J. S. Bach - Cantata "Eine Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott" BWV 80

And here's Bach's Cantata BWV 80. Lovely, as always.

1 of 3:



2 of 3:



3 of 3:




HT Mockingbird, who've gone on a Reformation tear today.

"Adventures in Very Recent Evolution"

From the New York Times this past July:

Ten thousand years ago, people in southern China began to cultivate rice and quickly made an all-too-tempting discovery — the cereal could be fermented into alcoholic liquors. Carousing and drunkenness must have started to pose a serious threat to survival because a variant gene that protects against alcohol became almost universal among southern Chinese and spread throughout the rest of China in the wake of rice cultivation.

The variant gene rapidly degrades alcohol to a chemical that is not intoxicating but makes people flush, leaving many people of Asian descent a legacy of turning red in the face when they drink alcohol.

The spread of the new gene, described in January by Bing Su of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is just one instance of recent human evolution and in particular of a specific population’s changing genetically in response to local conditions.
Scientists from the Beijing Genomics Institute last month discovered another striking instance of human genetic change. Among Tibetans, they found, a set of genes evolved to cope with low oxygen levels as recently as 3,000 years ago. This, if confirmed, would be the most recent known instance of human evolution.

Many have assumed that humans ceased to evolve in the distant past, perhaps when people first learned to protect themselves against cold, famine and other harsh agents of natural selection. But in the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress.

“I don’t think there is any reason to suppose that the rate has slowed down or decreased,” says Mark Stoneking, a population geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

So much natural selection has occurred in the recent past that geneticists have started to look for new ways in which evolution could occur very rapidly. Much of the new evidence for recent evolution has come from methods that allow the force of natural selection to be assessed across the whole human genome. This has been made possible by DNA data derived mostly from the Hap Map, a government project to help uncover the genetic roots of complex disease. The Hap Map contains samples from 11 populations around the world and consists of readings of the DNA at specific sites along the genome where variations are common.

One of the signatures of natural selection is that it disturbs the undergrowth of mutations that are always accumulating along the genome. As a favored version of a gene becomes more common in a population, genomes will look increasingly alike in and around the gene. Because variation is brushed away, the favored gene’s rise in popularity is called a sweep. Geneticists have developed several statistical methods for detecting sweeps, and hence of natural selection in action.
About 21 genome-wide scans for natural selection had been completed by last year, providing evidence that 4,243 genes — 23 percent of the human total — were under natural selection. This is a surprisingly high proportion, since the scans often miss various genes that are known for other reasons to be under selection. Also, the scans can see only recent episodes of selection — probably just those that occurred within the last 5,000 to 25,000 years or so. The reason is that after a favored version of a gene has swept through the population, mutations start building up in its DNA, eroding the uniformity that is evidence of a sweep.

Unfortunately, as Joshua M. Akey of the University of Washington in Seattle, pointed out last year in the journal Genome Research, most of the regions identified as under selection were found in only one scan and ignored by the 20 others. The lack of agreement is “sobering,” as Dr. Akey put it, not least because most of the scans are based on the same Hap Map data.

From this drunken riot of claims, however, Dr. Akey believes that it is reasonable to assume that any region identified in two or more scans is probably under natural selection. By this criterion, 2,465 genes, or 13 percent, have been actively shaped by recent evolution. The genes are involved in many different biological processes, like diet, skin color and the sense of smell.

A new approach to identifying selected genes has been developed by Anna Di Rienzo at the University of Chicago. Instead of looking at the genome and seeing what turns up, Dr. Di Rienzo and colleagues have started with genes that would be likely to change as people adopted different environments, modes of subsistence and diets, and then checked to see if different populations have responded accordingly.

She found particularly strong signals of selection in populations that live in polar regions, in people who live by foraging, and in people whose diets are rich in roots and tubers. In Eskimo populations, there are signals of selection in genes that help people adapt to cold. Among primitive farming tribes, big eaters of tubers, which contain little folic acid, selection has shaped the genes involved in synthesizing folic acid in the body, Dr. Di Rienzo and colleagues reported in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The fewest signals of selection were seen among people who live in the humid tropics, the ecoregion where the ancestral human population evolved. “One could argue that we are adapted to that and that most signals are seen when people adapt to new environments,” Dr. Di Rienzo said in an interview.

One of the most visible human adaptations is that of skin color. Primates have unpigmented skin beneath their fur. But when humans lost their fur, perhaps because they needed bare skin to sweat efficiently, they developed dark skin to protect against ultraviolet light.

Coloring the skin may sound simple, but nature requires at least 25 different genes to synthesize, package and distribute the melanin pigment that darkens the skin and hair. The system then had to be put into reverse when people penetrated the northern latitudes of Europe and Asia and acquired lighter skin, probably to admit more of the sunlight required to synthesize vitamin D.

Several of the 25 skin genes bear strong signatures of natural selection, but natural selection has taken different paths to lighten people’s skin in Europe and in Asia. A special version of the golden gene, so called because it turns zebrafish a rich yellow color, is found in more than 98 percent of Europeans but is very rare in East Asians. In them, a variant version of a gene called DCT may contribute to light skin. Presumably, different mutations were available in each population for natural selection to work on. The fact that the two populations took independent paths toward developing lighter skin suggests that there was not much gene flow between them.

East Asians have several genetic variants that are rare or absent in Europeans and Africans. Their hair has a thicker shaft. A version of a gene called EDAR is a major determinant of thicker hair, which may have evolved as protection against cold, say a team of geneticists led by Ryosuke Kimura of Tokai University School of Medicine in Japan.

Most East Asians also have a special form of a gene known as ABCC11, which makes the cells of the ear produce dry earwax. Most Africans and Europeans, on the other hand, possess the ancestral form of the gene, which makes wet earwax. It is hard to see why dry earwax would confer a big survival advantage, so the Asian version of the gene may have been selected for some other property, like making people sweat less, says a team led by Koh-ichiro Yoshiura of Nagasaki University.

Most variation in the human genome is neutral, meaning that it arose not by natural selection but by processes like harmless mutations and the random shuffling of the genome between generations. The amount of this genetic diversity is highest in African populations. Diversity decreases steadily the further a population has migrated from the African homeland, since each group that moved onward carried away only some of the diversity of its parent population. This steady decline in diversity shows no discontinuity between one population and the next, and has offered no clear explanation as to why one population should differ much from another. But selected genes show a different pattern: Evidence from the new genome-wide tests for selection show that most selective pressures are focused on specific populations.

One aspect of this pattern is that there seem to be more genes under recent selection in East Asians and Europeans than in Africans, possibly because the people who left Africa were then forced to adapt to different environments. “It’s a reasonable inference that non-Africans were becoming exposed to a wide variety of novel climates,” says Dr. Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute.

