Books and Other Things Recently Read

Just finished Patricia Cornwell's "Predator" and still don't know what it was about. I must have missed a book somewhere ... I don't have a clue about what happened to the friendship between Scarpetta and Marino ... nor how Lucy got from the CIA or whatever to the place she is now.

Read the latest Patterson book, "Beach Road." It's a "wicked" mystery ... don't give up on it ... READ to the end.

Jonathan Kellerman's "Monster" was a little much for me but, nevertheless, he's a good
writer.

And my Bible, Sunday School book and Power For Today, plus two newspapers and all the farm journals we get.

On-line readings
1. The Musical Reforms of Martin Luther where I found a reference about hymns and bar tunes. I've still searching and hope to find other references in England and Scotland.

"The first secular melody found in the chorale books is Mein Freud' möcht sich wohl mehren which Luther transformed into Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn (The Only Son from Heaven) (LBW 86). Luther found it necessary to discard some secular chorale melodies, such as Aus fremden Landen komm' ich her, because this and other similarly adapted melodies retained their popularity in the taverns and dance places. As Luther said, he was "compelled to let the devil have it back again."

http://www.carolinaclassical.com/articles/luther2.html,

I knew I remember that some of our favorite hymns were sung to the melodies of bar songs.

2. The Restoration Movement and the biographies of so many preachers in the United States from the 1700's until now.

http://www.therestorationmovement.com/

Especially Hall Laurie Calhoun who has to be a cousin because all Calhoun's in the USA are related somehow.

http://www.therestorationmovement.com/calhoun,hl.htm

3. Notes From History about Psalms and the first worship songs that were not from the book of Psalms.
"The use of uninspired hymns developed gradually. It was not until the fourth century that the practice became widespread. The divinely inspired writers did not instruct first century Christians to write hymns and there are no hymns surviving from the first century. "Shepherd of Tender Youth" was written about 200 A.D. by Clement of Alexandria and is the earliest known uninspired "Christian hymn.""
"During the 1800's uninspired hymns became popular with worshippers and by the 20th Century the Psalms were rarely sung."

http://www.bibleguide.net/notesfromhistory.html

4. Christian History Institute listing important events of each century AD.

http://chi.gospelcom.net/centuries/index.shtml

There are others recently read that I'll talk about later. An on-line computer is like having a large library in your own house. It's as wonderful in its way as getting comfortable is with a good paper back or hard back mystery.

Peace

HALLOWE'EN

Hallowe’en is how we used to spell it, shortened from All-hallow-even, and the day was fun because it wasn’t one that used-to-be “preached against.”

Many view Hallowe’en as Satanic, but as a child October 31st was a fun night to dress up and hope to go to a party. When my generation were teen-agers the “big thing” was getting your parents to let you go to court square and soap store windows.

There’s a greater significance to October 31. The Reformation began unofficially on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany … most likely the greatest event since the Gutenberg Printing Press in the 1440’s. From Martin Luther’s break from Catholicism came European Protestantism which spread to England and Scotland and later to the United States and the Restoration Movement to restore New Testament principles.

A hundred years ago, 1906, in a disagreement over instrumental music and missionary societies, one group, the Disciples of Christ in some areas and the Christian Church in others, separated into the instrumental music Christian Church and non-instrumental Church of Christ.

Unknown to me there was always a religious significance to October 31 and now I am glad because Martin Luther’s heroic act brought us out of the Dark Ages when the Bible was chained to pulpits and common people weren’t allowed to read it. And most of all because the Holy Scriptures came to the United States where there is no “state religion” and we are free to worship as we please and as God commands.

“Trick or Treating” began in Brownsville sometime in the 1950's. Children wore dime store masks and went to the neighbors house to “scare” them and show off their costumes. Then later came the egg throwing, toilet paper rolling, and water balloons and punishments.

As streets became less safe some churches had Halloween Carnivals on October 31. Schools banned Halloween symbols as decorations and have Harvest Festivals. Bobby and Amanda provide a cook-out for our young people and some not-so-young.

So we still have a fondness for the October 31, Halloween, and love the sense of adventure that comes from being outside in the dark with a “jack-o-lantern” or flashlight.

And while you are “trick and treating”, say a prayer for all those who paved the way for the freedom we have today to worship and to enjoy Hallowe’en and other family traditions.

