Concert Was Awesome!

I neglected to mention this week that last Saturday’s concert – Operation Overflow 2006 was a huge success. We have five great bands, a spectacular sound & light setup as well as a well setup venue. We also had about 250 people in attendance.
 
All credit to the youth who were primarily involved in organizing the event – Benita Farelli, Jennifer Menzies, Carissa Penner and Josh Reimer. Great work guys! We will definitely do this again next year.
 
 

Flower

The following poem is another exercise in rhyme and rhythm. I have been reading some of the older 19th and early 20th century poets and they are definitly inspiring. It should be noted that many people often make the mistake of ascribing to the poet or artist the thoughts and emotions in their art. Although on many occassions this is true and the art comes straight out of the feeling artist – on many others the artist is able to channel the emotions of others or is seeking to manufacture emotion where it may not exist – simply stated – just because a poet writes a sad poem it does not mean they are sad.
 
=============================================
 
What flower
cold and dried
upon the sand
locked away from sight
amidst the land
 
harsh wind rakes
the grains
scratch ‘cross soft flesh
small hope protect
instead enmesh
 
what flower
breaks sad, o sad
crumbles in hand
sweet life runs out
unknown. unplanned.
 
till in this tragic desert cage
a life once past was bright ablaze
now lies grey-still
against God’s will
in night’s witness – stone black rage
 
 
 

Puppet

sometimes
 
the puppet
wants its strings pulled
and Pinnochio longs for
his wooden legs
to stop moving and
to be moved
 
sometimes

Echoes of Adam

echoes of Adam
run inside sometimes
hinting of freedom lost
 
chained not in law
but in its being –
so there’s the cost
 
clothed in needs,
bedclothes twisted in
forever’s past sleep
 
longing to reach
through the arms
of the company we keep
 
to Father in the garden
walking whispers of wisdom
clean naked breeze
and eternal ease
 
 

Poem 1

There’s sweet spun gold
hanging amidst the stars
 
and
       too far
                  too far
                             too far
 
wandering on the edge
where there be dragons

Stolen From Dave Barry

I liked this comment which I read in an old Dave Barry column today (www.davebarry.com) –
 
"…if, when you talk to people, they keep backing away from you, it’s because you’re TOO CLOSE, all right? SO DON’T KEEP ADVANCING ON THEM LIKE A HUMAN GLACIER."

Frightening

Every feel like you are watching history repeat itself? Civilization is a myth – we seem to learn nothing from past experiences and continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over again – the following is a snippet from an article published in the National Post about a potential new law in Iran:
 

May 19, 2006 – Iran’s roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

Perhaps we need to be reminded of our history. Some might say that I am being alarmist and we should be slow to rush to conclusions. I suggest people visit the Canadian War Museum’s newspaper archives and read some of the articles from World War II that date back to before 1939. It is amazing how much people in the west were aware of what Hitler and the Third Reich had planned on doing before it was done. The following is an article from the Globe and Mail on their website at:

http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/newspapers/intro_e.html

 

October 23, 1941 –

BERLIN ORDERS JEW TENANTS VACATE

New Campaign of Hate Opens;

(By GEORGE AXELSSON.)

(Bv Telephone to the New York

Times and The Globe and Mail .)

Rerun, Oct. 22.-A new hate-the-Jews campaign, aiming to create a recrudescence of anti-Semitic feeling has been started by the Berlin press. With a number of Jewish flat owners having been abruptly served with dispossession notices to make room for "Aryans," the new’ campaign is seen as a move to counteract any sympathy the public may feel for the dispossessed Jews. "Don’t waste any tears on the Jews, remember how overbearing they were back in 1921," is the slogan launched by Der Stuermer. When discussing the newest anti-Jewish measures in semi-official circles one is met by the statement: "The New York Jews have declared war on us — it is only natural that we should take protective measures against our enemy." The press has not so far been allowed to print the decree affecting’ Jewish tenants, which even the local Jewish newspaper has omitted. An estimate of the number of persons thus earmarked for dispossession, and of possible deportation, or already removed is difficult to establish. But it is thought in usually wellinformed circles that temporarily not all of the 80,000 Jews remaining in the Reich capital will have to go now, since reasonably only those flats or apartments which for size or comfort prove desirable will be requisitioned now, and possibly no more than 1,000 or 2,000 habitations meeting those requirements are still held by Jews. The possibility is admitted, however, that the drive against the Jews will be continued and eventually include other German. cities, so that the result will ultimately be the transfer of all Jews to destinations probably outside the Reich domain proper – for instance, in the east in the general direction of occupied Russian territory, The Jews who have now been told to vacate their apartments can only take along such belongings as can be carried by hand, and this baggage must not include more than two sets of- undertivear and one-set of bed linen- per person. No money can be taken along beyond the usual ten marks allowed per person leaving Reich territory. The "annoyance" measures against the Jews-petty inroads and their personal liberty-have lately grown more numerous . Cigar stores now display the sign, "No entrance for Jews"-this in addition to the usual one that the available stock is sold out, so that not even the Aryan" customers can get any. News vendors and kiosks in the subway now have signs, "No newspapers

are sold to Jews," but that measure the vendors themselves explained by newsprint shortage and the accusation that Jews have been taking advantage of this state of affairs to "corner" the supply for their own financial benefits . With curtailed editions, kiosks are usually sold out after 8 a.m., when 10 or 15 pfennig newspapers bring twice to three times their price in the underhand market. With the compulsory wearing of the Star of David branding all Jews conspicuously, access has become completely impossible to the multitude of places heretofore formerly barring Jews, but where usually no questions were asked, such as shops, restaurants, entertainment places, race tracks and some parks. This has served to further complicate life for non-"aryans" to the point where one of their number said today: "The smartest thing in the Reich a Jew can do today is to go to his doctor for a shot of cyanide in the arm." 

 

 

Da Bomb?

I was so disappointed today to learn that The Da Vinci Code apparently sucks in a big way. It was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and the accounts I have read would make me want to (if I were the director) curl up in a ball somewhere and hide for a while.
 
I will be preaching on The Da Vinci code in the future about some of the Biblical/Doctrinal fallacies in The Da Vinci Code and I was hoping the movie would be at least enjoyable entertainment…alas it seems I will be forced to watch a movie one critic has described as "not exactly dull but the closest thing to it…" – ouch.
 
Feel free to track the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes –
 
 
 

I Heart Dr. Suess…

The Bells – A Poem by Edgar Allen Poe

This is my favorite poem. Perhaps the best poem ever written in terms of metre, structure, rhyme and rhythm IMHO. It was written by Edgar Allen Poe and published in 1845. Please read this poem out loud and reasonably quick for full effect. (See post below for why I posted this poem).
 
I

Hear the sledges with the bells –
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells –
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! –
From the molten – golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle – dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! – how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells –
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now – now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale – faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells –
Of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells –
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people – ah, the people –
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone –
They are neither man nor woman –
They are neither brute nor human –
They are Ghouls: –
And their king it is who tolls: –
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells: –
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells: –
To the sobbing of the bells: –
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells –
To the tolling of the bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells, –
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

not the mincemeat vixen