The cases of natural selection that have been tracked so far take the form of substantial sweeps, with a new version of a gene being present in a large percentage of the population. These hard sweeps are often assumed to start from a novel mutation. But it can take a long time for the right mutation to occur, especially if there is a very small target, like the region of DNA that controls a gene. In the worst case, the waiting time would be 300,000 generations, according to a calculation by Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago. And indeed, there are not many hard sweeps in the human genome.

But the new evidence that humans have adapted rapidly and extensively suggests that natural selection must have other options for changing a trait besides waiting for the right mutation to show up. In an article in Current Biology in February, Dr. Pritchard suggested that a lot of natural selection may take place through what he called soft sweeps.

Soft sweeps work on traits affected by many genes, like height. Suppose there are a hundred genes that affect height (about 50 are known already, and many more remain to be found). Each gene exists in a version that enhances height and a version that does not. The average person might inherit the height-enhancing version of 50 of these genes, say, and be of average height as a result.

Suppose this population migrates to a region, like the Upper Nile, where it is an advantage to be very tall. Natural selection need only make the height-enhancing versions of these 100 genes just a little more common in the population, and now the average person will be likely to inherit 55 of them, say, instead of 50, and be taller as a result. Since the height-enhancing versions of the genes already exist, natural selection can go to work right away and the population can adapt quickly to its new home.

Anglican Chant X: Wrea Green - Anglican Church: "Psalm 46 - God is our Hope and Strength"

In honor of Reformation Sunday (October 31) and Martin Luther, who nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on that date. The tune is, of course, the one Luther used for "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

Psalm 46

1 God is our hope and strength *
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be moved *
and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea.
3 Though the waters thereof rage and swell *
and though the mountains shake at the tempest of the same.
4 The rivers of the flood thereof shall make glad the city of God *
the holy place of the tabernacle of the most Highest.
5 God is in the midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed *
God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen make much ado, and the kingdoms are moved *
but God hath shewed his voice, and the earth shall melt away.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us *
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
8 O come hither, and behold the works of the Lord *
what destruction he hath brought upon the earth.
9 He maketh wars to cease in all the world *
he breaketh the bow, and knappeth the spear in sunder, and burneth the chariots in the fire.
10 Be still then, and know that I am God *
I will be exalted among the heathen, and I will be exalted in the earth.
11 The Lord of hosts is with us *
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

O Quam Gloriosum est Regnum

Here's Victoria's version of O Quam Gloriosum est Regnum, the antiphon upon Magnificat at Second Vespers of All Saints (November 1). Sung by the vocal ensemble Canticum Novum of Dresden in a live performace at Mitschnitt, Chemnitz in July 2009, it is really lovely:

O quam gloriosum est regnum, in quo cum Christo gaudent omnes Sancti! Amicti stolis albis, sequuntur Agnum, quocumque ierit.

O how glorious is the kingdom in which all the saints rejoice with Christ, clad in robes of white they follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

A blessed Feast of All Saints.

Ashokan Farewell (Jay Ungar) old time fiddle style

Another version. Love this fiddler....

Ashokan Farewell

The theme song from Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War" - the highest-rated public television broadcast of all time. Somehow this fact is really very heartening to me in a way - as if this huge national tragedy somehow brought the nation together, for once, a hundred years later. "Ashokan Farewell" is a waltz - and one of the most beautiful, and most poignant, pieces of music I think I've ever heard. The last verse is so lovely, as the crescendo of soaring harmonies drops away again to a single, sad violin and that last arpeggio.

A waltz, of all things, to help tell the story of the bloodiest 5 years in our nation's history. It all makes me want to cry - which is I think actually a good thing.

Scientists Successfully Teach Gorilla It Will Die Someday

The best Onion News Network broadcast ever. And with important religious implications! My decision to forgo HDTV is vindicated.



HT Mockingbird. Thanks so much!

President Obama: It Gets Better

HT BTB.

Box Turtle Bulletin: Family “Research” Council Gets It Wrong On LGBT Mental Health

Jim Burroway - October 11th, 2010

The Washington Post has been taking a very strong lurch to the far right recently. If you have any doubt about that, then consider this op-ed by Tony Perkins, which is completely indistinguishable from the propaganda regularly promulgated by his Family “Research” Council. In this lovely gem gracing the WaPo’s web site, Perkins blames gay people for the teen suicides that has garnered so much attention recently:

Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal–yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are “born gay” and can never change. This–and not society’s disapproval–may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.”

Perkins preceded that outrageous statement with this “evidence”:

There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society’s general disapproval of homosexual conduct. In fact, evidence from the Netherlands would seem to suggest the opposite, because even in that most “gay-friendly” country on earth, research has shown homosexuals to have much higher mental health problems. [Hyperlinks in the original]

I guess Perkins doesn’t actually intend for people to click on those hyperlinks. Apparently, he intended them for decoration, the same way FRC people regularly sprinkle their publications with footnotes to make them look more scholarly. But I would invite you to go ahead and click on the first one, which points to a 2002 article from the Monitor On Psychology, the American Psychological Association’s official magazine. Among the studies discussed in that article was one by Susan Cochran (“Emerging issues in research on lesbians’ and gay men’s mental health: Does sexual orientation really matter?” American Psychologist, 56, no. 11 (Nov 2001): 931-947). Her study did find elevated levels of psychological distress among gay people. However,

For one thing, she says, “these are certainly not levels of morbidity consistent with models that say homosexuality is inherently pathological.” For another, the data simply don’t prove either pro- or anti-gay arguments on the subject, whether it’s that the inherent biology of homosexuality causes mental illness or that social stigma provokes mental illness in LGB people, she says.

Cochran also predicted that her study would, no doubt, be misused by anti-gay people like Perkins “to falsely promulgate the argument that gay people are by nature mentally ill.” She was right.

But while her study couldn’t settle the social stigma question, the very next study mentioned in the article came very close to doing just that. This one by Vickie Mays and Susan Cochran (“Mental health correlates of perceived discrimination among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in the United States.” American Journal of Public Health, 91, no 11 (Nov 2001): 1869-1876. Full study available online here.) “explored whether ongoing discrimination fuels anxiety, depression and other stress-related mental health problems among LGB people,” wrote the Monitor. “The authors found strong evidence of a relationship between the two.” The Monitor continues:

GB respondents reported higher rates of perceived discrimination than heterosexuals in every category related to discrimination, the team found.
While the findings do not prove that discrimination causes mental health problems, they take a step toward demonstrating that the social stigma felt by LGB people has important mental health consequences. That again points to the need for tailored mental health treatment, in particular therapy that includes ongoing discussion of how discriminatory experiences may affect stress levels, they note.

So, instead of blaming the problems that gay people have on simply being gay — as Tony Perkins does by pretending that science does the same — actual real live scientists have found very much the opposite, that social stigma provides a very strong explanation for the psychological distress that LGBT people face.

By the way, that same Monitor article went on to describe two other studies that found that lesbians, especially those who are already out, are actually doing quite nicely on the coping front, thank you very much. They also measured higher in self-esteem. Tony Perkins somehow forgot to mention that.

