Hymns for Tough Times in the Church

I've been planning the two hymns below for a while. In fact, with them I catch up with all my unrealized hymn plans, and from here on I either have to wing it or figure out a new plan. Once again, a bout of insomnia in the middle of the night prompted me to set pen to paper, with these results. The tune for 241 is NAGLET TIL ET KORS, from Hartnack O.K. Zinck's Koralbog of 1801. The tune for 242 is MEINE HOFFNUNG by Joachim Neander, 1680, which I have used once before for an original hymn. In case these tunes don't register on your singability meter, each has a reasonably nice alternative tune that, funnily enough, comes from the same source: Zinck's PAA SIT KORS and Neander's UNSER HERRSCHER (only with two notes in the penultimate phrase tied together).

241. Prayer About a Church Divided

Lord, whose free, creating vision
Made distinction and division,
Night from day and sea from land:
Help, lest brother part from brother,
Drawing boundaries for other
Than the reasons You command.

Christ, who brought a sword, dividing
These who trust from those deriding
You and all that makes for peace:
Now make good Your prayer, desiring
Those You serve with love untiring
To be one, their strife to cease.

Holy Spirit, call and gather
Daughter, mother, son and father;
Heal the wounds that ill divide.
Bind us all in true believing,
One another's faith perceiving,
Till we face You, side by side.

242. Prayer About Mistreated Ministers

Christ, whose ancient prophets cherished
News of You when they were sent:
Well You know how oft they perished,
Slain by those to whom they went.
Lord, we pray: Help, today,
One who walks the prophets' way.

You Yourself, Lord Jesus, tasted
Of the prophets' bitter cup;
Lest Your suffering be wasted,
Hold Your wounded witness up.
Lord, we pray: Help, today,
One who walks Your cross's way.

Those who clamored to be seated
At Your right hand or Your left,
You warned, first might be defeated
By the world, abused, bereft.
Lord, we pray: Help, today,
One who walks the apostles' way.

Bind his wounds, O heav'nly Healer;
Send Your angels, giving strength
To Your medicine's revealer
And its patient, till at length
He arise, Fixing eyes
On the precious, perfect prize.

Bad Unicorn

Bad Unicorn
by Platte F. Clark
Recommended Ages: 12+

According to The Codex of Infinite Knowability - which Madison, Texas middle-schooler Max Spencer dug out from under his bed one fateful day when he was late to write a book report - our modern world is one of three principal levels of reality, known as the Techrus. There's also the Magrus, home of such magical creatures as unicorns, fire kittens, and zombie ducks; then there's the Shadrus, which we don't talk about. There's also an in-between place known as the Mesoshire, which can be reached on foot from either the Techrus or the Magrus, but anyone in a hurry would rather teleport from one to the other using the mystical Tree of Attenuation. And there's also a place called the Umbraverse, sort of the flip side of the universe, but it's not a very nice place to visit.

Max learns all this from a book that apparently only he can read - or even touch without receiving a painful electric shock - written by the world-sundering arch-sorcerer himself, Maximilian Sporazo. This apparently means Max is a blood descendant of Sporazo. Because of that, before he knows it, he's a wanted boy - wanted by the Maelshadow, the dark lord of the Shadrus; wanted by the ambitious arch-mage Rezormoor Dreadbringer; wanted, most urgently, by a unicorn named Princess. Don't let her pink sparkly mane fool you; Princess (surnamed "the Destroyer") is a vicious monster with a taste for human flesh. She can't wait to get her hooves on Max, because once she does, Rezormoor has promised to let her feast on the people of Texas.

Luckily, just when Princess and her glum personal wizard arrive in Madison, Max has inadvertently set off a spell launching himself, his dorky best friend Dirk, a girl warrior named Sarah, and an outcast dwarf named Dwight 300 years into the future. Unluckily, his departure from the present has altered history, resulting in a future where machines have taken over the world, humanity is extinct, and immortal robot versions of Princess and her henchwizard command an audience of millions in a nightly, televised hunt of the most helpless creatures in all three realms, frobbits. Yes, frobbits, fantasy fans: big eared, hairy footed little people who are really, really bad at fleeing from predators and even worse at fighting back. Now the survival of humans, dwarves, and dragons - I didn't mention dragons, did I? - depend on Sarah training an army of frobbits and snow fairies to fight against mechanized hunters, and on Max figuring out how to master the magic in a book that sometimes would rather talk about its theory that squirrels are taking over the world.

