552. SS. Simon & Jude

The feast of Saints Simon and Jude is Oct. 28, with readings from Jeremiah 26:1-16, 1 Peter 1:3-9 and John 15:12-21 (verses 12-16 optional). As characters in the Bible, they're good candidates for being relegated to half a saint's day each. Scipture doesn't say much about them.

Luke twice calls Simon Zēlōtēs or "the zealot" (Luke 6 and Acts 1). Matthew 10 and Mark 3 instead use the term Kananitēs, which the King James Bible mistranslates as "Canaanite" (which is a completely unrelated word, Hananaios, in Greek). The New King James Version corrects this to Cananite (with one less a), meaning he's from the town of Cana in Galilee. Other translations vary betwee Canaanite, Canaanean and "the zealot." However, Liddell & Scott say Kananitēs is the Syriac equivalent of the Greek Zēlōtēs (there's a related Hebrew word), so apparently "zealot" is correct. As for Zēlōtēs, they give "a rival, zealous imitator" as the first definition, and "a zealot" as the second. So either he's a famously zealous disciple of Christ, or a member of a certain political party known as the Zealots (possibly an anachronism), or just a local guy and that's what Scripture remembers about him. Scholarly opinions vary. Also, some say he may have been Simon the brother of Jesus (it would be odd if the gospels never mentioned this), or perhaps Simon of Jerusalem, the bishop who succeeded James. The only Simons he obviously isn't are Simon Peter, Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7) and Simon the sorcerer (Acts 9).

Then there's the matter of Jude, which is even more confusing. The apostle celebrated here is clearly not Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus and suicided. He is probably the "Judas, not Iscariot," mentioned as one of the 12 during Jesus' valedictory sermon in John 14, who actually gets a line: "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?" (Jesus' answer: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.") Also, Luke (in Luke 6 and Acts 1) enumerates a "Judas the son of James," in addition to Judas Iscariot (the son of Simon), in his lists of the apostles. Instead of Jude or Judas, the apostolic list in Mark 3 mentions a Thaddaeus, and Matthew 10 inserts a Lebbaeus whose surname is Thaddaeus (shortened to just Thaddaeus in the Alexandrian textual tradition), so an obvious hypothesis is that the Jude celebrated in this feast is also known as (Lebbaeus) Thaddeus. Also, he could be the Judas, or Jude, listed as one of Jesus' brothers along with James, Joses and Simon in Matthew 13 and Mark 6, and the author of the epistle of Jude who styles himself the brother (not son) of James.

There are various traditions about what these apostles did after the Pentecost of Acts 2 and how, where and when they were martyred, but let's stay out of the weeds and get right to the hymn – the last in this planned series of "Heroes of the Faith" hymns. I do have a tune in mind this time: the Swedish melody GAA NU HEN OG GRAV MIN GRAV. ART: SS. Simon and Jude, detail from the 14th-century Santa Croce altarpiece by Ugolino di Nerio, public domain.

Blest are they whom men revile;
So the world despised their Master.
Lord, Your church, this little while,
Pines for a prophetic pastor
Who, in season wet or dry,
Pours Your counsel from on high.

Send, Lord, send them to reprove
When on error's road we stumble,
Rising early, lest You move
All our vanities to humble!
May we hear their voice! For why
Shall we curse Your name and die?

Having warned, let them convey
Your abundant, free forgiveness!
Bend our stiff necks to obey,
Lord, their cross-imprinted witness!
Let their zeal on us impress
Your desire to heal and bless!

Send a Simon or a Jude,
Though we might prefer a Peter
As our fleshly aims intrude
And o'er pride's abyss we teeter.
An imperishable prize
Set before our fickle eyes!

Send to us, and through us call,
Men to lead Your dearly boughten
To the joy reserved for all
Whom You have again begotten
Since You raised up Christ, our Head,
As the Firstborn from the dead.