But where there is evidence of social stress, there is evidence of higher levels of psychological distress. And that extends to “the evidence from the Netherlands.” Here, Perkins links to the full text of that study online, but he appears not to have read it.

While the study’s authors notes that the Netherlands is generally more tolerant, it doesn’t mean that LGBT people there are free from anti-gay bias and stress. After all, “more tolerant” is not the same as tolerant. And as for the study’s findings, the authors offered this explanation:

The effects of social factors on the mental health status of homosexual men and women have been well documented in studies, which found a relationship between experiences of stigma, prejudice, and discrimination and mental health status. Furthermore, controlling for psychological predictors of present distress seems to eliminate differences in mental health status between heterosexual and homosexual adolescents.

In fact, anti-gay violence has actually been on the rise in the Netherlands. It’s gotten so bad that a recent rally to protest the rise in anti-gay violence was marred by attacks and threats to LGBT people who were leaving the protest. In 2005, Chris Crain, former editor of the Washington Blade, was gay-bashed in Amsterdam by two persons who called him and his partner “fucking fags.” An observer in the U.K. wrote, “Reports across all media have pointed out that the events of April 30th (the date of Crain’s attack) weren’t a one-off, and that a growing number of lesbians and gay men don’t feel as safe on the streets as they once did.”

This is the nirvana in which, according to Perkins, there is no prejudice or discrimination against gay people.

Perkins’ claim that gay people are their own worst enemy is wholly unsubstantiated and completely without merit. But that is pretty much to be expected from the Family “Research” Council. What’s not expected is for the Washington Post to serve as this propagandist’s mouthpiece without any move by the fact checkers. I assume they still exist there; I could be mistaken.

The Rent Is Too Damn High Party's Jimmy McMillan at the NY Governor Debate

He's right, too. HT Dan.

Domine, dominus noster

This is the Communion hymn for this week, the 21st Sunday after Pentecost, or Proper 24.  Here's the mp3 from JoguesChant, and here's the score:

It's a wonderful text, the first verse of Psalm 8:

1 O LORD our Governor, *
how exalted is your Name in all the world!
2 Out of the mouths of infants and children *
your majesty is praised above the heavens.
3 You have set up a stronghold against your adversaries, *
to quell the enemy and the avenger.
4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? *
the son of man that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; *
you adorn him with glory and honor;
7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; *
you put all things under his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen, *
even the wild beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, *
and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.
10 O LORD our Governor, *
how exalted is you Name in all the world!

Here's a really nice video of the St. Peter's Choir (in Philadelphia, and Episcopal, I think) singing Barry Rose's version of "O Lord Our Governor":



And here's a plainsong version of the Psalm with fauxbourdon by Gerre Hancock; I've sung this one, in fact. Here it's done by "the choir of the Royal School of Church Music Washington Course for Advanced Trebles with lovely DC-area choir members singing ATB."



And why not? I'll just post this smashing Anglican Chant Psalm again, along with its Coverdale text!

1 O Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy Name in all the world *
thou that has set thy glory above the heavens!
2 Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies *
that thou mightest still the enemy, and the avenger.
3 For I will consider thy heavens, even the works of thy fingers *
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him *
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 Thou madest him lower than the angels *
to crown him with glory and worship.
6 Thou makest him to have dominion of the works of thy hands *
and thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet;
7 All sheep and oxen *
yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea *
and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord our Governor *
how excellent is thy Name in all the world!

Incredible Video of a Man's Reunion With a Gorilla

HT Mockingbird. StampDawg includes this:

"Love never dies."
-- 1 Corinthians 13:8

Anglican Chant IX: York - Protestant Cathedral: "Psalm VIII" - Anglican Choir

Psalm 8. Lovely, lovely. I just so adore Anglican Chant. (As always, check the comments for composer information!)

1 O Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy Name in all the world *
thou that has set thy glory above the heavens!
2 Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies *
that thou mightest still the enemy, and the avenger.
3 For I will consider thy heavens, even the works of thy fingers *
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him *
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 Thou madest him lower than the angels *
to crown him with glory and worship.
6 Thou makest him to have dominion of the works of thy hands *
and thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet;
7 All sheep and oxen *
yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea *
and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord our Governor *
how excellent is thy Name in all the world!

Jumping naked, in style

I somehow cannot resist posting this video. Sincerest apologies, but I just really like it a lot.



(The backstory is, apparently, as follows: this event in France was supposed to feature riders jumping in costume, but this particular mec didn't have one. So the PTB suggested, jokingly, that he jump naked.)

"Gay rights in Africa: now for the good news"

In the Guardian today:

If all you ever read about gay people in Africa is in the western media (including gay media), you would be forgiven for thinking it's one endless horror story. This year, we've had the anti-gay riot in the Kenyan town of Mtwapa, the arrest and subsequent pardoning of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga in Malawi and, of course, the "gay executions" bill in Uganda.

Largely unnoticed amid all that has been the quickening development of gay communities and movements in many parts of Africa.

In Kenya, for instance, David Kuria – a gay man – is standing for the senate. If elected, he'll be the second openly gay politician in Africa (the first is South Africa's Ian Ollis). Kuria, who is director of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK), is already well known to Kenyans from frequent TV appearances. His prominence has also resulted in him being targeted by American evangelicals.

Kuria's candidacy for the senate is the latest development in GALCK's "gradualist" strategy, which involves building alliances with civil society groups and talking with religious leaders. This showed its worth in the successful deflation of an anti-gay backlash following the February riot.

The strategy seems to be paying off. "We have to accept [gay] people the way they are and embrace them in the society," the Kenyan special programmes minister Esther Murugi told an HIV/Aids conference last month. Her words ignited a storm but, despite various Christian and Muslim leaders calling for her head, she has refused to resign. Defending her, justice minister Mutula Kilonzo called discrimination in HIV/Aids services a "gross violation of human rights".

Elsewhere – in Zambia and Malawi, for instance – governments are increasingly recognising that tackling HIV/Aids means recognising that gay people exist. The new visibility in Kenya was seen last month when gay people openly joined a march in Nairobi demanding improvements to the Kenyan health system. They were well received, says Kuria.

"Increasingly the movement is becoming mainstreamed as legitimate stakeholders in the civil society," he added. "It is not uncommon to hear people now talk on the issues of sexual minorities in the same sentence with other minorities – this coming from people who only a couple of years, even months ago would not have even listened to such issues."

Here in Britain, it is only relatively recently that we have moved from repression to acceptance, and it took 38 years from the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, through the Thatcher government's Section 28, to arrive at civil partnerships 38 years later. Africa, now, is going through the same process we went through. Increased visibility = increased awareness = increased repression = eventual acceptance?

In Uganda, civil society groups and prominent figures including Bishop Christopher Senyonjo have rallied to defend LGBT rights in the face of a barely disguised genocidal push. In July, the former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, called for the repeal of sodomy laws. In Cameroon, gay leader Steave Nemande says media coverage of homosexuality is fast improving.

