Letting My Hair Down [27 Christ-Centered Couplets]
May 1, 2009
I hate poetry. It’s blue-collar work. Like a bricklayer, poets grind out an existence one word at a time.
Words become sentences, sentences become stanzas, stanzas become poems…over a period of days. Weeks. Even months.
One fourteen-line sonnet can demand fourteen hours to craft. And then you are not even sure it’s any good.
The process is long, brutal and nasty.
That’s why I like the couplet. You’re only dealing with two lines of five to six words each. Unless you’re writing thirty-nine couplets…like I did with the Old Testament last week.
Or twenty-seven couplets…like I did this week.
I paint a painful picture. Tongue-in-cheek, of course, because I enjoy the final product with a smug self-satisfaction.
So, I hope you experience the same kind of satisfaction after reading these couplets…without the work, of course. Let me know what you think. And have a great Friday.
Matthew
The meek revolutionist surpassed Moses—
Unheard, he redeemed the broken masses.
Mark
Soon I must be isolated, sifted—
Follow me, to death, that none would be wasted.
Luke
God mingled with women, children, heathen
Through Christ-man, who sought the lost with passion.
From In Memoriam, XXXI
January 22, 2009
By Alfred Lord Tennyson (Courtesy of Rebecca Stark)
When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary’s house return’d,
Was this demanded — if he yearn’d
To hear her weeping by his grave?
“Where wert thou, brother, those four days?”
There lives no record of reply,
Which telling what it is to die
Had surely added praise to praise.
From every house the neighbours met,
The streets were fill’d with joyful sound,
A solemn gladness even crown’d
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal’d;
He told it not; or something seal’d
The lips of that Evangelist.
Visit Rebecca Writes
Weekend Walkabout, December 20, 2008
December 20, 2008
26 posts from the week that escaped mention (almost!):
“All” Always Means ALL. Right? - Phil Johnson
A Bad Sign - The Sacred Sandwich
CCM Magazine’s Top Ten Artist Blogs of 2008 (HT: Worship.com)
Don’t Waste Your Sexuality - Josh Harris
The Elvis-Beatles Relativity Fallacy - Rod Dreher
“Free” Christian music downloads from CompassionArt - Gospel Soundcheck
Glorifying God in Our Christmas Shopping - Tony Reinke
“Does my gift serve the soul of the recipient?”
How Hellish is ‘Time Out’? - Russell Moore
If Only it Were That Clear - Mark D. Roberts
Jonestown and the Reformed Movement - R. Scott Clark
“As weird and impossible as Jonestown seems today, what happened to them and what they did to themselves, is not utterly unrelated to ideas, causes, and personalities in the Reformed movement over the last three decades.”
Killing is My Business, and Business is Good - Paul Manata
Lewis’s Famous Essay on Bulverism (HT: Victor Reppert)
Martin Luther’s Christmas Book - Between Two Worlds
No Good Reason - Cerulean Sanctum
“In sorting through this clothing, the realization that I throw away just about nothing hit home.”
Online Community…Does it exist? YES! But I Think You Are Asking the Wrong Question - Rhett Smith
Phillips Daylight Window Concept Presentation - Joshua Sowin
Q+A :: How many U.S. churches exist? - Church Relevance
Reflections from a Church Pianist - Amy Scott
“When I have a brain freeze at a bad time, I’ve got a special look for the other musicians that asks, ‘What are you people thinking, man?’”
Six Christmas Poems - Marcus Goodyear
Tim Challies Day - Justin Taylor
Unpacking forgiveness in real life - Dan Phillips
Volition: A Short Film - Jonathan Ignacio
“It is a fifteen minute film focusing on three of the worst atrocities of human rights this world has faced.”
Why read through Calvin’s Institutes in 2009? - Ligon Duncan
Xmas Giveaway - Trevin Wax
“For the next ten days (Dec. 15-25), you have the opportunity to register to win all ten of my favorite books this year. Plus, an ESV Study Bible. That’s $260 worth of books!”
You Should Subscribe - Green Baggins
Zeitgeist as Agent? - Pseudo-Polymath
“Consider … for a moment the intelligent ant colony … from the ant’s perspective … here with man as ant. “
“Evolutionary Hymn” by C. S. Lewis
December 9, 2008
“Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature’s simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
‘Goodness = what comes next.’
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.”
Read it in full at Victor Reppert’s blog.
Taylor interviews Ryken on Milton’s Paradise Lost
December 9, 2008
John Milton (1608–1674) was the puritan author of the epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Justin Taylor has posted an interview with Leland Ryken, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Paradise Lost.
“Let’s start with the basics. When was Paradise Lost written, and what is it about?
We know from scattered references in Milton’s prose works that he aspired to write the great English epic and great Christian epic already during his college days of the 1620s. His choice of an epic subject kept evolving over the next 25 years, and he started writing the poem on the story of early Genesis at the approximate age of 50 …”
Today (December 9) is Milton’s 400th birthday.