This is the first book of the "Bad Unicorn" trilogy, which continues in Fluff Dragon and Good Ogre, by an author who lives in Utah with his wife and seven kids. Judging by this book, that must be a really interesting household to live in. It's a hilarious, off-the-wall book full of irreverent fantasy and gaming in-references, endearingly goofy character portraits, and the under-utilized type of comedy that finds humor in the juxtaposition of timeless magic with banal reality. It mentions the Inn of the Flatulent Orc, a batch of evil apple fritters, and a game that robs its players of their reason (oddly resembling golf). It takes satirical shots at several recent Disney animated features. And it demonstrates, on practically every page, how a unicorn gone bad can be a threat to everyone and everything. Read at your own risk - of splitting a gut laughing.

Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth

Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth
by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Recommended Ages: 10+

Looking after his forgetful grandfather, so granddad can continue to look after him, has gotten extra difficult lately for silent young Prez Mellows. When the old man's latest exploit has led to him being driven away in a police car, Prez is consigned to the Temporary - that's southern Scotland for a facility that houses underage wards of the state. Because it's summer, the Temporary in turn places him with a farm family, where everybody talks non-stop, so they hardly notice how Prez never says a word. While he's there, he befriends a strange boy named Sputnik, whom everyone else sees as a dog (though each person sees a different dog). Sputnik claims he has come to Earth from across the universe, to protect the boy when Galactic Downsizing plans to reduce the planet to the size of a tennis ball to make room for more interesting worlds.

Together, they start a list of 10 reasons not to destroy the earth. Meantime, Prez hopes to spring his granddad from jail, even though he has nothing to guide him except a cryptic map his grandfather made of all the places they've visited. Sputnik shows Prez that gravity is more interesting than he knew, that the TV controller can fast-forward or rewind more than what's on TV, and other examples of the surprising things you can find out if you actually read the instructions to things. Together they capture a couple of burglars, lead a jailbreak (first going out, then back in), teach a real dog to speak English, cut down a tree with a child's toy and put it back together again, and build a leaning tower of haystacks. Their adventures are weird and wonderful, and eventually bring the voice out of a child who has been holding it in all his life.

I had a great time reading this book. It made me laugh out loud, and abounded in strange ideas and little-known facts. Under all the gags and special effects, it has a gentle, warm heart. But then, I've liked pretty much everything else I've read by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who won a Carnegie Medal for Millions. His other books for young readers include Framed, Cosmic, Desirable, The Unforgotten Coat, Triple Word Score, The Astounding Broccoli Boy, Runaway Robot, and four sequels to Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

240. Youth Hymn About the Church Year

To wile away the latest in a string of restless nights, I dreamed up this hymn for older children (or maybe adults) who want to learn about the church year. It might go down in history as the first Lutheran hymn to employ the word "slumming," if that term doesn't date it beyond usefulness. The tune I initially chose for it is a four-line number called DEBENHAM by Richard Redhead (1820-1901). A reader's comment persuaded me to merge the original ten four-line stanzas into five eight-line stanzas and suggested several tunes in that meter, from which I chose GALILEAN by Joseph Barnby, 1883 (see below). Fear not, I'm saving DEBENHAM for something else.

Thank You, Lord, for all the seasons
Making up Your church's year.
Help us think about the reasons
For the lessons that we hear.
Earth has autumn, springtime's swelling,
Summer's fullness, winter's rest;
So Your church has seasons telling
Time as serves Your teaching best.

Christ, Your Advent, or your coming,
Teaches us to watch and wait,
Neither slumbering nor slumming,
Till we see You, soon or late.
Christmas is our time for marking
God with us, Immanuel's birth,
With the joyful shepherds harking
To the angels' "Peace on earth!"