In South Africa two weeks ago a massive march in Soweto said no to the epidemic of "corrective rape" of lesbians. "Anti-gay mob violence remains a problem, but the post-apartheid ANC government has trailblazed," Peter Tatchell says of South Africa. He describes the country's legislative gains (which include gay marriage) as "a beacon for LGBT rights all across Africa".

Pan-African movements like the Coalition of African Lesbians and African Men for Sexual Health and Rights are growing, and now an East African network is under formation. Kuria says: "We have numerous listserves and increasingly we are meeting at the African Commission on Human and People's Rights."

Tatchell points out: "The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights – with its guarantees of universal equal treatment and non-discrimination – offers a legal framework for the securing of LGBT equality legislation."

Cary Alan Johnson of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission describes the progress of African LGBT movements as astounding:

"Movements are more professionally run, politically smarter, more accountable and transparent, and more diverse. In almost every country, there are emerging organisations and political spaces for queer women, transpeople, those who want to be political, those whose interests are more social. Community centres and safe spaces are emerging continent-wide.

"In the face of much adversity and homophobia, it's actually quite a heady moment."

HT Dan.

Anglican Chant VIII: Deerhurst - Protestant Church: "Psalm CXLIX"

What a gorgeous tune! I'm sure our resident AC experts will be along shortly to tell us who wrote it; check the comments for info.



Psalm 149:

1 O sing unto the Lord a new song *
let the congregation of saints praise him.
2 Let Israel rejoice in him that made him *
and let the children of Sion be joyful in their King.
3 Let them praise his Name in the dance *
let them sing praises unto him with tabret and harp.
4 For the Lord hath pleasure in his people *
and helpeth the meek-hearted.
5 Let the saints be joyful with glory *
let them rejoice in their beds.
6 Let the praises of God be in their mouth *
and a two-edged sword in their hands;
7 To be avenged of the heathen *
and to rebuke the people;
8 To bind their kings in chains *
and their nobles with links of iron.
9 That they may be avenged of them, as it is written *
Such honour have all his saints.

Somebody out there is posting lots of Anglican Chant videos representing parish churches in the Church of England! And we are very lucky they are.

Si Iniquitates

Si Iniquitates is the Introit for this Sunday, October 10th, "the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time." (Called The 20th Sunday after Pentecost, too, or Proper 23. It gets confusing sometimes.)

Here is the mp3 from JoguesChant, and here is the score from the Brazilian Benedictines:

The text is a famous one, from Psalm 130; in the Introit, verse 2 and the first half of verse 3 of the Psalm comes first, and verse 1 follows:

De profundis

1
Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2
If you, LORD, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord, who could stand?

3
For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.

4
I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.

5
My soul waits for the LORD,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.

6
O Israel, wait for the LORD, *
for with the LORD there is mercy;

7
With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

Here's a polyphonic version written by Samuel Wesley, and sung by the Scuola Corale della Cattedrale in Lugano:



This Psalm has been an option in the Burial Rite since the 1928 Book of Common Prayer in the U.S.; here's a gorgeous version of the haunting De Profundis ("Out of the Deep") from John Rutter's Requiem, sung by Monteverdi Choir Würzburg:



That piece uses the Coverdale translation of the Psalm, of course:

1 Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord *
Lord, hear my voice.
2 O let thine ears consider well *
the voice of my complaint.
3 If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss *
O Lord, who may abide it?
4 For there is mercy with thee *
therefore shalt thou be feared.
5 I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for him *
in his word is my trust.
6 My soul fleeth unto the Lord *
before the morning watch, I say, before the morning watch.
7 O Israel, trust in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy *
and with him is plenteous redemption.
8 And he shall redeem Israel *
from all his sins.

And here's Arvo Pärt's De Profundis, evidently sung by the Hilliard Ensemble:



I'm quite a huge fan of Arvo Pärt, I always note with surprise.

In any case, this is another of the very powerful "Crying Psalms," used by composers to express deep mourning or anguish of the soul. I am interested in its use here in October as the Introit, and made a little Google search on the topic. In doing this, I came across a book titled "The Advent project: the later-seventh-century creation of the Roman Mass proper‎," which I had in my Google library, but hadn't looked at yet. While I'm not sure why "Si Iniquitates" is here, I did learn that the post-Pentecost Introits start out with 16 Psalm texts - and these particular Psalms are all in numerical order. Then follow texts from a variety of sources, one of which is this Psalm. I also learned that "the most noteworthy feature of the sequence as a whole is that it comprises a set of twenty-two uniquely assigned chants (indeed twenty-five including those of the Ember Days), a further testimony to the extraordinary completeness of the introit's annual cycle."

While this isn't an answer to my particular question, it's pretty fascinating, and here's the section I'm talking about, embedded:


The Collect of the Day is this one:

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Quite lovely, and much shorter than many. Again I wish I had the Hatchett commentary at hand to see where this one came from; perhaps Caelius will help us out. (EDIT: Yes, indeed he did. Here's the good stuff, from his comments:

Hackett on the Collect for Proper 23,

"This appears in the Gregorian sacramentary among a group of prayers for morning and evening (no. 966) ad in the supplement (no. 1177) as the collect for the seventeenth Sunday after (the) Pentecost (octave). It is used for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity in the Sarum missal and earlier Prayer Books. "All" is not in the Latin. Earlier editions had "prevent" in [one of] its archaic meaning[s] "go before" (rather than its modern meaning "hinder"). The prayer is for grace which anticipates us as well as grace which accompanies us that we may be continually dedicated to good works--"prevenient" [usually attributed to John Wesley] and "cooperating" grace.

Along with a note that "The comments in brackets are mine. I just find it funny that Wesley had to remind people of concepts already apparent in shorthand in the ancient Collects." Thanks again, Caelius.)

Here is De Profundis from the  Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry:

"Why All Indiscretions Appear Youthful"

From the Times last week, a really interesting study:

She had every reason to start stealing, or so it seemed at the time. A young daughter at home. Sickly, dependent in-laws. No savings or decent income. She and her husband could barely make the rent, and here she was working at a large department store that was raking in the cash. Who would miss a few items here and there, a jacket, some cosmetics?

It was easy, too. Fake a purchase, slip the thing into a bag and walk out at the end of the day with something extra: a small donation to a worthy charity, the struggling American family.

“I knew it was wrong and I knew I would probably get caught,” said the thief, a woman in the Los Angeles area, who recently recounted her 1980s spree (anonymously, for obvious reasons) to researchers studying moral choices. She added, “After that, I really made up my mind that I was going to get my life together and get on track.”

In recent years psychologists have exposed the many ways that people subconsciously maintain and massage their moral self-image. They rate themselves as morally superior to the next person; overestimate the likelihood that they will act virtuously in the future; see their own good intentions as praiseworthy while dismissing others’ as inconsequential. And they soften their moral principles when doing a truly dirty job, like carrying out orders to exploit uninformed customers.

