Eurovision Song Contest 2009

I caught the Eurovision Song Contest again this year. My personal favourite, from Estonia, came sixth:



More generally, in spite of the rule changes, voting patterns were much as before, with widely shared support of the top songs, strong votes for neighbouring countries, and predictable asymmetric votes, such as the usual immigrant-driven votes for Turkey, and a strong Russian vote for a French singer already popular there. Nobody is ever going to stop expatriates, with tears in their eyes, voting over and over again for their mother- or father-land.

And, as always, Eurovision offers a fascinating window into what Europe is thinking and feeling. Which includes some rather strange things. Still, I'm always happy to be a European for the night.

An Easter Hymn

I've been practising this on the guitar. A little later, perhaps, but at least I'll know it for next year:

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Highlights from Dante's Paradiso

Some of my favourite quotes from the Paradiso (Dorothy Sayers translation):

"What are the marks that show / so dusky on this body, and suggest / the tale of Cain to people down below?"

"From this new cavil, if thou have the heart / to try, experiment shall set thee free / that source whence all your science has to start"

""Let not men take vows lightly; keep your oath / but not with stubborn wall-eyed foolishness / as Jephthah pledged his first-met, and kept troth / whom more behoved to say 'I did amiss' / than keep it and do worse" (Judges 11:34)

"And when the sacred font in nuptial hour / had wed the Faith to him and him to her / with their salvation for their mutual dower"

Highlights from Dante's Purgatorio

Some of my favourite quotes from the Purgatorio (Dorothy Sayers translation):

"hard on toward the shore he steered his flight ... 'In exitu Israel de Aegypto' ... they sang their holy lay / in unison"

"'this mount is such,' he answered, 'that to those / starting at the foot it's hard in the extreme / the more they climb, the easier it grows"

"Let come to us, let come Thy Kingdom’s peace / if it come not, we’ve no power of our own / to come to it, for all our subtleties"

"I beheld a mob ... stone a lad to death ... but of his eyes / he still made gates to Heaven, and prayed forthwith / ... imploring pardon for his enemies" (Acts 7:60)

"I heard voices speak, entreating there / the Lamb of God who takes our sins away / for peace and mercy"

"I felt as 'twere a wing-beat, felt my head / fanned, and 'Beati', then, 'pacifici / who know not evil wrath,' I heard it said" (Matt 5:9)

"there followed them behind / four living creatures with green foliage crowned / each with six wings was plumed, their plumage lined / all full of eyes" (Rev 4:8)

Highlights from Dante's Inferno

Some of my favourite quotes from the Inferno (Dorothy Sayers translation):

"these doubts breed / from sheer black cowardice, which day by day / lays ambushes for men..."

"her eyes outshone the firmament by far / as she began, in her own gracious tongue / gentle and low, as tongues of angels are"

"through me the road to the city of desolation ... lay down all hope, you that go in by me"

"when on the ground the hoar-frost copies fair / her snow-white sister's image, though her pen / soon losing temper, leaves brief traces there"

The World of Reading

Another photomosaic, based on this painting:

Mateship

I was re-reading Luke 5 the other day, and was reflecting on verses 17-20:

On one of those days, as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law (who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem) were sitting there. The power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick, and some men appeared carrying a paralysed man on a cot, seeking to enter the house and lay him before Jesus. But they could find no way to get in, because of the crowd, so they climbed onto the roof and got through the roof-tiles, lowering the man and his cot into the middle of everyone, right in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."

This passage is such a wonderful illustration of the power and authority of Jesus, that the friends of the paralytic tend to fade into the background. Yet it is their faith and persistence that Jesus responds to. They knew Jesus could heal their friend, and weren't going to let crowds or architecture stop them.

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," but disassembling a roof and laying down a cot is also an act of love.

Trouble Brewing

This is my first experiment with photomosaic software.

The fabulous original photo is by Lori Mehmen of Orchard, Iowa. Images for the mosaic are examples of soi disante "hotness" from hotornot.com.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born 200 years and a few days ago (I forgot the anniversary, because I was celebrating something else). In Lincoln's honour, here is his second inaugural address, inscribed in the Lincoln Memorial in DC:

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether'.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Angels in the Architecture: a Review

I recently read Angels in the Architecture by Douglas Jones and Douglas Wilson (Canon Press, 1998), because people I respect view it positively. What did I think of it? The short answer is that (1) I strongly agree with the basic idea, (2) I strongly disagree with particular details, and (3) I don't think it goes far enough.