551. St. James of Jerusalem

This is the third St. James on the Lutheran Service Book's calendar of Feasts and Festivals, scheduled for Oct. 23 with lessons from Acts 15:12-22a (just love that "a"), James 1:1-12 and Matthew 13:54-58. Yes, this is the James who wrote the Epistle of James, and while various Bible interpreters are not in full agreement on this, our saints' days calendar seems to support the notion that James the Less (a.k.a. James the son of Alphaeus) and James the Great (a.k.a. James the son of Zebedee) are distinct invidividuals from this James, whom Paul calls "the Lord's brother" in Galatians 1. A James is also listed along with Joses (or Joseph), Simon and Judas as brothers of Jesus in Matthew 13 and Mark 6. Jude, author of the epistle by that name, identifies himself as the "brother of James."

Without naming James in particular, John 2 tells us Jesus' mother and brothers traveled with Him and His disciples from Cana to Capernaum. (I've often wondered whether the wedding at Cana was a family affair.) Matthew 12, Mark 3 and Luke 8 all describe a scene in which Jesus' mother and brothers ask to see Him. Matthew 13 and Mark 6 both relate an occasion when the people of Nazareth rejected Jesus' teaching because they knew his parents, brothers and sisters. John 7 tells us that at that point, Jesus' brothers did not believe in Him. However, by Acts 1, Jesus' brothers and His mother are among the disciples united in prayer and supplication after Jesus' ascension into heaven.

I think James the Lord's brother is the James to whom the angel sent Peter after springing him from prison ("Go and tell these things to James and the brethren," Acts 12:17 – 15 verses after James the brother of John was reported as killed). This was the James who pronounced the opinion of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 in response to Peter's appeal for Gentile Christians. This James is the one named as chief among the elders, to whom Paul reported about his ministry in Acts 21. James is here shown exerting authority over Paul and being deeply engaged with the concerns of Jewish Christians.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus, after His resurrection, appeared to James, and I think that's a reference to this James. In Galatians 1, Paul also reports meeting with James shortly after his conversion; while this was still in James-the-brother-of-John's lifetime, the way he's singled out suggests to me that he's this other James. In Galatians 2, Paul describes "James, Cephas (i.e. Peter) and John" as pillars of the church in a way that suggests that James (not John's brother, who would be dead before the scene here described) had priority over the other two. Writing of himself, James only describes himself as "a bondservant of Jesus Christ."

Early Christian writers give this James the sobriquet "the Just" and claim he was the first bishop of Jerusalem. Eusebius notes that the hero trio of Peter, James and John submitted to this James rather than contend for primacy, seemingly taking to heart Jesus' admonition against jockeying for headship. Another surname for him is Adelphotheos, or "brother of God" – cf. the Byzantine Liturgy of St. James. As I've mentioned before, my speculation on this (and while I'm not alone on it, that's what it is) makes James, Jude and the others Jesus' half-siblings on Joseph's side, i.e. from a wife before Mary. Without proof either way, it's as likely as the notion that Mary had more babies after Jesus but with the advantage that it's consistent with many pious Christians' belief that Mary was "ever virgin." And also, it explains the whole "woman, behold your son" thing at the foot of Jesus' cross (John 19): since, if she had four sons of her own besides Jesus, Mary would have no need for John to provide for her.

So far, my introductory yak about the hymn below, which after all, and like most of these "Heroes of the Faith" hymns, is more textual than topical. Still, it doesn't hurt to set the atmosphere and spotlight some potential themes. And now, for the next-to-last hymn in this section. ART: A Russian icon of James the Just, public domain.

Count it as joy, dear brethren, when your faith is tried;
For we know by such testing patience is supplied,
And when its work is finished, you will be complete;
Your God will freely furnish all that you entreat.

Ask what you will, believing, and in no wise doubt,
Lest like the storm-blown breakers you be tossed about.
Exult not in your riches but in lowliness;
Endure temptation, and the crown of life possess.

Now in Christ's holy body God has made you one,
Blood kin and co-heirs with His dear, incarnate Son;
And whether Jew or Gentile, as His brother said,
You live in Him, both slain and risen from the dead.