Now, scientists are beginning to learn how memory assists and even amplifies this righteous self-messaging. In piecing together a life story, the mind nudges moral lapses back in time and shunts good deeds forward, these new studies suggest — creating, in effect, a doctored autobiography. Recognizing this tendency in oneself, psychologists say, can both reduce the risk of lapsing into middle-aged sanctimony and increase moral vigilance for when it matters most: the present.

“We can’t make up the past, but the brain has difficulty placing events in time, and we’re able to shift elements around,” said Anne E. Wilson, a social psychologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. “The result is that we can create a personal history that, if not perfect, makes us feel we’re getting better and better.”

In a new paper in the journal Emotion, which included the tale of the department store thief, neuroscientists at Caltech provide perhaps the richest documentation of this effect to date. They recruited 100 people, ages 40 to 60, to participate in what was described as a memory study. In response to dozens of prompts — “Please talk about a time when you did something that made you feel guilty,” for instance — they poured out memories.

The researchers transcribed the recorded tales and created a database of 758 “moral memories” by singling out those that had clear moral content, whether positive or negative. One person confessed to poaching a pad of Post-it notes from an employer, another to stealing books while growing up poor in Mexico. A third admitted cheating on her husband with the neighbor. A former drug addict recalled holding a knife to a man’s throat in a robbery. (“I just remember that rush — it gave me a sense of great power.”)

The database provides a detailed catalog of bad and good behavior, as well as a rough guide to what people consider most shameful. The most common bad acts were also some of the most regretted: stealing, followed by cheating (whether on a romantic partner or on a test) and lying.

To complete the study, the participants returned weeks later and rated each of their own tales on a variety of scales, including the emotions they felt at the time and the estimated date when the episode happened. After correcting for age at the time of memories (in other words, trying to take account of the lunacy of youth) the researchers identified a clear pattern: people dated their memories of moral failings about 10 years earlier, on average, than their memories of good deeds, according to Jessica R. Escobedo, co-author of the paper with Ralph Adolphs.

HT Mockingbird.

"Lured Into a Trap, Then Tortured for Being Gay"

In the Times today:

He was told there was a party at a brick house on Osborne Place, a quiet block set on a steep hill in the Bronx. He showed up last Sunday night as instructed, with plenty of cans of malt liquor. What he walked into was not a party at all, but a night of torture — he was sodomized, burned and whipped.

All punishment, the police said Friday, for being gay.

There were nine attackers, ranging from 16 to 23 years old and calling themselves the Latin King Goonies, the police said. Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, they had snatched up two teenage boys whom they beat, the police said — until the boys — one of whom was sodomized with a plunger — admitted to having had sex with the man.

The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.

The beatings and robberies went on for hours. They were followed by a remarkably thorough attempt to sanitize the house — including pouring bleach down drains, the police said, as little by little word of the attacks trickled to the police. A crucial clue to the attackers was provided by someone who slipped a note to a police officer outside the crime scene, at 1910 Osborne Place in Morris Heights, near Bronx Community College.

Seven suspects were arrested on Thursday and Friday, and two were still being sought in a crime that the leader of the City Council called among the worst hate crimes she had ever heard of. “It makes you sick,” said the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, the city’s highest ranking openly gay official.

The charges included abduction, unlawful imprisonment and sodomy, all as hate crimes.

“These suspects deployed terrible, wolf-pack odds of nine against one, which revealed them as predators whose crimes were as cowardly as they were despicable,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a news conference.

The assaults are the latest in a string of recent episodes of bullying and attacks against gays. A Rutgers University student jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge last month, prosecutors said, after his roommate had secretly set up a webcam in their room and streamed over the Internet his sexual encounter with another man. Two men were accused of robbing and beating a man in the Stonewall Inn, a landmark gay bar in Greenwich Village, last weekend while shouting slurs.

Neighbors on Osborne Place said the house, nondescript but for its door painted a bright lime green, had been vacant for some time. A group of teenagers and young men had moved in as squatters, neighbors said, and hosted loud parties.

“You could smell it from them,” said a neighbor who gave only his last name, Gomez. “From the start, you could tell they were trouble.” Mr. Gomez said he and other neighbors had discussed whether anything could be done about the squatters, but nothing came of it.

The nine suspects — the group seemed not so much part of an established gang as a loose group of friends who adopted a nickname — knew some or all three victims. The idea for the attacks seemed to have been hatched last Saturday, after one member of the group saw the 30-year-old man, who he knew was gay, with a 17-year-old who wanted to join the gang, the police said.

Hours later, at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, the group grabbed the 17-year-old, took him to the house and slammed him into a wall, the police said.

He was beaten, made to strip naked, slashed with a box cutter, hit on the head with a can of beer and sodomized with the wooden handle of a plunger, the police said. And he was interrogated about the 30-year-old and asked if they had had sex.

The teenager said that they had. The gang members set him loose, warning him to keep quiet or they would hurt his friends and family. The teenager walked into a nearby hospital and said he had been jumped by strangers on the street and robbed.

Dancing at the Movies - Music Video

HT Misha.

Freak Show at Supreme Court | Religion Dispatches

Freak Show at Supreme Court | Religion Dispatches

I gotta hand it to my friend Mike Argento, a columnist at the York Daily Record, who was down at the US Supreme Court yesterday for the hearing in Snyder v. Phelps, the case of the Westboro Baptist Church and whether their penchant to hold up signs that say "God Hates Fags" at soldiers' funerals constitutes a First Amendment right. God bless him, Argento can find the hilarity in just about anything.

In his column today, he perfectly captured the absurdity taking place on the courthouse steps. And I am officially in love with the onlookers who came to the hearing to bear witness and who stared into the faces of such ugliness and hatefulness and meanness and viciousness and they responded in the only sane way possible. They giggled:

Clark had come to watch it. He's a staff sergeant in the Army Reserve, having served on active duty in Iraq, tours totaling 27 months. He lives in Lillington, N.C., near Fort Bragg.

"I think they should be out here," Clark said. "They're the biggest idiots in the world, and they're out here showing everybody that they're the biggest idiots in the world -- and they have the right to do that. Isn't that amazing? I served in the military to preserve their right to show everybody that they're the biggest idiots in the world. "We should be thankful they aren't suicide bombing. At least their craziness is limited to signs."

At one point, one the Phelpses turned to Clark and said, "You're a fag and you're going to hell."

"These guys," Clark said, "they're hilarious."

Seriously. Read the entire column.

I love it. Seriously - and I've been saying this for years, too. The Westboro Baptist Church is our very best argument of all....

Archbishop Desmond Tutu ends public career at 79

A wonderful man; we were lucky to have known him.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is stepping down from public life, as he celebrates his 79th birthday.

The man described as the "conscience" of South Africa was a prominent voice during the country's struggle against white minority rule.

He has since been the voice of reconciliation in a number of regional conflicts.

But the Nobel Peace prize winner says he wants to spend more time with his family and watching cricket.

He also says he wants to make way for a new generation of leaders.