Angels in the Architecture is a call to "Medieval Protestantism" – that is, a conservative Protestantism that incorporates aspects of life in the Middle Ages, a time when the whole of society was based on what people believed to be Christian principles. I can agree with this. As a fan of Dante, for example, I see much in the Middle Ages that is attractive. I'm happy to put Art and Poetry on a pedestal. And I'm sure it would be good for me to sing Vespers and Compline every night. Consequently, my first reaction to Angels in the Architecture was to cheer.

However, several aspects of Angels in the Architecture seriously disturbed me, all the more so because of my initial positive reaction. First, like many conservative US Protestants, Jones and Wilson seem to place the Old Testament ahead of the New. This means, for example, that they see biblical support for slavery (an institution which, as an old-fashioned Southerner in spirit, Wilson has previously – and controversially – defended). Many Christians more focused on the New Testament, like John Newton and William Wilberforce, rather famously drew the opposite conclusion. The Old Testament focus of Jones and Wilson also leads them to a vision of life that is agrarian, as opposed to the life of Christians in Rome, Ephesus, and Corinth.

Jones and Wilson also give the impression of being opposed to Reason and to Science. Aristotle, and even more so Plato, appear as enemies, rather than as friends, of the Church. Augustine (who they approve of) would have been surprised at this, having given a partial endorsement of Neoplatonism in his City of God. As a professional scientist, I would rely rather heavily on Augustine in finding a Christian basis for my work, together with the Greek concept of Logos which appears in the Gospel of John. Reason, I believe, is part of the Logos, and therefore so are the eternal truths of Mathematics. Only because the Logos is also the Creator (John 1:10) do the mathematical patterns in Science make sense (and so both Mathematics and Science become, for me as for many scientists of the past, part of the study and worship of God).

The hostility to Science in Angels in the Architecture brings me to my final criticism: Jones and Wilson don't go far enough. Their vision is too small. As a single man, a scientist, and a Christian living in a city, they have very little to say that I can use. In spite of their stated goals, they are happy to concede most of society's territory to the Enemy: Mathematics, Science, and all the world's cities. I'm not happy with that. I want to live in an apartment block designed on Christian principles. I want to write the scientific papers that Jesus would want me to write. I want to watch movies, listen to music, and read books that strengthen and deepen my faith, and help me to become a better disciple of Christ. Put your thinking caps back on, gentlemen, and show me how.

For the cat lovers

Reading this (P. van Renssen – Elegie op het verlies van twee gedode katjes):

Groet God van mij, als jullie weer bij Hem bent teruggekomen
Van wie het blauw van de hemel is, en 't blauw der ogen.
Ik zou ontroostbaar zijn als ik niet wist dat alles, wat van jullie wordt genomen,
't Enige wat jullie hadt, het kleine leven, uit hem was voortgekomen
En in hem terugzinkt, en bij hem beter, liever, schoner is
Dan in dit land des doods, waar elk bezit gemis
Wordt, en missen elk verkrijgen; dat hij meer heeft te geven
Dan ooit te ontvangen is aan teer en schuldloos leven,
Dat jullie kleine pracht maar vlokken van zijn schoon,
Maar stamelingen zijn, maar zeepbel en maar droom.
Speel voort in hem, en lach zijn liefde aan,
Ver van de kleine, stijf gestrekte leden.
Droom voort in hem, voorbij aan dit bestaan,
Dieper dan ooit die dode ogen deden.
En groet hem zo, en vlei hem liever aan,
Vertrouwender nog dan hier, verloren tederheden.

... I was motivated to do a translation:

Elegy on the loss of two murdered kittens

Give God my greeting, when you've returned to Him
Who coloured blue the heavens, and bright eyes.
I would be desolate, did I not know that all they stole from you
All that you had – your fleeting lives – came forth from Him
And goes to be with Him: better, sweeter, more beautiful
Than in this land of loss and death,
Where loss is all our portion; that He has more to give
Than can be gained from pure and guiltless lives,
That your small magnificences were but snowflakes
From His store of beauty, but soapbubbles or dreams.
Play on in Him, return His love with playful laughter,
Far from these tiny, stiffened limbs.
Dream on in Him, beyond this earthly life,
Deeper reality than those dead eyes beheld,
And greet Him there, and rub against His feet,
Trustful and safe, O lost darlings of mine.

... even though I'm not sure I entirely agree with the poet's theology.

Even angels long to look into these things

In a great sermon this morning, my brother reflected on Ephesians 3: "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

In the Old Testament, the construction of a Church across the world was prophesied (e.g. in Malachi: "'My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,' says the LORD Almighty."), but the details were a mystery, even to the angels.

Peter says that "Even angels long to look into these things" (1 Peter 1:12).