Live, therefore, as befits the brethren of the Lord,
Though not by works or rituals are we restored:
Our only righteousness pours forth from Him who died,
The glory His whereby we shall be glorified.

550. St. Luke

The feast of St. Luke the evangelist is Oct. 18, and the readings for it are Isaiah 35:5-8, 2 Timothy 4:5-18 and Luke 10:1-9.

The Luke of whom we speak is the author of both the third gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. A companion of Paul, he speaks of himself in the first person in the opening paragraphs of both books, and includes himself in the story as part of "we" in certain passages of Acts. Paul mentions him by name three times, describing him as "the beloved physician" in Colossians 4 and as a fellow laborer in Philemon, and reporting that he alone stayed with Paul during his imprisonment in 2 Timothy 4. Two of those mentions occur within a sentence or so of a mention of Mark, suggesting a close connection between the two evangelists.

Luke apparently addressed his writings to a patron named Theophilus and he wrote in an elegant, well educated style of Greek. Early church authorities held (or at least guessed) that Luke was one of the 70 evangelists Jesus sent out in Luke 10, and possibly the "brother" whom Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 8 as being commissioned to travel with Titus. Whether he was a Gentile Christian or a Hellenistic Jew has been debated; Paul seems to exclude him from the list of Jews among his coworkers in Colossians 4. Rumor has it that he died at age 84, either by hanging or of natural causes, in or around Thebes.

In my introduction to the St. Matthew hymn, I mentioned some things that Matthew gives us in distinction from the other evangelists. Luke gives us a lot of important stuff, too. He describes the conception and birth of John the Baptist, the angelic annunciation of Jesus' conception to the virgin Mary, her visitation to John's mother Elizabeth, the songs of Mary (Magnificat), Zacharias (Benedictus) and Simeon (Nunc dimittis), the best known version of the birth of Jesus (with shepherds, angels and the Gloria in excelsis), some stories about the childhood of Jesus, and a genealogy that runs from Jesus (via Mary, I would argue) all the way back to Adam. In contrast to the structure of Matthew's genealogy from Abraham through Joseph to Jesus, Luke's purpose seems to be portraying Jesus as the Son of God in relation to all of mankind.

Luke shares a lot of material with both Matthew and Mark (not for nothing are they called synoptics), but he also gives us a goodly share of unique material. Parables of Jesus found exclusively in Luke include the two debtors (chapter 7), the good Samaritan (10), the rich fool (12), the lost coin and the prodigal son (15), the crooked steward (16), the rich man and Lazarus (also 16, if indeed it's a parable), the Pharisee and the tax collector (18) and the minas (19). Miracles only found in Luke include the great catch of fish (chapter 5), raising the widow's son (7), cleansing 10 lepers (17) and restoring the severed ear of the high priest's servant (22), along with some notable healings. Only Luke portrays Jesus' encounter with "wee little man" Zacchaeus and His weeping over Jerusalem (19), and several of his "seven words on the cross" (23). Luke is the only evangelist who details the resurrected Jesus' appearance to the two Emmaus disciples (24). And of course everything we know about the first spread of the gospel after Jesus' ascension into heaven comes from Luke, with some support from Paul's epistles. So, while not much of a character in the New Testament's dramaturgy, Luke is a significant source of information as well as liturgical lyrics and fodder for meditation.

Lord, bless Your church with watchful eyes
And voices sure
To teach, yea, to evangelize
And still endure
Though as drink-offerings they are poured,
That in our midst, in deed and word,
Christ may be praised with one accord
And reverence pure.

Take from our eyes the scales that blind;
Unstop our ears!
Let heavy tongues Your lightness find
And join the spheres
To swell the glory of Your name,
Your justifying grace proclaim,
Unclean no more, no longer lame—
We pray through tears!

When all men have forsaken us,
Stand with us, Lord.
When trials have overtaken us,
Your strength afford
So that Your message may resound,
Till from the nations all around
A fruitful harvest may redound
Upon Your word.