BBC Southern Africa correspondent Karen Allen says Archbishop Tutu is a man widely considered as a moral compass in South Africa, admired for his integrity and adored for his infectious laugh.

As a young cleric back in the 1970s, he was a vocal critic of the apartheid regime.

In the mid-1980s, when South Africa was still under white minority rule, he campaigned in the townships - on one occasion famously wading into the frontline to call for calm when a mob tried to lynch a suspected undercover policeman.

HT Dan.

Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010- Opening Ceremony - Part 10 HQ

HT Dan.

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches

When I heard about the death of 15-year-old Billy Lucas early in September, I was terribly saddened. It is a tragedy when a young person completes suicide in the aftermath of daily torment and harassment. After this, I sat in stunned silence in front of my computer screen as news stories continued to appear about the suicides of 13-year-old Asher Brown, 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, 13-year-old Seth Walsh, and 19-year-old Raymond Chase. Today, it is very clear to me that profound sadness and stunned silence is no longer a suitable, appropriate or adequate response.

From Lamentation to Indignation

My sadness began to change into something different with each successive news story about another gay teen hanging himself, shooting himself, and jumping off of a bridge. As I saw the faces of these young victims and imagined the family and friends left to cope with the chaos of their suicides, my lamentation began to morph into an indignant fury.

My indignation grew as I shifted my gaze from the individual acts of suicide to the contexts in which these suicides are set. Suicide takes place for numerous reasons. Some seek relief from enduring physical and psychological pain that seems infinitely unrelenting and others after severe bouts of depression. These teens, however, were not seeking relief from some persistent, internal state of depression or physical illness. The pain they faced had an external source — the cruel, unremitting, merciless, pounding of daily humiliation, taunting, harassment and violence.

And all of this pain visited upon these young lives because of one thing they had in common: they were not heterosexual.

These suicides are not acts of “escape” or a “cop-out” from facing life. When LGBT people resort to suicide, they are responding to far more than the pain of a few individual insults or humiliating occurrences. When LGBT people complete suicide it is an extreme act of resistance to an oppressive and unjust reality in which every LGBT person is always and everywhere at risk of becoming the target of violence solely because of sexual orientation or gender identity. They are acts of resistance to a perceived reality in which a lifetime of violence and abuse seems utterly unavoidable.

The landscape upon which LGBT teen suicide is set calls for far more than our sympathy and sadness. There are times in which it is important to be guided to action by our anger. This is one of those times.

From Interpersonal Violence to Group Subjugation

Our response to bullying is a response to violence. Beyond the inflicting of individual pain, violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people has effects far beyond the individual target. This is what Iris Marion Young terms “systematic violence” in her famous “Five Faces of Oppression.” It is a violence of instrumentality — violence with the effect of keeping an entire group subjugated and in a state of oppression.

Young argues, “Members of some groups live with the knowledge that they must fear random, unprovoked attacks on their persons or property, which have no motive but to damage, humiliate, or destroy the person”.*  The only thing one must do to become victimized is to be a member of a particular group (e.g. to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender). We must widen our perspective from individual acts of bullying and violence to the instrumental purpose these serve in subjugating LGBT people to particular religious and cultural ideologies in which reality is defined from a strictly heterosexual perspective — and gay and lesbian people become non-persons.

As more churches and denominations ordain gay and lesbian clergy, more gay and lesbian people are featured in media, and more medical, psychological and psychotherapeutic organizations reject notions of the pathological in sexual minorities, dominant religious and cultural ideology is in a state of crisis. It is no longer an unquestioned assumption that heterosexual experience represents the definition of reality for all people. The power to define reality for the masses is at stake and this power comes with all manner of political and ideological implications. Thus, there is a vested interest on the part of the religious and political right in keeping LGBT persons silent and subjugated.

Whereas political rallying on issues like same-sex marriage and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell serve to maintain some ground on the preservation of anti-gay cultural ideology, the intermittent reinforcement of violent attack is an even better tool to ensure the silence (and suicide) of LGBT people and their subjugation to the closet.

While a majority of LGBT people may avoid ever becoming the victim of a violence, none will be able to avoid the psychic terror that is visited upon LGBT people with each reminder that this world is one in which people are maimed and killed because of their sexual and gender identities. It is this psychic terror that makes life so difficult for many LGBT people. It is this psychic terror that does the heavy lifting of instrumental, systematic violence. It intends to silence and to destroy from within.

While most of us will never be physically attacked by another human being, all of us know we are targets.

A theology of anti-gay bullying

Anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it has a theological base. I find it difficult to believe that even those among us with a vibrant imagination can muster the creative energy to picture a reality in which anti-gay violence and bullying exist without the anti-gay religious messages that support them.

These messages come in many forms, degrees of virulence, and volumes of expression. The most insidious forms, however, are not those from groups like Westboro Baptist Church. Most people quickly dismiss this fanaticism as the red-faced ranting of a fringe religious leader and his small band of followers.

More difficult to address are the myriad ways in which everyday churches that do a lot of good in the world also perpetuate theologies that undergird and legitimate instrumental violence. The simplistic, black and white lines that are drawn between conceptions of good and evil make it all-too-easy to apply these dualisms to groups of people. When theologies leave no room for ambiguity, mystery and uncertainty, it becomes very easy to identify an “us” (good, heterosexual) versus a “them” (evil, gay).

Additionally, hierarchical conceptions of value and worth are implicit in many of our theological notions. Needless to say, value and worth are not distributed equally in these hierarchies. God is at the top, (white, heterosexual) men come soon after and all those less valued by the culture (women, children, LGBT people, the poor, racial minorities, etc.) fall somewhere down below. And it all makes perfect sense if you support it with a few appropriately (mis)quoted verses from the Bible.

With dualistic conceptions of good and evil and hierarchical notions of value and worth, it becomes easy to know who it is okay to hate or to bully or, seemingly more benignly, to ignore. And no institutions have done more to create and perpetuate the public disapproval of gay and lesbian people than churches.

If anti-gay bullying has, at any level, an embodied undercurrent of tacit theological legitimation, then we simply cannot circumvent our responsibility to provide a clear, decisive, theological response. Aside from its theological base, anti-gay bullying is a theological issue because it calls for acts of solidarity on behalf of the vulnerable and justice on behalf of the oppressed.

But this imperative to respond reminds us that the most dangerous form of theological message comes in the subtlest of forms: silence.

The longer we wait, the more young people die

There is already a strong religious presence in the debate around anti-bullying education in schools. Unfortunately, it is not a friendly voice for LGBT teens. There is also no lack of rhetoric on sexuality stemming from theological sources. But the loudest voices are not the voices of affirmation and embrace. In a recent article, I urged churches that rest comfortably in a tacitly welcoming or pseudo-affirming position to come out and publicly proclaim their places of worship as truly welcoming and affirming sanctuaries for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For these teens and the myriad other bisexual, transgender, lesbian and gay youth lost to suicide, the waiting game hasn’t worked so well.

