517. Christ Does Not Fail

Dearest child, do not despair,
Though today's hopes disappoint,
Men be cruel, and heavy care
Wear on sinew, nerve and joint.
Come the cross, come thorn and nail,
Think on this: Christ does not fail.

Think as well: He knows all things,
Yet He lets so much befall—
Judas' kiss, the scourge's stings,
Mocking voices, acrid gall,
Gushing side, frame still and pale—
Nonetheless, Christ does not fail.

He knew every blow would fall,
From what quarter it would come;
Yet, with angels at His call,
Drank each drop, nor lost a crumb.
Knowing all, He did not quail.
Own the truth: Christ does not fail.

He knows every wound you feel;
Knows as well the hurt you do.
Slowly though His hand may heal,
All goes graciously for you.
First, before you kick and wail,
Call to mind: Christ does not fail.

In His time, and by His means,
Every woe will be repaid,
Heart that for swift justice keens
Beat with joy that cannot fade.
Debt forgiven, blazed His trail,
Wait and see: Christ does not fail.

IMAGE: Carl Bloch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. NOTE: I guess, before this starts circulating the internet (as if), I'd better assert my authorship. Just in case anyone wonders where this came from.

Novocaine

Back in March, I traveled an hour each way to see this movie. It features Jack Quaid – Dennis' son, star of TV's The Boys and the voice of Boimler on Star Trek: Lower Decks – as Nate Caine, a 30-year-old guy who has already outlived his life expectancy of 25 years due to a condition that makes him insensitive to pain. How has he done it? By living a very careful life. He never eats solid food, for fear of biting his tongue off. He sets an alarm on his wristwatch to remind him to pee every three hours, lest his bladder explode. He rounds off the corners of his desk with cut-open tennis balls and sticks little caps on the tips of sharpened pencils, not to protect them but to protect him.

Then, one day after he's opened himself up to a woman for the first time – a co-worker at the bank where he's the assistant manager – a trio of killer bank robbers takes Sherry hostage and, throwing caution to the wind, Nate goes after her. What follows is an almost non-stop comic action-fest with no holds barred, in the sense of the phrase only possible when there's a guy with no sense of pain involved and he doesn't care what happens to him. What the bad guys do to him and what he does to them is at the limit of gross-outitude that I could bear. Visualize me, clawing at my face, wanting to cover my eyes but struggling not to. You get what I'm saying. The movie has some terrific character beats, plot twists that make you rethink everything, and of course, insane fight scenes.

I loved Jack Quaid's performance in this movie. He was the perfect actor for the role – a super nice guy, with the type of uncertain, vulnerable mildness that goes surprisingly well with ape-kaka craziness and extreme violence. He has good comic timing, an expressively mugging face and a way of chewing on a piece of pie that keeps me wondering whether he's actually going to chew his tongue off. Working with him are Amber Midthunder from the CW's Roswell, Jack Nicholson's son Ray Nicholson (Smile 2), Jacob Balaton (Tom Holland-Spidey's sidekick), Betty Gabriel (Get Out), and a number of other folks whose names I can't place but who were solid in this film.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The moment when you realize a certain character isn't on the side you think they are. It's hard to describe this moment without spoiling it, but when it happened, I could swear I heard someone in the audience gasp ... yet later, when I turned to look behind me, I discovered that I was alone in the theater. So, either that place is haunted or the gasp came out of me and I didn't know it. (Full disclosure, I had a sense that someone was sitting behind me through most of the movie. Maybe they left before I looked around?)

(2) Nate's fight with the first of the two brothers on the bank robber team, in a restaurant kitchen. What made it a scene that made the movie for me is not so much the scenery-wrecking action or the self-immolating step Nate takes to gain the upper hand, as the genuine effort he makes throughout the fight to reason with the bad guy and just talk things out. It is such an epitome of his character and what makes Quaid perfect for this role.

(3) The final scene, which thanks to photography lacking in depth of focus could be playing out in a restaurant ... until Nate opens his shirt to flash his chest tattoo, and the guard across the room warns him against public displays of affection. Yup, somebody's in jail at the end, and somebody else is waiting for them to get out, which is a funny way to end a romantic comedy – perhaps in more than one sense of the word "funny" – and yet it's a happy ending of what, had the box office numbers been higher, might have been the beginning of a very entertaining franchise. But whatever. I encourage you to give this movie a shot.

The Unhoneymooners

The Unhoneymooners
by Christina Lauren
Recommended Ages: 15+

Olive and Ethan are the sister of the bride and the brother of the groom and also, not coincidentally, the maid of honor and best man. They're also sworn enemies, since Olive took offense at him the first time they met and is now convinced that he takes offense at her at every meeting since. What totally is coincidental is that they're the only people at the wedding who didn't partake of the seafood buffet. So, when everybody but them comes down with a stomach bug, the sexy anti-couple has to share the all-expenses-paid, non-refundable honeymoon on Maui that their wedded siblings can't go on.

Removed from the madcap antics of their families, Olive finds Ethan surprisingly not-terrible company. But caught between a hotel staff that must never know that they've appropriated someone else's honeymoon, and a brand new boss who just happens to be staying at the same hotel at the same time, Olive tells a little white lie ... and hijinks ensue. Now she and Ethan must pretend to be really married, and – well, as happens in this kind of novel, a real romance begins to bloom.