And when at last our struggles close,
Remind us, Lord,
Who once a dear physician chose
To pen Your word,
That You still heal the heart that faints,
Still hear our querulous complaints,
And evermore by all the saints
Shall be adored.

ART: Holy Evangelist Luke, Russian Orthodox icon, 18th century, tempera on wood, public domain. Note the winged bull, a symbol of Luke.

Goat

I'm not sure whether this movie's title is Goat, as in "its main character is an anthropomorphic goat," or GOAT, as in "Greatest Of All Time." The movie plays with this equivocation quite a bit. Apparently based (loosely, I'm sure) on the story of basketball star Steph Curry, it tells the story of a small goat named Will from the mean streets of Vineland who has dreamed since childhood of playing professional roarball, which is kind of an extreme sports version of basketball. Ordinarily, he would have no chance. Fortunately for him, the Vineland Thorns have a cheapskate owner who doesn't really care if her team wins or loses, headlined by a panther named Jett who habitually hogs the ball, plays like the rest of her team isn't there, and is determined to win a Claw (the league championship) before age and injury end her career. Ultimately, Will owes the fact that he makes the hometown team to a viral video of him playing one-on-one with a tough, stallion pro named Mane. Signal a season of roarball action featuring quirky characters of varying species, gradually coming together as a real team and giving both Jett and Will a real shot at sports immortality.

The basketball, um, I mean roarball, scenes are fun, to be sure. But the heart of the movie is grounded in Will's persistent pursuit of his seemingly impossible dream, which ties into his tireless campaign of chipping through the armor Jett has built up around herself and injecting spirit into a team that has all but given up on themselves. A major audio-visual theme that contributes a lot to the texture of this movie is its hyperawareness of sports media and social media, like a mash-up of ESPN and Animal Planet where everybody has their phone out and is live-streaming footage for later editing as Instagram reels. It's glitzy and frenetic and loud, with color commentators putting in their bit, dramatizing the team's buildup to their big shot at the Claw and the final showdown with Mane and his team of bigger, badder animal jocks.

I'm not much of a sports watcher, but I am always up for a sports movie. They usually hit the target, from a storytelling and emotional standpoint, and this Sony Animation Studios picture is no exception – though the "glitzy and frenetic and loud" pushed the limits of what my nerves could absorb. I am also, don't forget, a guy who could never be persuaded to see a "Fast and Furious" movie after the first one gave me a splitting headache. The laughs, the characters and relationships, the emotional rewards of the story kept my butt in the seat where a movie that failed to deliver on these points might have seen me walk out before the end. So, kudos for that.

Scanning through the cast for actors whose names mean anything to me, I see Gabrielle Union (Bring It On) played Jett. David Harbour (Stranger Things; 2019's Hellboy) voiced Archie the rhino. Frequent voice actor Nick Kroll (Sing, Captain Underpants, etc.) plays Modo, the bizarre Komodo dragon. Steph Curry himself voiced Lenny the giraffe. Playing the team's warthog owner, Flo, is Jenifer Lewis, who also voiced a character named Flo in the Cars movies. Wayne Knight of "Hello, Newman" fame (cf. Seinfeld) plays Frank, Will's gerbil landlord. A bunch of pro basketball players, male and female, also show up in the cast list. And Patton Oswalt puts in the role of Coach Dennis, a monkey with a huge schnoz.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Upon learning that Flo has hired a goat to be the team's sixth player, Jett threatens to eat Will – a threat he takes seriously. It's a reminder that in a version of the present-day world filled with anthropmorphic animals, there's a limit to how anthropically they morphize. On a similarly diet-related note, whenever Will feels peckish, he takes a bite out of a tin can – even provoking Jett to remind him that there's food inside the can. (2) Just about any scene featuring Frank and his ridiculously numerous offspring. The poor guy is stressed by having so many mouths to feed, and yet at the outcome of the Thorns' drive to compete for the Crown, he declares that he feels like having another dozen kids! (3) The fallout when Jett, sensing that her dream of winning a Claw may be about to slip out of her grasp, suddenly loses the faith she has started to have toward her team – basically the final crisis of the story, apart from the championship-level gameplay.