Christ's Epiphany, revealing
Light to Gentile nations, glows
With His pow'r for feeding, healing,
Which God's love so richly shows.
Lent prepares us for the Passion -
Jesus' suffering and death -
So in meek, repentant fashion
We take in His dying breath.

Easter, from Christ's resurrection
Till He soared above all things,
Gives a glorious, glad direction
To the fate our future brings.
After Pentecost, the Spirit
Guides the church's daily walk
As the bride of Christ; His merit
Is her gown, and He her Rock.

None may judge our feast or fasting,
Since our Savior set us free.
God, whose grace is everlasting,
Leaves to us when each will be.
Freely, then, we use this order
For the lessons that we hear,
Trusting God, our faith's rewarder,
Every season of the year.

239. Objective Justification Hymn

I've been brainstorming for quite a while over a hymn that I felt was needed to address, in a devotionally polemical way, some recent debates in U.S. Lutheranism about the doctrine of objective justification. A page in my gradually developing volume of "Edifying Hymns" has been marked for it. A list of speaking (or singing) points has been stewing in my writing journal. It's been in the back of my mind. Last night, I finally decided to undertake the actual writing of that hymn, as an outlet for some restless energy. I was thinking about writing it to fit the tune GOTT DER VATER WOHN UNS BEI, but I've already used that tune for two different original hymns. So, instead, I wrote an original tune in a somewhat different meter, titled JUSTIFICATION.

The Lord has sworn in sooth:
He would see all men saved
And brought to know the truth.
So deeply this He craved,
His only Son, eternal Christ,
To sinful Adam's line was spliced
And, once for all, was sacrificed -
For which He, only He, sufficed.
No idle promise this, no lie;
Who would God's plighted word deny?

While we were helpless - nay:
While we were yet in sin
And under bondage lay,
God's foes, and dead within -
Then Christ for us was crucified;
Then Christ for all our trespass died;
Then He, when raised and glorified,
The unjust fully justified.
What merit dare we, then, inject
Twixt lost mankind and the elect?

When He was sacrificed,
Pierced through His hands and feet,
Our dying Lord and Christ
Declared the thing complete.
His off'ring - blameless, broken, brave -
An answer to all charges gave,
All flesh redeemed from hell and grave,
Accorded with God's will to save.
He pled, "Forgive them" as He died;
Who would God's counsel now divide?

What God declares is done,
Nor on man's pleasure waits.
His Word with Him is one
And what He speaks, creates.
For faith His words of promise sue
And, though such faith to them is due,
Need naught from us to make them true.
The faith He justifies us through,
His living, active word imparts
Unto our void and formless hearts.

We live by God's own act;
His righteous verdict flows
From the objective fact
The heart thus opened knows.
Salvation comes from God's own heart,
The course His changeless will did chart,
The Lamb for slaughter set apart,
The gifts His means of grace impart.
Through faith, not unto faith, we raise,
But unto Christ, pure hearts in praise.

Lair of Dreams

Lair of Dreams
by Libba Bray
Recommended Ages: 14+

In Book 2 of the "Diviners" series, the author of A Great and Terrible Beauty, The Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing continues her saga about young adults with paranormal powers in the Prohibition period. It features a party girl, radio personality and "sweetheart seer" named Evie, who is torn between two boys (always a great place to start) and who has the ability to read people's past from objects they touched (which I bet you didn't see coming). There's also a studly cyborg named Jericho, a ne'er-do-well named Sam who can hypnotize people not to see him, a Ziegfeld Follies chorus-line girl named Theta who can set fires with her bare hands, a young Harlem poet named Memphis who has the healing touch, a couple of dream-walkers from widely different backgrounds, and of course how would they get along without dear, unpowered Mabel? Between them, if they could only get their act together, they might be able to stop an evil spirit that is preying on people, using their dreams to suck the life-force out of them.

