A crack in everything

Fred Clark gets it:

One of the first questions when approaching the subject of human nature tends to be are we essentially good or essentially rotten? The Christian answer — “Yes!” — can seem like a cop-out, or a contradiction, or a paradox (the euphemism theologian’s use for those contradictions we like). The idea is that every human is of inestimable worth, bearing the very image of God through and through. Yet every human is also fallen, broken, corrupt, through and through. And the matter of virtue and wickedness is only part of the equation anyway — we’re not just fallen, but also finite, fallible and fragile.

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arclanguage.org

I should have mentioned: via lemonodor.

Yet another WordPress theme

Your blog might be in trouble if you update your blog theme more often than the content.

Blessed Hope Services

The kind people at Blessed Hope Old Regular Baptist Church in Liberty Kentucky have been making their worship services available online, including lots of ‘lined out’ hymns. The general website is at ‘Blessed Hope Services‘. One very nice hymn is ‘Beside the gospel pool’ (mp3). I love how you can often hear the children in the background.

Fum, fum, fum!

Here is my translation of the Catalan Christmas song, “Fum, fum, fum.” I sang it at the Epiphany celebration at Church of the Sojourners last night. I’m sorry I didn’t get the ‘pastorets’ to eat ‘botifarra,’ a Catalunyan sausage.

On December twenty-five
Fum, fum, fum
On December twenty-five
Fum, fum, fum
A child comes in the night
So rosy white, rosy and white
Virgin Mary’s holy son
To a stable now has come
Fum, fum, fum.

At the mountain’s tippy top
Fum, fum, fum
At the mountain’s tippy top
Fum, fum, fum
Two shepherds take their sup
All bundled up, so bundled up,
Dressed in sheepskin and in leather,
Eat their eggs and meat together
Fum, fum, fum.

When at night the sun goes down
Fum, fum, fum
When at night the sun goes down
Fum, fum, fum
Comes an angel all resplendent
Be attendant, attendant!
To the stable where he’s come
God and Mary’s infant son!
Fum, fum, fum.

On December twenty-five
Fum, fum, fum
On December twenty-five
Fum, fum, fum
We honor Christmas day
The greatest day, the bestest day!
As soon as mass is finished
We’ll be eating Christmas dishes.
Fum, fum, fum.

Lord grant “fiestas santas”
Fum, fum, fum
Holy celebrations grant us
Fum, fum, fum
Be it cold or be it hot
It will not stop, it can not stop!
We’ll tell all of Jesus’ story
So he’ll take us up to glory
Fum, fum, fum.

The Iowa Caucuses

Hitchens on the Iowa caucus racket:

I was in Des Moines and Ames in the early fall, and I must say that, as small and landlocked and white and rural as Iowa is, I would be happy to give an opening bid in our electoral process to its warm and generous a

nd serious people. But this is not what the caucus racket actually does. What it does is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates.

Question: why does empire allow this? Is it a Caligulan, we can do anything we damn well please, spirit? Or some other less insane reason?