549. St. Michael & All Angels

I somehow don't seem to have written a hymn for the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, Sept. 29. The readings are a doozy: Daniel 10:10-14 and 12:1-3, Revelation 12:7-12 and either Matthew 18:1-11 or Luke 10:17-20. I think the angle Lutherans generally take regarding this feast, if they observe it at all, is to focus on the idea that, thank God, He sets angels to watch over us. We don't go very deep into the subject of Michael as such, I think. And perhaps I haven't focused a hymn on it (though I did write an "Angels of the Lord" hymn) simply because some excellent hymns are already available to fill the scarce need. Well, I guess the time has come to check that assignment off.

A quick search for occurrences of the name Michael in Scripture finds mentions of several earthly, mortal persons, not the archangel, in Numbers, 1 and 2 Chronicles and Ezra. An angelic figure (possibly Gabriel; cf. Daniel 8-9 and Luke 1) speaks to Daniel about Michael in Daniel 10 and 12, describing him as "one of the chief princes" (10:13) and "your prince" (10:21), "the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people." What the angel Gabriel calls a great or chief prince apparently translates, in Jude 9, as "the archangel" who contended against the devil over the body of Moses. Jude seems to know a lot of things that aren't public knowledge. In Revelation 12, John depicts a war in heaven in which Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and his angels.

Putting together what Gabriel, Jude and John tell us about Michael, his story seems to be that of a high-ranking warrior among the armies of (usually) invisible warriors who defend the faithful against the spiritual forces of evil, and of unseen battles fought behind the scenes of history that are more significant, from heaven's point of view, than any events and conflicts we know about. It brings to mind Psalm 34: "The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them." There are a number of accounts of angels acting in a martial manner, such as the one that threatened Balaam and his ass in Numbers 22, one that routed the Assyrians in 2 Kings 19, 2 Chronicles 32 and Isaiah 37, one that sprang Peter from prison and killed Herod in Acts 12. Especially, I find myself thinking about 2 Kings 6, when the Syrians besieged Elisha, and his servant be like, "What'll we do?" and Elisha prayed the Lord to open his eyes: "and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

So you see, the story of Michael and all angels is about the unseen forces, as important if not more important than what we do see, carrying out God's will and protetcing His people throughout history with a "charge over you" (Psalm 91), both on a mass scale (as with archangels like Michael) and on a personal level (cf. Matthew 18). ART: Public domain.

Know, beloved, You are cherished
By the Lord who lives on high.
Scarce a meadow's bloom has perished
Hidden from His watchful eye.
Tracing too the sparrow's fall,
Christ perceives your faintest call.

Know indeed that unseen spirits
Guard the chosen of His grace,
Loyal to the blood and merit
Of the Savior of our race;
Armed, they guard us fore and back,
Parrying the foe's attack.

Michael's captains stand their stations
Round those Jesus suffered for,
Though the geniuses of nations
Gird themselves for siege and war.
They hold in that hidden realm
Ground the foe would overwhelm.

Sense and reason may dissemble;
What is naught may pose as much.
Nonetheless, fret not nor tremble:
Christ is here, as close as touch,
And the guard you cannot see
Greater than your fears can be.

Lord, amid our world's upheaval,
Grant us eyes of faith to see
All You've done for our retrieval;
Fill us with such constancy
Till we, loosed from every harm,
Walk with angels arm in arm.

POSTSCRIPT: For what it's worth, this is my 550th original hymn—recalling, once again, that the numbering on this blog goes all the way down to zero. I hope someday to make it to at least 600, but I don't know how long that will take. I mean, I've already done four laps around the Church Year (one-year and three-year lectionaries), and this Heroes of the Faith section is drawing to a close in maybe three more hymns. So the momentum I've built up lately may not last. Suggestions? I'm open to them!