I'll be blunt and to the point. I would only give this book three stars out of five. Yes, the jazzy atmosphere of the flapper era is, indeed, the elephant's eyebrows (Star 1). The looming threat of the Man in the Stovepipe Hat and the ghostly jiggery-pokery that causes an outbreak of sleeping sickness makes for some truly yummy horror and suspense (Star 2). And some of the main characters show real promise as heroes of an entertaining fantasy franchise (Star 3).

But this book, like the one before it (The Diviners), keeps so many plates spinning, so many plot lines bowling along separately and each at a none-too-rapid pace, and takes so long getting to the always-anticipated point where the hero characters recognize what the mystery is and start working together to solve it, that I for one became exasperated by about one-third of the way through it, and continued reading in a state of exasperation until exasperatingly close to the end. So exasperated was I, and if you're getting exasperated with my use of the word exasperated that's just tough because I want you to know how I felt, so exasperated was I (says I) that I consider it generous of me to knock off only one star for this. I think there are writers who would have made a virtue of this problem, in the form of suspense, but I don't think Libba Bray was one of them in this instance.

Also like The Diviners, this book finally whips up a goodly head of dramatic energy at its climax, only to let it dissipate in anticlimactic fashion with an unnecessarily long coda. So it ends up being another one of those books that made me want to scream, "Isn't this [expletive deleted] book over yet?" - which is remarkable, considering how few pages ago I was biting back an oath to the effect, "Is this story ever going to get moving?" Hence the second subtracted star.

Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning there is a third book in this series, titled Before the Devil Breaks You. Bray is also the author of Going Bovine, Beauty Queens, and It's Just a Jump to the Left.

The Moon Is Down

The Moon Is Down
by John Steinbeck
Recommended Ages: 12+

This novella, published in 1942 during the thick of World War II, sketches out a stirring tale of resistance when a free people is conquered by a totalitarian one. It was an important book in its time, with translated versions being illegally published by the resistance movements of several Nazi Germany-occupied countries in Europe. The wiki page (which I consulted just now) adds it was the best-known piece of American literature in the U.S.S.R. during the war. So, it played a significant role in resisting the German war machine through culture, somewhat like the "Leningrad Symphony" discussed in Symphony for the City of the Dead.

What I observed about it, after I plucked it out of a public library's 25-cent-per-paperback book sale, was that it has a compact (115-page), somewhat stagy form - it reads like a detailed scenario for a play, with dialogue confined to distinct scenes and only stage direction-like passages stretching the confines of the set. Yet for all its sense that the most exciting stuff is going on "offstage," it drives home its message with devastating rhetorical and emotional power. The hero of the piece, if there is one, is the mayor of the unknown town (somewhere in bombing range of the R.A.F.) who, at the start, comes across as a rather silly, unthreatening man and who, by the end, has given himself up as a sacrifice with a simplicity, a humanity, and a dedication to the service of freedom that are altogether inspiring.

I was moved; nay, I was overwhelmed by this book. I shed tears over it. I lost sleep over it. I went back and re-read several parts of it, and found them just as overwhelming a second time. I was struck by the insistent, bell-like style of Steinbeck's writing, blending clear, simple language with a sense of fateful tolling, or perhaps knocking, created by repetition of motifs. I was gripped by scenes of hysteria and dread. I was amazed by the author's thought-provoking argument that free people always win the war after oppressors win the battles. I was stunned by the application of Socrates' Denunciation in the final chapter and the mayor's perfect, parting words as he goes to his fate.

You know I'm a softie. I said as much when I admitted that Goodbye, Mr. Chips (a book of almost identical length that I picked up at the same library sale) made me weep and lose sleep. But let me point out this difference: my tears for Chips were the tears of a guy who enjoys a good sentimental wallow now and then. My tears over this book were more rough, more raw, and ultimately more spiritually enriching - a grade, or proof, of tears that can only be distilled from a perfect piece of tragedy, complete with a sense of uplift that makes it all that much more moving. Though it has been overshadowed by some of its Nobel Prize-winning author's other books, such as The Pearl, The Red Pony, East of Eden, and The Grapes of Wrath, this book deserves not to be forgotten. In fact, now may be a particularly good time for a new generation to read it.