children. They expect to be supported by the government. Kind of a drain on the economy. Jewish-Arab tensions aside, Jewish-Jewish tensions are fierce.

Here's an interesting article: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035415.html.

I have Hebrew today! We are working on translating Ruth. As much as I get rather frustrated with that class, I do enjoy starting to understand the text.

I leave for Jordan on Thrusday! I'm pretty excited. :) I get to see the "real" Petra. I'm sure I'll post notes and photos when I get back. Until then...

Another song

One of my co-workers this summer taught me this song. I believe the version he knows is a mix of more contemporary music and old words, so I'm not sure how the original hymn sounded (I'm pretty sure there was an original hymn). I do, however, really like the version I was taught, and I like the words, so here they are:

“We have not known Thee as we ought”
By Thomas Pollack, 1889

We have not known Thee as we ought,
Nor learned Thy wisdom, grace and power;
The things of earth have filled our thought,
And trifles of the passing hour.
Lord, give us light Thy truth to see,
And make us wise in knowing Thee.

We have not feared Thee as we ought,
Nor bowed beneath Thine awful eye,
Nor guarded deed and word and thought,
Remembering that God was nigh.
Lord, give us faith to know Thee near,
And grant the grace of holy fear.

We have not loved Thee as we ought,
Nor cared that we are loved by Thee;
Thy presence we have coldly sought,
And feebly longed Thy face to see.
Lord, give a pure and loving heart
To feel and know the love Thou art.

We have not served Thee as we ought,
Alas, the duties left undone,
The work with little fervor wrought,
The battles lost or scarcely won!
Lord, give the zeal, and give the might,
For Thee to toil, for Thee to fight.

When shall we know Thee as we ought,
And fear and love and serve aright?
When shall we, out of trial brought,
Be perfect in the land of light?
Lord, may we day by day prepare
To see Thy face and serve Thee there.

Addendum 07/27/08

Here's a link to the mp3 version of the song (when the link works.)
http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/wehavenot_tsf_071005.mp3

Thoughts on Music

I've thought a lot about music at various times. For example, how much does what we listen to affect us? Does the type of music affect us? Are some types of music (apart from lyrics) better than others (morally, aesthetically, technically, etc.)

Recently (well, fairly recently...it was before school ended, but I haven't really had time to blog on it since) I had another thought.

Actually, I was talking to one of my students about the music I was playing at the time (Russell Watson, I believe.) He said he'd like to be able to sing like that if he couldn't be a rock star (or rap artist?)...or something sort of along those lines. It was a while ago. To make a short story shorter we started to compare the beauty of the semi-classical music we were listening to to the beauty of rap. As a disclaimer, I've never claimed to be a fan of rap. Sometimes I can stand some of it. But this student does like rap, and I got him to agree that rap really cannot be considered beautiful. Fun, cool, sweet perhaps...but not generally what comes to mind when you think of beauty.

Perhaps others would disagree (and some rap songs may be exceptions to the "rule"), and if so I'd like to hear their arguments. At any rate, the conversation started me thinking. At Petra we emphasize the importance of truth and beauty and their connectedness. Now, I haven't drawn any hard conclusions, but I do wonder. If some types of music have less beauty than others, does that mean they also have less truth? Or perhaps reflect the true form of music less truly?

Just some thoughts/questions. Comments are welcome. ;)

And for the fun of it, here's a beautiful picture from here at camp. :)

New Song

This is a song we sang in church this last Sunday. I don't think I'd seen it before, but it was sung to the same tune as "The water's wide" so it was easy to pick up, and I really liked it. I don't think we sang all of the verses, but I'll include them anyway.

The Lord is King
by Josiah Conder

The Lord is King! lift up thy voice,
O earth; and all ye heav’ns, rejoice!
From world to world the joy shall ring,
“The Lord omnipotent is King.”

The Lord is King! who then shall dare
Resist His will, distrust His care,
Or murmur at His wise decrees,
Or doubt His royal promises?

The Lord is King! Child of the dust,
The Judge of all the earth is just;
Holy and true are all His ways;
Let every creature speak His praise.

O when His wisdom can mistake,
His might decay, His love forsake,
Then may His children cease to sing,
“The Lord omnipotent is King!”

Alike pervaded by His eye,
All parts of His dominion lie;
This world of ours, and worlds unseen,
And thin the boundary between.

He reigns! ye saints, exalt your strains;
Your God is King, your Father reigns;
And He is at the Father’s side,
The Man of love, the Crucified.

Come, make your wants, your burdens known;
He will present them at the throne;
And angel bands are waiting there
His messages of love to bear.

One Lord, one empire, all secures;
He reigns, and life and death are yours:
Through earth and Heav’n shall ring,
“The Lord omnipotent is King!”