It’s Christmas Eve! In looking back at past posts from this season, I realized that this year, Dr. Wife and I will be creating more of our traditions. Last night, for example, we watched 1984’s Gremlins while wrapping Christmas presents. I’m not sure if we’ll watch the same flick every year, but wrapping gifts together was fun (there is also a marked difference in quality between the gifts she wrapped and the ones I wrapped; I’ll let you guess who did a better job).
What are some of your favorite Christmas/Christmas Eve traditions, dear readers? Leave a comment below.
With that, here is 24 December 2019’s “Christmas Eve“:
There this obscure piece of music sat until my September, when my pastor had the idea to pull out some lesser-known hymns for our church to sing during our fall revival services. My pastor shares something of my absurdist sense of humor, so when he stumbled upon “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” he half-jokingly proposed we sing it one night as our congregational piece. I enthusiastically agreed to play it, and so it became reality.
I took the opportunity to record a little bit of it and upload it to YouTube. Below is the church’s valiant attempt at singing a song that virtually no one in the congregation knew:
The online historian Rudyard Lynch, also known by his channel name, Whatifalthist, put up an interesting video earlier this week about the influence of alchemy and alchemical modes of thinking on the development of Western civilization. It’s worth watching and considering, especially as an example of the crosspollination of ideas between philosophical, ethical, and religious systems.
Lynch makes the point of differentiating alchemy from Gnosticism, the latter of which he clearly views as a demonic heresy (it is). I suspect he lets alchemy off the hook a little too easily from a Christian perspective, but apparently it’s a topic that many churches have studied and even endorsed.
I’m not willing to go that far. It smacks too much of the appeal of secret knowledge that is at the root of Gnosticism. For nerdy men, especially, there is a pull to these kinds of mystical interpretations because, like computer programming, they offer up an alleged deeper understanding of the “code” behind existence.
Ultimately, Jesus Is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We must always be on guard against potential heresies.
Halloween is particularly fun when it’s on a Friday. My little town “observed” trick-or-treating last night, but I’m going with Dr. Fiancée and my niece and nephews tonight (we’re not dressing up, but the kids are). I’m looking forward to some family time.
We’re living in heretical times. All sorts of New Age nonsense is afoot.
The thing is, all the “New Age nonsense” is just Old World paganism and Gnosticism wrapped in therapeutic language. People are looking for answers—the easier the better. I’ve been reading the classic, authoritative book on the subject, The Kingdom of the Cults (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, as are several others links in this post; I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you), by theologian Walter Martin, and it is wild how many of these cults share the same basic qualities—claiming to be “Christian” while perverting and distorting the very heart of the Gospels.
Yours portly sometimes gets a bit strident when sharing his views, particularly when it comes to immigration. I do believe that immigration—both legal and illegal—is one of the major problems facing the United States and Europe today. I also believe that not all cultures are created equal, and that Western Civilization is, broadly speaking, the best and highest form of cultural and civilizational expression ever achieved.
A great deal of that greatness—indeed, so much so that, like a fish in water, we don’t even realize how subsumed in it we are—comes from Christianity. So much of the morality we take for granted in the West comes from Jesus Christ’s Teachings: charity, patience, love, and—perhaps most importantly—forgiveness. Christ Died on the Cross to pay for our sins—not His. He Is the Spotless Lamb, Sacrificed to take on the burden of our sin once and for all. He Was Resurrected and will Return.
That idea of forgiveness—merely ask and believe, and Christ Will Cleanse you of your sins and Welcome you into His everlasting Kingdom—is hugely powerful, and often cuts against human nature. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31) is probably the hardest teaching in Christianity, especially when “your neighbor” includes loving your enemies (Matthew 5:44). And, boy, do enemies abound in these blasphemous times.
I struggle mightily with the injunction to love my enemies. Indeed, I’ve been feeling a great deal of conviction about it lately. The enemies of Goodness and Righteousness and Truth are many, and they are cruel. But as Nietzsche put it (proving, too, that Truth can emanate even from those who are lost), “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Gulp!
At present, it feels like the United States is experiencing a major Christian religious revival just below the surface. It seems like being a professing Christian has become—dare I say it?—cool. The desire for genuine connection with Christ and a body of likeminded believers ripples throughout the nation, potentially bucking the long, depressing trend of declining faith.
While Boomers seemed to embrace the excuse to stay home from The Age of The Virus—they left churches and never returned—at least some young people are realizing the benefits of church attendance. It feels like something is changing, that the Holy Spirit Is Moving in mighty ways.
Let’s hope that feeling is correct! Regardless, in good times and bad (especially bad), we should be going to church, engaging in the our Christian walk with fellow believers. The Easter season is the perfect time to get back into the habit.
The Sunday before the Inauguration I cheekily proposed to my pastor and our deacon that we should sing “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” for our morning congregational hymn in honor of Trump’s then-upcoming Inauguration. I had practiced the piece a bit Saturday evening, but with a pretty gnarly bout of sinus drainage, I found the high notes hard to hit.
Instead of singing the piece—a very old missionary tune by composer Lowell Mason, with words by Reginald Heber—either on my own or in church, I played it a few times as a bit of instrumental prelude music.
The melody for the piece is interesting, with a few suspensions and some unusual timing, like the long half-note pickup at the beginning and midway through the piece.
Spooky Season III is out now on all streaming platforms (includingSpotify)! Pick up the digital download at Bandcamp, and take 20% off any Bandcamp purchase with this promo code: spooky (code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Thursday, 31 October 2024).
The spooky season keeps on rollin’! Hopefully by the time you read this post yours portly will have completed some Halloween decorating, and maybe even some pumpkin carving. Fun!
The Portly Politico 