Three things surprised me about this novel. First, despite being pitched as an erotic romance (and the main characters do, indeed, have sex outside of wedlock), it doesn't provide a beat-by-beat, clinical description of their sex acts. It draws a tasteful curtain across the scene, eschewing the lurid details. Second, the third-act dramatic twist that has become such a structural necessity in this genre is developmed more deeply and meaningfully, and resolved less easily, than the typical "15 minutes before the end of the Hallmark movie" misunderstanding. Third, and what made this book really work for me, it's truly funny, with Olive narrating most of it (the point of view shifting only in the epilogue) in a smart, self-deprecating, witty voice. The nerdy quality of her pop-culture references kind of made me fall in love with her. Ethan is a lucky bastard.

Christina Lauren is the erotic-romance-novel writing team of Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. Under their shared pen-name, they have also written the 10-book "Beautiful" series, starting with Beautiful Bastard; the five-book "Wild Seasons" series, starting with Sweet Filthy Boy; and about 20 other novels, including such titles as Autoboyography, Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, The Honey-Don't List, The Soulmate Equation and The True Love Experiment.

516. Makers' Psalm

I'm sure I've covered this ground before, but this hymn wanted to come out, so I let it. I have no particular tune in mind at present. The art is "God the Father" by Jacob Herreyns I (1643-1732).

God, who with might and skill
The earth and heavens shaped,
And having rested, still
Would see it richly draped,
Let now Your gracious eye
On our endeavors rest;
As we frail powers try,
Let what we make be blest.

Our humble makings trace
The beauty You have wrought,
An impulse that our race
Has from Your image caught.
What model we may choose,
What medium or form,
O Word, therein infuse
Yourself as source and norm.

In music's liquid strain,
In fiber's warp and weft,
In panel's polished grain,
In brushstroke bold and deft,
As master Maker, show
Yourself in all our skill.
Our tribute feel and know;
Our lives with wonder fill.

515. Autumn Psalm

It's out of season, I know; but I've pushed out a hymn for each of the other seasons of the year, so I might as well complete the cycle. After many years of doing this kind of thing, I still find it ironic that, musician and hymn-tune maven that I am, I rarely have a tune in mind when I write a hymn. This hymn is one of the exceptions. I've been thinking a lot about Orlando Gibbons' (d. 1625) tune SONG 20 lately, so here's a chance to use it.

Oh, golden harvest hour
When, our reward in view,
We labor with redoubled pow'r
And Satan's host subdue!

Clap, hills, your tinted hands!
Sing, valleys! Skip, you fields!
Return to God, you weary lands,
With full and fruited yields!

Rejoice, all you who toil;
Dispose your limbs for rest.
The vintage kept in silent soil
Is strongest, richest, best.

Oh, hour of golden peace,
When all perfected, done,
We reap the hour of blest release
And kiss the risen Son!

514. 'Indeed' Hymn

Lest I let an entire calendar month elapse without posting anything on my blog – and I have so much to discuss when time permits – here's what I suppose could be categorized as an Easter hymn. Its working title was "This Is the Day" but it was the "indeed" in the first line that really revved its engine. The art, which I appropriated without the express endorsement of the image's owner, is "Christ triumphing over Death and Sin" by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) per Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. I don't know what tune will go with it at this writing; I probably have years to make that call.

This is indeed the day the Lord has made,
Whatever sort it be; for chill and shade,
As well as cheer and light, are His to give;
We all the same rejoice, who in Him live.

Christ rose indeed, and lives no more to die,
And breaks death's sting and bond for all thereby:
Though we may die, we yet shall live again,
Both soul and body cleansed of every stain.

We have indeed for freedom been set free,
The Lord's bond-slaves with single heart to be:
Set free from sin by freely offered blood,
We serve as heirs, possessed of every good.

It is indeed a new song that we sing,
Whatever be its date; for that new thing
The Lord does, who exchanges life for death,
Puts melody and lyric to our breath.

It is indeed a joyful heart we raise,
Whatever the incipit of our praise;
For though we laugh or weep, or live or die,
We are in Christ, our God with God on high.

Thus we indeed rejoice and serve and sing
And live and hope and faithful witness bring
To Him who fullest measure gladly gave,
And rising, strode to heaven, strong to save.

513. Spring Psalm

It was a balmy -27 degrees Fahrenheit this morning in my little town in northwest Minnesota. I heard someone mention the awful words "32 below" but I'm not sure how early they got up or how far they traveled from out of town. So it is with a yearning heart that I set about writing the third installment in my set of seasonal psalms. I have no particular tune in mind, which is usual for me but not a problem, because if I can't find an existing tune that fits it, I can certainly write one. But for now, without any musical association, I offer the following for review and comment.

For all things green and tender,
All youthful, fresh and new,
A hymn of praise we render
To God, whose word is true:
Who would not leave Your Favored
Forgotten in the grave,
His off'ring having savored
Our stricken world to save.

For all things warm, rich scented,
With bud and bloom ablaze,
Let anthems be presented
Through springtime's thriving days:
Come perilous temptation,
Come cross and passion's hour,
The Lord brings forth salvation
With dauntless joy and power.

Rise, all things lively, breathing
The Spirit of the Lord;
Rise up, with vigor seething,
Profess with one accord:
Christ is our resurrection;
To know Him is to live,
To drink of His perfection
And fruitful service give.