As simply as I can state the matter: The longer we wait to respond, the more young people die.

If this were a hostage situation, we would have dispatched the SWAT team by now. And in many ways, it is. Our children and teenagers are being held hostage by a religious and political rhetoric that strives to maintain the status quo of anti-gay heterosexist normativity. The messages of Focus on the Family and other organizations actively strive to leave the most vulnerable among us exposed to continuous attack. The good news is that we don't need a SWAT team. We just need quality education on sexuality and gender identity in our schools and more faithful and courageous preaching and teaching in our churches.

Catholic theologian M. Shawn Copeland offers profound words to any individuals and churches seeking to wash their hands of this issue. She states,

“If my sister or brother is not at the table, we are not the flesh of Christ. If my sister’s mark of sexuality must be obscured, if my brother’s mark of race must be disguised, if my sister’s mark of culture must be repressed, then we are not the flesh of Christ. For, it is through and in Christ’s own flesh that the ‘other’ is my sister, is my brother; indeed, the ‘other’ is me…”

If anti-gay bullying is a theological issue, perhaps what is called for is a creative theological response. A theological response that challenges the systematic violence that upholds an oppressive religious and cultural ideology will not be a response through which we can hedge our bets. It will be a full-bodied, whole-hearted giving of ourselves to the repair of the flesh of Christ divided by injustice and systematic exclusion.

Ministers who remain in comfortable silence on sexuality must speak out. Churches that have silently embraced gay and lesbian members for years must publically hang the welcome banner. How long will we continue to limit and qualify our messages of acceptance, inclusion and embrace for the most vulnerable in order to maintain the comfort of those in our communities of faith who are well served by the status quo?

In the current climate, equivocating messages of affirmation are overpowered by the religious rhetoric of hatred. Silence only serves to support the toleration of bullying, violence and exclusion. In the face of what has already become the common occurrence of LGBT teen suicide, how long can we wait to respond?

"Rutgers student Tyler Clementi's suicide spurs action across U.S."

In NJ.com today:

Relatively few people knew Tyler Clementi before he jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge, but the wake from that act is now felt around the world.

Within hours after the Rutgers University freshman’s body was discovered in the Hudson River last week, his name became known around the world.

MTV stars were lining up to film anti-suicide announcements in his name. Ellen DeGeneres posted a personal tribute to Clementi on her website. Almost every major media outlet in the country devoted time to the story and tens of thousands of people participated in internet memorials to the 18-year-old Ridgewood student.

A bill is already being drafted in New Jersey to stiffen criminal penalties for cyber harassment. Gay rights groups announced a series of New Jersey town hall meetings on Oct. 6 and 7 in Clementi’s memory.

Why has the case touched such a nerve?

"Intolerance is growing at the same time cyberspace has given every one of us an almost magical ability to invade other people’s lives," said Robert O’Brien, a Rutgers instructor who says he has, by default, become a spokesman for "overwhelmed" lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on campus.

No one knows why Clementi, a talented young violinist, took his life, but it came after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, used a webcam to watch Clementi having a sexual encounter with another man in their dorm room, prosecutors said.

Ravi had set up the webcam and was watching with a friend, Molly Wei, in her room in the same dormitory, according to authorities. Both have since been charged with invasion of privacy. Clementi appears to have found out about the webcast afterward and had filed a complaint with the resident assistant, according to comments posted on a website that seemed to be written by the Rutgers student, even though he didn’t use his name or name of his school.

He jumped on Sept. 22.

It took a week to find the body.

The memorials in his honor were arranged within hours, ironically, through the same social media used to torment him.

"Tyler is the fourth highly publicized gay teen to kill himself in four weeks and he did it the day after the release of the first major study of college campuses that found homosexual students are most likely to experience blatant oppression and hostility," O’Brien added. "I think many people are finally saying enough is enough."

The Clementi case also occurred on the eve of a series of weeklong events across the country in anticipation of "National Coming Out Day" on Oct. 11.

Another factor, several experts said, is Rutgers University is not a parochial little school in the middle of the Bible Belt. It is a diverse series of campuses in the heart of one of the most cosmopolitan regions in the nation.

"Rutgers is justifiably proud of its history as a very progressive, inclusive school. If things like what happened to Tyler Clementi could happen at Rutgers, then gays aren’t going to feel safe on any campus anywhere," said Shane Windmeyer, founder and executive director of Campus Pride, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a safer college environment for LGBT students.

"People worried about LGBT kids in high school, but figured they were safe once they got to college," Windmeyer added. "This is a national wake-up call."

Anglican Chant VII: Lincoln - Anglican Cathedral - Psalm 24: "The Earth is the Lord´s"

Here's Coverdale's Psalm 24. I know this chant, and have sung it, but can't place it at the moment; not to worry, for Scott will be along shortly to help! (Actually, I think this one is Stanford - and that I've sung Psalm 150 to this tune.)

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and all that therein is *
the compass of the world, and they that dwell therein.
2 For he hath founded it upon the seas *
and prepared it upon the floods.
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord *
or who shall rise up in his holy place?
4 Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart *
and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbour.

5 He shall receive the blessing from the Lord *
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 This is the generation of them that seek him *
even of them that seek thy face, O Jacob.
7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors *
and the King of glory shall come in.
8 Who is the King of glory *
it is the Lord strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors *
and the King of glory shall come in.
10 Who is the King of glory *
even the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

And, unadvertised, Psalm 23 is included, too! Scott?

1 The Lord is my shepherd *
therefore can I lack nothing.
2 He shall feed me in a green pasture *
and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.
3 He shall convert my soul *
and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for his Name’s sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death , I will fear no evil *
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

5 Thou shalt prepare a table before me against them that trouble me *
thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full.
6 But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life *
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

I actually like this translation better than than the much more well-known KJV; it's beautiful.

itgetsbetter_boyonabridge.wmv

Anglican Chant VI: Lincoln Cathedral, "Psalm 104 - Praise the Lord, o My Soul"

One of the loveliest of Psalms, from the Coverdale (BCP 1662) Psalter. The composer isn't listed, unfortunately:

Psalm 104

1 Praise the Lord, O my soul *
O Lord my God, thou art become exceeding glorious; thou art clothed with majesty and honour.
2 Thou deckest thyself with light as it were with a garment *
and spreadest out the heavens like a curtain.
3 Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters *
and maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.
4 He maketh his angels spirits *
and his ministers a flaming fire.

5 He laid the foundations of the earth *
that it never should move at any time.
6 Thou coveredst it with the deep like as with a garment *
the waters stand in the hills.
7 At thy rebuke they flee *
at the voice of thy thunder they are afraid.
8 They go up as high as the hills, and down to the valleys beneath *
even unto the place which thou hast appointed for them.

9 Thou hast set them their bounds which they shall not pass *
neither turn again to cover the earth.
10 He sendeth the springs into the rivers *
which run among the hills.
11 All beasts of the field drink thereof *
and the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 Beside them shall the fowls of the air have their habitation *
and sing among the branches.

