Smokin’ Pipes! (Vital Organ)

Yes Virginia, words DO have meaning.
In spite of all that my postmodernist professors have said,
words have meaning… especially when arranged in sentences.

[Just ask Madonna.]

Here is a magnificent text for all you cutting-edge linguistic hipsters to deconstruct, heteroglossically demythologize, and ontologically implode through polylectic subtextual analysis.

OMG –  it doesn’t get much better than this!       (…or DOES  it ? )

Isn’t this where the expression “pull out all the stops” comes from ?

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the apostles’ glorious company,
who bearing forth the cross o’er land and sea,
shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
is fair and fruitful, be thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
and seeing, grasped it, thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
and win, with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
the saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
and singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

William W. How   (1823-1897)
Thanks to:    http://www.oremus.org

Ralph Erskine Throws Down

And when he does,
the Elect get off  SCOT-FREE
like an antinomian Presbyterian, baby.

Ask your MAMA to look it up…

 

  Gots the lyrics for y’all from the free KIRK of Caledonia,
so CHILL— cause when Li’l JOHN KNOX,
you KNOW the door  be swinging right off the HINGES !

Ralph Erskine was OG, cold-rhymin’ Calvinist paradigmin’ the Scottish Reformation to every nation 
so GET DOWN, DON’T MOVE 
and AINT NOBODY GON’ GIT HURT , YO 

 

Yesiree , my beloved hepcats and boogie-woogie enthusiasts
get swell to this syncopated theophany,

only to be found HERE

Ralph Erskine (1685-1752)


Earth Despicable—Heaven Desirable

There’s nothing round the spacious earth
       To suit my vast desires;
To more refined and solid mirth
       My boundless thought aspires.

Fain would I leave this mournful place,
       This music dull, where none
But heavy notes have any grace,
       And mirth accents the moan:

Where troubles tread upon reliefs,
       New woes with older blend;
Where rolling storms and circling griefs
       Run round without an end:

Where waters wrestling with the stones,
       Do fight themselves to foam,
And hollow clouds, with thund’ring groans,
       Discharge their pregnant womb:

Where eagles mounting meet with rubs
       That dash them from the sky;
And cedars, shrinking into shrubs,
       In ruin prostrate lie:

Where sin the author of turmoils,
       The cause of death and hell;
The one thing foul that all things foils,
       Does most befriended dwell.

The purchaser of night and woe,
       The forfeiter of day,
The debt that ev’ry man did owe,
       But only God could pay.

Bewitching ill, indors’d with hope,
       Subscribed with despair:
Ugly in death when eyes are ope,
       Though life may paint it fair.

Small wonder that I droop alone
       In such a doleful place;
When lo! my dearest friend is gone,
       My Father hides his face.

And though in words I seem to show
       The fawning poets style,
Yet is my plaint no feigned woe;
       I languish in exile.

I long to share the happiness
       Of that triumphant throne,
That swim in seas of boundless bliss
       Eternity along.

When but in drops here by the way
       Free love distils itself,
I pour contempt on hills of prey,
       And heaps of wordly pelf.

To be amidst my little joys,
       Thrones, sceptres, crowns, and kings,
Are nothing else but little toys,
       And despicable things.

Down with disdain earth’s pomp I thrust,
       Put tempting wealth away;
Heav’n is not made of yellow dust,
       Nor bliss of glittering clay.

Sweet was the hour I freedom felt
       To call my Jesus mine;
To see his smiling face, and melt
       In pleasures all divine.

Let fools an heav’n of shades pursue,
       But I for substance am:
The heav’n I seek is likeness to,
       And vision of the Lamb.

The worthy Lamb with glory crown’d
       In his august abode;
Enthron’d sublime, and deck’d around
       With all the pomp of God.

I long to join the saints above,
       Who crown’d with glorious bays,
Through radiant files of angels move,
       And rival them in praise:

In praise to JAH, the God of love,
       The fair incarnate Son,
The holy co-eternal Dove,
       The good, the great Three-one.

In hope to sing without a sob
       The anthem ever new,
I gladly bid the dusty globe,
       And vain delights, Adieu.

Download all of Ralph’s lyrics HERE

Credit and thanks to:
http://involutedgenealogies.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/law-death-and-gospel-life-ralph-erskine/

Kublai Khan greets Yaitopya


…A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

From: Kubla Khan by Coleridge ( 1772- 1834)


From Yaitopya to YOU
by way of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
only on Connect/Hook

Let’s start 2012 out with this lovely Psalm sung by Senait Engda.
And may Ethiopia stretch out her hands according to the Scriptures in this new year:

Princes shall come out of Egypt;
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.

Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth;
O sing praises unto the Lord; Selah:

To him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens,
which were of old;
lo, he doth send out his voice,
and that a mighty voice.

Ascribe ye strength unto God:
his excellency is over Israel,
and his strength is in the clouds.

O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places:
the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power
unto his people.

Blessed be God.

Psalm 68:31-36     (KJV)

PSALMS=POETRY=PSALMS=POETRY=PSALMS=POETRY=PSALMS

Golden Tradition

Antiochus IV Epiphanes ain’t got NUTHIN on Craig Robinson, yo.

I saw him on that Jewish cable station.

He’s the Chanukah heavyweight in the Festival of Lights.

I didn’t even realize it began days ago.
Dang – guess I don’t have enough LIGHT (nor latkes) in my dwelling this year…

Chappy Chanukah if you celebrate it.