Writing Archives - New Song

I published a book

It has been a while now since my book came out: Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words. It culminates twenty years of thinking about what exactly Scripture is, getting past the various partial viewpoints and straining for that view from the mountaintop where you can see the whole landscape. That vision was a burden: I felt that I was with child, so to speak, and the only way forward to peace was to bring it forth to the world. The day it was accepted for publication by Ignatius Press I felt a weight drop from my shoulders.

A Song for the Feast of St. John

The Gospel of John: A Processional Hymn

[Tune: BESANÇON. The leader sings the italicized lines, and everyone sings the non-italicized lines. The leader joins everyone in the last line of each verse.]

In the beginning was the Word,
God’s own Word, as yet unheard.
And the Word was with God the Father,
Radiance of eternal splendor.
And the Word was our God on high,
God from God and light from light.

Through the Word all was made that is;
All creation’s splendor his.
Nothing without the Word existed,
Only in him the world persisted.
He was before all things with God,
Everlasting, changing not.

In him was life, the light of men;
Dark can never enter him.
In the dark shines the light engendered,
Radiance of the Father’s splendor.
Darkness can never overcome
Light from light, God’s only Son.

[All kneel.]

The Word was made flesh and dwelt on earth,
Of a virgin taking birth.
We have beheld his glory gleaming,
Radiance from the Father streaming,
Glory as of the Son most high,
God from God and light from light.

[All stand. Repeat verse 1.]

Eyes to See

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a country not far from here, there lived a sculptor. By making statues, he supported himself and his wife comfortably. He had very few problems with his neighbors, a small community of people whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers had eaten at the same tables; and the town was nice, located in the deepest part of a valley with large, noble mountains on all sides.

I’m now available on CD

Well, it isn’t my voice on the CD. Some years ago I wrote a poem, “Surgamus et aedificemus,” based on Nehemiah 2:18. Then my good friend Peter Kwasnewski set it to music, and eventually it was recorded by the Scottish choir Cantiones Sacrae for their CD that dropped this past December:

You can hear their performance of Surgamus and see the musical score here, at Peter Kwasniewski’s Youtube channel. For now, here’s the text from the CD booklet:

You can purchase the CD from England here, or if you want to save a few bucks just go to Peter’s website and donate $15, letting him know that you would like the CD. He’ll send you one.

Hey, I know that guy….

The latest newsletter from the monks of Norcia, Italy, includes a list of everything the monks read aloud during their meals this past year. It is an interesting list in itself, but for this reader there is a pleasant surprise in the left-hand column:

What a metaphor really means

A high school textbook taught me the standard line: similes are comparisons, and metaphors are similes without the word “like” or “as”. So when I say, “Achilles was a lion,” I mean that Achilles was like a lion. I just don’t say “like”.

The absurdity bothered me to no end. How could anyone with ears think that “Achilles was a lion” sounds like “Achilles was like a lion”? Is the one sentence that much stronger just because it is one word shorter? On the other hand, how could I hope that anyone else heard the same difference that screamed at me? When you’re in high school, there are certain feelings you just don’t share, like your ambition for glory, or your romantic daydreams, or your ceaseless frustration over the textbook definition of “metaphor”.

The Message in the Calendar

Imagine that you opened the first door of your Advent calendar and found this secret message, put in the calendar long ago especially for you. It would seem strange, would it not? A message in a calendar? But the Advent calendar tells a story that begins long, long ago—and it begins with a message in a calendar.

God does not use a calendar, because God does not use time. He is eternal, which means that he does not live in seconds and minutes and hours and days and months and years. But he wanted to give his life to men, who do live in time, so when he prepared a world for men the first thing he made was a calendar. Continue reading “The Message in the Calendar”

Hands blessed for blessing

A crack runs through the sanctuary of God,
a crevice across the floor,
spewing smoke from under the altar;
The crack widens into a chasm,
the crevice into an abyss,
belching clouds to hide the heavens.
From the blackness emerges a scorpion,
a locust with sting in its tail,
and takes its stand at the altar;
From the deep creeps a face like a man’s,
a head with hair like a woman’s,
and presides over the mystery of ages.
Locusts swarm over locusts,
the mass of scorpions writhes,
it kindles a coarse fire.
Locusts entangled with locusts,
scorpion legs around scorpion tails,
in a fire that burns but does not warm,
a fire that consumes but gives no light,
and they smile with teeth like a human’s.
The people shuffle into the Temple,
they drag their feet into the sanctuary;
they are obliged to Mass every Sunday.
They come like lambs to the slaughter,
they breathe the smoke and the ashes;
there is no other path to communion.

Lord, Lord, if I could only look away. Continue reading “Hands blessed for blessing”

And now something silly about a goose

[If you like singing the round, “Why Shouldn’t My Goose,” then you will love this post. If you hate silly things like rounds, click away now while you still can.]

Dramatis Personae
A: City slicker and leader of singing group A.
B: Country bumpkin and leader of singing group B.

My Goose, Thy Goose

A: Oy! Watch out! Thou hast mixed up our things!

B: Sorry about that. We’ll just move over to the side.

A: Oy! Thou hast my goose! Continue reading “And now something silly about a goose”

Everything but my own blog

Although I have not written much lately, I have posted a few things for the Aquinas Institute on their blog. Most recently I put up something about Advent–read it while it’s relevant!

Otherwise, I have done technical grunt work for a local food bank. My son and I built their website, and this week we had to move the entire site to a new web host as part of our effort to enable online donations. Right now we’re waiting for the SSL Certificate to come through, so your browser may or may not claim that the site is “unsafe”. It’s harmless: we don’t actually know how to hurt you.

In the evenings, I read bits from The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, by Charles Peguy. It makes me want to write again. Maybe someday soon.