13 He watereth the hills from above *
the earth is filled with the fruit of thy works.
14 He bringeth forth grass for the cattle *
and green herb for the service of men;
15 That he may bring food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man *
and oil to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
16 The trees of the Lord also are full of sap *
even the cedars of Libanus which he hath planted;

17 Wherein the birds make their nests *
and the fir-trees are a dwelling for the stork.
18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats *
and so are the stony rocks for the conies.
19 He appointed the moon for certain seasons *
and the sun knoweth his going down.
20 Thou makest darkness that it may be night *
wherein all the beasts of the forest do move.

21 The lions roaring after their prey *
do seek their meat from God.
22 The sun ariseth, and they get them away together *
and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man goeth forth to his work, and to his labour *
until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are thy works *
in wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches.

25 So is the great and wide sea also *
wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
26 There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan *
whom thou hast made to take his pastime therein.
27 These wait all upon thee *
that thou mayest give them meat in due season.
28 When thou givest it them they gather it *
and when thou openest thy hand they are filled with good.

29 When thou hidest thy face they are troubled *
when thou takest away their breath they die, and are turned again to their dust.
30 When thou lettest thy breath go forth they shall be made *
and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
31 The glorious Majesty of the Lord shall endure for ever *
the Lord shall rejoice in his works.
32 The earth shall tremble at the look of him *
if he do but touch the hills, they shall smoke.

33 I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live *
I will praise my God while I have my being.
34 And so shall my words please him *
my joy shall be in the Lord.
35 As for sinners, they shall be consumed out of the earth, and the ungodly shall come to an end *
praise thou the Lord, O my soul, praise the Lord.

Make It Better Project

Make It Better Project

From the home page:

LGBT youth should not have to suffer through bullying at school. We can Make It Better NOW!

The Make It Better Project gives youth the tools they need to make their schools better now! Through our website and YouTube channel, youth and adults can work together to make schools safer for LGBT youth right now.

We aren’t waiting until high school is over for our lives to get better… We are taking action now! Join us!

Here’s What You Can You Do to Make It Better Now!

1. Take Action Now

- Start a Gay-Straight Alliance and change your school

- Support students who are fighting homophobia and transphobia

- Fight for laws that will make schools safer for LGBT youth

2. Join the Week of Action!

3. Join the YouTube campaign to Make It Better now by emailing us a video at video@makeitbetterproject.org !

4. Donate to support youth leaders working to Make It Better right now.

Here's the YouTube Channel. HT David Link.

Ellen Handler Spitz Reviews "The Grimm Reader: The Classic Tales Of The Brothers Grimm" | The New Republic

Ellen Handler Spitz Reviews "The Grimm Reader: The Classic Tales Of The Brothers Grimm" | The New Republic

Year after year, we print and re-print fairy tales. What is it that makes them valuable? Should we keep telling them, and if so, why? What about their detractors, the self-appointed child protectors who complain about their violence and cruelty, not to mention a different set of worriers who protest their “false” happy endings? And surely the tales do not teach morality. Remember the egregious brutality of that spoiled princess in The Frog King who, after hurling the little animal who helped her against the wall, gets rewarded. And we quail at even a mention of The Jew in the Brambles, an outrageous portrayal of barbarism and prejudice, which, in Maria Tatar’s new selection of the Grimm fairy tales, wisely appears only in a separate section marked for adults.

Nor do the tales psychologize or philosophize. What they do, instead, is what all great children’s literature does: they literalize metaphor. They lower their glittering buckets deep into the psyche’s well. Loyalty lifts spells. Jealousy becomes murder. Love trumps death. Fortune reverses. Wishes come true.

Not quite like ancient myths, which use nymphs and satyrs to explain recurring natural phenomena; nor like fables, whose timeless moral lessons are parlayed through the escapades of animal characters; nor like legends, which exude the pungent aromas of one particular locale and its history, fairy tales are stories spun into gold at the wooden wheel of a miller’s daughter: stories made to summon wonder, horror, enchantment—and not necessarily anything more. Uncanny in the purest sense of the word, which is to say, both bizarre and familiar at once, they are meant to be told, not read, and they truly possess an inexhaustible power. Children hold on tight, turn pale, close their eyes, and beg for more.

The Grimm Reader, a compilation of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, newly translated by Tatar, who has published voluminously and illuminatingly on these writings for decades, comes to us with a mischievous title. It reminds us that, in the wake of global terrorism, parents and teachers are questioning ever more nervously what sort of tales we ought to be telling children and why. In Lilith some years ago, Naomi Danis aired these anxieties, with responses from twenty writers and editors associated with children’s literature, a significant number of whom warned against “smarmy” sentimentality and against books that offer superficial “healing.”

Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) were brothers who collaborated closely throughout their lives. Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt am Main, they studied law at Marburg, and through their linguistic and philological studies, became fascinated by age-old popular German oral cultural traditions, which they feared were in danger of disappearing under the threat of industrialization. They began to gather tales and songs and amassed a monumental collection but did not readily reveal their sources, which later proved, in many cases, to be not of direct folk or peasant origins but filtered through intermediaries of their own social circle.

In her introductory pages, Tatar reminds us how the Grimm brothers altered successive editions of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen, which were originally published in 1812 and 1815, cleansing them of erotic innuendo—notably of references to pre-marital sex, pregnancy, and incest—and hoping thereby to make them more suitable for youthful readers. Violence, however, was fine. Elsewhere Tatar has shown that Wilhelm Grimm was also ready to bowdlerize the tales by routinely changing mothers into stepmothers (as in Hansel and Gretel), so as to preserve the sanctity of motherhood and, beyond that, to seek on all feasible occasions to link feminine attractiveness with self-sacrifice and to associate feminine beauty with the virtues of diligence and domestic labor.

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Rustic, often coarse, yet sparkling with silver and gold, the Grimms’ tales match, with an almost miraculous precision, children’s own ways of thinking. They transform contiguity into causality, and they maximize contrast. Their smoky looking glasses mirror, to our glossy, high-tech, twenty-first century children, hidden aspects of their own inner lives, buried treasure all too rarely tapped. I cannot understand those who deem these fairy tales unsuitable for children, and those who would purge them of their so-called inappropriate elements. If they find these old tales powerful enough to require censorship, then perhaps they themselves have not outgrown them. Fearlessly and sometimes fearfully, the Grimms embrace a welter of intractable human dilemmas—themes that, our advancing science and technology notwithstanding, have never vanished from life. Deceptively simple, their magic appeals to us not only when we are young. They perform a lasting and invaluable educational task: they teach us to marvel, to quest, to seek. We learn from their twists and turns—from a girl’s seven brothers transformed into ravens and then back again, or from a greedy fishwife who ends her days in a pigsty—that truth may abide in the strangeness of fantasy.

Some of the very first items I downloaded (for free!) from Kindle Books and read were fairy tales - including some older editions of Grimm collections. I absolutely love them - and they are, truly, sometimes very chilling....