548. St. Matthew

Sept. 21 is the feast of St. Matthew, apostle and evangelist. Lessons for the day are from Ezekiel 2:9-3:11, Ephesians 4:7-16 and Matthew 9:9-13. Like many of the previous "Heroes of the Faith" in this current series of hymns, he is mentioned in all four lists of the 12 apostles (Mathew 10, Mark 3, Luke 6, Acts 1). Only Matthew himself specificies "Matthew the tax collector." Also, only Matthew names the tax collector Matthew whom Jesus calls to leave the tollbooth and follow him (Matthew 9), while the parallel accounts in Mark 2 and Luke 5 both name him Levi. They're clearly talking about the same guy, but the name change is never explained.

From Mark 5 we have the additional factoid about Mathew (Levi) that he is the son of Alphaeus, though none of the lists of the apostles pair him with James the son of Alphaeus. The only other biblical mention of Matthew is in the title at the top of his gospel: "According to Matthew." For a character with no spoken lines, he has a lot to say—28 chapters worth.

Matthew's gospel gives us a lot. His genealogy of Jesus (chapter 1) makes a legal argument that Jesus is the heir to the throne of David through Mary's husband Joseph. His account of Jesus' birth also focuses on Joseph, whose revelatory dreams suggest a typological connection with the Joseph of Genesis. Matthew uniquely gives us the Epiphany narrative (the visit of the Magi, chapter 2), which paints the Gentiles into the faith picture. Despite Mark and Luke's parallel accounts of Jesus' transfiguration, only Matthew gives us the exact words of the voice from the cloud ("This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased") that Peter quotes in his second epistle—which led one of my seminary profs to suggest that 2 Peter could be a preface to Matthew's gospel.

Matthew gives us several extended discourses by Jesus, including the full Sermon on the Mount (Luke's "sermon on the plain" is comparatively condensed) and several unique parables: the tares, the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, the net full of fish, the unmerciful servant, the laborers in the vineyard, the wise and foolish virgins, the talents (Luke's parable of the minas is similar), the sheep and the goats. He gives us the version of the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer more widely used than Luke's. Along with John, Matthew gives us Jesus' words establishing the Office of the Keys (Matthew 16, 18; John 20) and commissioning His disciples to make disciples by baptizing and teaching (Matthew 28). In these and other passages, Matthew's account has been much in the church's ears, on the church's lips and worked out in the church's practices.

Up, idle tongue and pen,
From thieves' and merchants' den!
Tell what God's Son for all has done
To proud, rebellious men.
Where Jesus bids you go,
Rebuke and warn of woe:
Though they refuse to heed the news,
Speak what He bids them know.

Reveal the Savior's grace
To souls of every race:
He bears the due of such as you
And suffers in your place.
He calls unworthy souls
To part with nets and tolls,
Yea, to repent, with pardon sent
To serve His kingdom's goals.

Reveal His healing will
That those not well but ill—
Not Pharisees but sinners—He
Would with His fullness fill.
See, then, with Matthew's eyes,
A calling to baptize,
A word to preach, a world to reach,
A swiftly coming prize.

Up, feeble heart and hands!
Prepare in faithless lands
To toil and die, to edify
A house that firmly stands.
Knit by the truth in love,
Grow up toward Christ above,
Till every mind in Him shall find
A pure and precious trove.

ART: Detail from the Calling of St. Matthew by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502.

Beginnings

Love, Lies & Hocus Pocus: Beginnings
by Lydia Sherrer
Recommended Ages: 12+

I was ordering some books in the Once Upon a Tim series, so I could review them as a complete set, when I decided that I had to buy one more thing to qualify for free shipping. Impulse, combined with a cheap price and an agreeable-seeming synopsis, led me to choose this book to fill out the order. And then all the other books in my order arrived, but this one didn't. I tracked the shipment and found that it had allegedly reached a distribution center in my ZIP code, but had gone no further in the two weeks since. I opted to re-order it (at no extra charge) because I had lost any confidence that the delivery would ever happen. And eventually it did arrive. And then, the moment I opened the book, a page fell out – part of the table of contents ‐ and several other pages soon followed. So, before I had even formed an opinion of this book based on its storyline, characters and style, I felt a certain sense of grievance. I'm happy (to a certain degree of happiness) to report that my complaints about this book end there. Yes, the binding is of substandard quality. But the contents thus bound are quite enjoyable.