Sources:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genenal Essay on European Protestantism http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/christ/cep/protest.html

On the Hill

Things are different here on our little hill.

We've had a shakey dining room, sometimes den, floor. About 6 weeks ago I called John Allen, a man in Jackson known for restoring old houses ... ours is 50 this year ... our deal was that when it rained he'd send his men ... and how much notice did I need.

I said not any, just call. He said, "You mean I can call any morning and come right then." YES!

So Monday they called, but Brother thought it was the 2 lawyers from the man that is sueing us because he ran off the bridge with the log truck. His position is the bridge wasn't wide enough.

Three hundred trucks of gravel went in and out over the bridge that summer. The other log trucks were going in out every day. Everyone in front of him and every truck after him crossed the bridge, even Brother.

The moral of that is ... if you run off the interstate and the police try to fine you or something, sue them because the road isn't wide enough.

So ... anyway ... the carpenters showed up Monday instead of the lawyer. I though we could take up the carpet and the plywood in the closet floor like we did before when we jacked it up. Sonny had that plywood so tight we couldn't get a chisel in it. So they cut a hole big enough to go through and make an inspection.

We now have over about a third of the dining room floor adjacent to that closet wall torn out, as well as the joists, all of it.

The duct work under the house where we are working looks pretty bad. Heat/air man was here today about that. We'll repair what we can. I wanted to chuck it all and put in a new system in the attic. That seems cost prohibitive at this time, but may be something we do in the future.

Larry Ketchum, who does our carpet and floors came out today and took a piece of tile like that in my kitchen, util room and bath. Called back and said he could still GET IT. So that solves a big problem. We'll put tile back in the dining room and at the bar where we eat and down the hall pass Brother's office door. It will be much cleaner and better looking than the dirty carpet we have now.

Maybe the carpenters and duct men will finish this week, hopefully tomorrow or by noon Thursday. Don't know when Larry will get to us. We have to move the rest of the dining room furniture somewhere, get the old carpet up ... hope Larry will do that ... and scrape up the rest of the original tile from when the house was built.

During this time I've added sources to thousands of people in my genealogy data base ... I broke the first rule ... did not source correctly to begin with.

And have been researching religious history on the internet and find I'm woefully ignorant of what has gone on since AD 30. My focus now is on the psalms, hymns, songs and instrumental music and position that is taken by some who hold to only using the Inspired Psalms in the Old Scriptures and not man written songs. I haven't found the man written ones that were sung to bar (pub) tunes, but I know they are there somewhere.

I was equally suprised at how many Rock and Rap musicians use songs we consider holy. I want to do more research on this.

And then I found this:
http://upchucky.net/~upchucky/worship-psalm23.html

Peace

Some Days

I actually went shopping for clothing yesterday after we visited Beltone for an adjustment to Brother's hearing aids.
He has had them for a week and they were set so loud that he turned the TV so low I can't couldn't hear it - seems I'm a listener, not a watcher. He has hear sounds that he hasn't heard in years: traffic, rubber on tires hitting road, stove vent fan, water to the ice maker, clocks ticking and he says the commode flushing sounds like Niagra Falls.
The Beltone man activated the toggle on each aid so that Brother can manually turn them up and down. Even turned down, it still doesn't seem right to me - the TV is still too low for me to hear comfortably.
And it hasn't been easy to get into October Baseball fever since neither the Yankees or Atlanta are playing. I'm pulling for the Mets and Detroit, but who knows now ... it's just not as much fun this year.
I like Ivan Rodrequiz, maybe I'll think of his nickname in a minute ... and that the Trammels from somewhere in central Florida where we used to go to spring training, Alex and Bubba, were with the Tigers.
And we knew Marvelous Marv Thornberry of the Amazing Mets. He lived in Memphis and came to the bottom to fish. He was a neat guy, but is no longer living.
Our other fun baseball people are Andy Seminick and a couple of American League umpires, Dale Ford and Durwood Merrrill. Dale is retired and lives in East Tennessee but Durwood has gone on to that big game in the sky.
They sure did have some good stories to tell.
Back to my shopping, 1 fall jacket, one knit top, and 3 co-ordinating pants. Well, after all, it's the first time I've winter shopped in about 10 years ... all the weddings have been in the summer.
And if you read any of the earlier blogs, the toaster is working better now, I have my new glasses, but don't see much better, and I have one article in Power for Today this quarter.