Two wee bits of action over the last week which I missed out blogging on. A trip to the cinema to see the musical Nine. We went for to see Avatar but the film was sold out, so after debating going to see Sherlock Holmes, we plumped for the musical. Daniel Day Lewis can both sing and dance, Judi Dench was marvellous in her number (but, hey, her Dameship was the original Sally Bowles in the 1968 West End production of Cabaret!). Other treats were Kate Hudson blasting out "Cinema Italiano" (I bet her Mum Goldie Hawn was proud!) and Penelope Cruz doing more to promote sales of Anne Summers undies than the rest of the EU combined! Once you get into it, it's a great film! Highly recommended!
I also went to the Watchnight service at St Cuthbert's. It's beautiful Church, with a most impressive frieze of the Last Supper and a very fine bronze statue of the Madonna and Child (not at all usual in Presbyterian Parish Kirk!). Bags of candles and very little artificial (electrical) lighting. Content was pretty ordinary in terms of material (I knew the hymns, but were they ideal for a not too well Churched Kirk of revellers?) The best bit was a reading from GK Chesterton's "House of Christmas":
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
And where are we at home? In the world where God was homeless or in Christ, whose life was perfect, not because he was "sinless" in the sense of not picking his nose, but perfect in the sense of being God-centered and resting in communion with his nature in the Trinity. A perfection we cannot imitate, but only be gifted through the Incarnation.
I also went to the Watchnight service at St Cuthbert's. It's beautiful Church, with a most impressive frieze of the Last Supper and a very fine bronze statue of the Madonna and Child (not at all usual in Presbyterian Parish Kirk!). Bags of candles and very little artificial (electrical) lighting. Content was pretty ordinary in terms of material (I knew the hymns, but were they ideal for a not too well Churched Kirk of revellers?) The best bit was a reading from GK Chesterton's "House of Christmas":
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
And where are we at home? In the world where God was homeless or in Christ, whose life was perfect, not because he was "sinless" in the sense of not picking his nose, but perfect in the sense of being God-centered and resting in communion with his nature in the Trinity. A perfection we cannot imitate, but only be gifted through the Incarnation.
A poet more than 30 years old is simply an overgrown child.
ReplyDeleteNonsense.
Oh? There's an obit in todays Times of a poet from South Africa (Dennis Brutus) who didn't publish until after 30 and wrote his early stuff in Robben Island. Yours is a sweeping generalisation which doesn't carry the aura of universal truth. Are you sure you're not mistaking disdain for the specific subject matter in this poem with poetry in general?
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteAre you into New Age/auras?
No, not really
ReplyDelete