Lily is a wizard, and her friend Sebastian is a witch. This might strike fans of a certain boy wizard with a scar on his forehead (so described by Sebastian at one point in this book) as a reversal of gender roles, but gender has nothing to do with the distinction between wizard and witch, in Sherrer's world building. Witches do transactional magic, of the "something given, something gained" persuasion, dealing with spirits, fae creatures and (in some cases) demons – though Sebastian wisely stays away from that last lot. Wizards, meanwhile, have an inherited ability to tap into an impersonal Source of power, using runes and spells in an ancient language called Enkinim to focus their intent. Lily's day job is to manage the archives at the library of a Georgia women's college, and her afterwork career seems to revolve around extricating Sebastian – the ne'er-do-well nephew of her prim and proper wizard mentor – from whatever trouble he finds himself in.

This book isn't quite a novel. It's more like two novellas, held together by a connecting interlude. Episode 1 is "Hell Hath No Fury," in which Sebastian is hired to lay the ghost that is haunting a plantation-style mansion, making it unfit to live in and impossible to sell. Sebastian finds a ghost, all right, but he isn't the problem. The problem is a curse put on the man and his house by a jilted lover, who was apparently one of Lily's lot. So, he calls her in for an assist, and figuring out how the long-dead witch cast a spell that is still wreaking havoc proves to be almost as hard as breaking it. After that comes the interlude of "Chasing Rabbits," in which Sebastian goes after a junkie friend who robbed him of a magically significant heirloom, only to get caught up in a dangerous game with an Atlanta drug gang. And that leads right into Episode 2, "Möbius Strip," set in a small Georgia town that's locked in a time loop that becomes more dangerous each time it repeats because the magic powering it is fading fast, and if it fails completely, hundreds of people could become trapped between worlds. Figuring out who has Sebastian's artifact is only the first battle in a dangerous campaign to keep terrible power out of the wrong hands. And there, to avoid spoiling it too much, I'll leave you.

Syonpsis-wise, I mean. Review-wise, I want to say that Lily and Sebastian are an odd couple in the best sense – the kind whose patter is endlessly entertaining and whose development, as characters and a relationship, promises lots of fun yet to come. Lily is a bookish, cat hair covered, tea drinking stickler for proper behavior, while Sebastian has a rakish charm, an allergy to authority, and a knack for flying by the seat of his pants and somehow making it work. You'd think they wouldn't be able to stand each other, yet there's a tenderness between them that neither of them has looked straight in the eye. And despite the comedic tone that prevails overall, there's an undercurrent of tragedy that tugs at one's heart strings: the sense that with modern technology doing what it does, there isn't much need for their kind of talent anymore – a sense that both wizardry and witchcraft, for different reasons, are on their way out, even while those practicing both arts in the present feel cut off from their own history. Could they represent the twilight of magic? Or might they be the ones to stage a brilliant comeback? I guess I'll have to keep reading their story to find out.

This is the first book of a series of books whose titles all begin with "Love, Lies & Hocus Pocus," though the series itself is billed as "The Lily Singer Adventures." The other titles in the series end, respectively, with the words Revelations, Allies, Legends, Betrayal, Identity and Kindred, plus there are a couple separately published novellas titled A Study in Mischief and Cat Magic and a spinoff "Dark Roads Trilogy" about Sebastian's origin, with one book so far, titled Accidental Witch. And for what it's worth, I've already gone back to my online bookseller of choice and ordered Love, Lies & Hocus Pocus: Revelations – at least partly so I could qualify for free shipping on a DVD box set of Columbo.