Thanksgiving Scroll and Puritan Prayers

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!


At right the Thanksgiving scroll of the Dead Sea scrolls, written on leather and 10 feet long, dating from about 200 B.C. It's very similar to the Psalms. Below, the Puritans arriving in America and praying.

The prayer below is A Puritan Prayer for Thanksgiving

O MY GOD,

Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects,
my heart admires, adores, loves Thee,
for my little vessel is as full as it can be,
and I would pour out all that fullness before Thee in ceaseless flow.
When I think upon and converse with Thee
ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up,
ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed,
ten thousand refreshing joys spread over my heart,
crowding into every moment of happiness.
I bless Thee for the soul Thou hast created,
for adorning it, sanctifying it, though it is fixed in barren soil;
for the body Thou hast given me,
for preserving its strength and vigor,
for providing senses to enjoy delights,
for the ease and freedom of my limbs,
for hands, eyes, ears that do Thy bidding;
for Thy royal bounty providing my daily support,
for a full table and overflowing cup,
for appetite, taste, sweetness,
for social joys of relatives and friends,
for ability to serve others,
for a heart that feels sorrows and necessities,
for a mind to care for my fellow-men,
for opportunities of spreading happiness around,
for loved ones in the joys of heaven,
for my own expectation of seeing Thee clearly.
I love Thee above the powers of language to express,
for what Thou art to Thy creatures.
Increase my love, O my God, through time and eternity. Amen

Old English Verse

" I have always best enjoyed things in a foreign language, or one so remote as to feel like it (such as Anglo-Saxon)." - J.R.R. Tolkien

As our son's Omnibus course wends its way through early English ecclesiastical history (Bede), we also finished watching he Lord of the Rings trilogy and Old Anglo Saxon verse seem to be the perfect complement.

In Saxon England, professional storytellers called scops would wander from town to town, receiving food and lodging in exchange for good stories sung or told.



From Beowulf's court: "'... now and then the poet raised his voice, resonant in Heorot... Then Hrothgar, leader in battle, was entertained with music - harp and voice in harmony. The strings were plucked, many a song rehearsed, when it was the turn of Hrothgar's poet to please men at the mead bench, perform in the hall... Thus was the lay sung, the song of the poet. The hall echoed with joy, waves of noise broke out along the benches..."

Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. He was an Anglo Saxon herdsman who was ignorant of the "art of song", but called to write music in a dream. From Bede: "...some man stood by him in his dream and hailed and greeted him and addressed him by his name: 'Caedmon, sing me something.' Then he answered and said: 'I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.' Again he said, he who was speaking with him: 'Nevertheless, you must sing.' Then he said: 'What must I sing?' Said he: 'Sing to me of the first Creation.' When he received this answer, then he began immediately to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard, whose order is this:

.
Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur— sue he uundra gihuaes
eci dryctin or astelidæ
he aerist scop aelda barnum
heben til hrofe haleg scepen
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmectig

Now [we] must honour the guardian of heaven,
the might of the architect, and his purpose,
the work of the father of glory
— as he, the eternal lord, established the beginning of wonders.
He, the holy creator,
first created heaven as a roof for the children of men.
Then the guardian of mankind, the eternal lord,
the lord almighty, afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands, for men.

To hear it read in Old English, click the links at the bottom of the page here.

Caedmon became a zealous monk and an inspirational religious poet living at Whitby Abbey (above).


Caedmon's Hymn
The Wanderer
Longfellow: Elegaic Verse
Old English Aloud
Wikipedia: Heroic Verse
Longfellow: Elegaic Verse
Old English Aloud
Wikipedia: Heroic Verse
Brief Powerpoint on Anglo Saxon Poetry
Exeter Book of Riddles
Image Beowulf
Music and Verse
Wikipedia: Caedmon

William Billings: Early Colonial Composer of Hymns and Fugues

Now shall my inward joy arise,
And burst into a song;
Almighty Love inspires my heart;
and Pleasure tunes my tongue. (Africa - William Billings)

I'm enjoying a wonderful collection of hymns and fugues from Colonial American William Billings (1746-1800). An excerpt from his famous a capella Africa .

Billings was an unconventional character (we confess a soft spot for these...), but his gift of music making is unquestionable. He blends medieval harmonies with complicated fugues, and an personal irascibility that caused no small upheaval among singing believers. From a New England magazine in the 1800's: "He spurned the rules of art, such as there were, and sung out of the abundance of his heart..."

More about the life of William Billings

"He was poor and uneducated -- he supported himself much of the time as a tanner. But he also took up music when he was young and was teaching choral singing by the age of 22.

Biographers call him a gargoyle. He was blind in one eye with a short leg and a withered arm. But that's only the beginning. He practiced what a contemporary called "an uncommon negligence of person," and he was hopelessly addicted to tobacco -- constantly inhaling handfuls of snuff. That may explain why he only lived to the age of 54. He had a stentorian, tobacco-damaged bass voice and he seemed uninterested in any easy beauty of sound."

The Wisdom of St. Augustine

"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul." - St. Augustine

Our son is taking his first class with Veritas Press Academy (Omnibus II), and in order to keep up with readings, we've found I've had to read with him - but it has turned out to be a wonderful blessing for me! We are reading St. Augustine's Confessions now, and it is an extraordinary book.

Many historians see Augustine as the bridge between antiquity and the middle ages. It is remarkable to see how perceptive Augustine was for his times, but also jarring to think that the world would fall into the Dark Ages after Augustine, and think how much of the history, literature, and philosophy of Western Civilization would have been lost if monasteries hadn't sought to preserve the old texts and documents.

Confessions is Augustine's spiritual autobiography. Much of it is running conversation with God, beginning with his earliest recollections, then traveling in some detail through important life experiences that brought him to his faith. Augustine's upbringing will resonate with many young people today - his father valued a secular education (a classical education), but was not a Christian and therefore did not particularly consider spiritual factors in his upbringing.

It is easy to see the boy (and later man) in Confessions because Augustine writes in such a frank and colorful conversational tone - "Even now I cannot fully understand why the Greek language, which I learned as a child, was so distasteful to me...I suppose that Greek boys think the same about Virgil when they are forced to study him as I was forced to study Homer..." But this frankness turns its attention to reckless, painful, and sinful periods in his life - and his eventual turning to God.

There are many good things in Confessions for young adult readers - the subtle-and-not-so-subtle temptations that arise from friends, misguided teachers and cults, and muddy-headed thinking, and it is a surprisingly easy read - perhaps because of Augustine's skills as a rhetorician.

I find it hard to put into words what I've gained most from reading Confessions, but I think the best way I can think to say it is that it's given me a greater vision of the depth that's possible in my walk with God. Augustine has wonderful prayers and praises, true, but what is even more inspiring is how he was able to surrender more and more of his view of the world and life to God, and how as a result his worldview and life became much greater.

"Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking."

Biography of St. Augustine | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Wikipedia: Augustine
Wikiquote: Augustine

Lab Notebooks Through History

Lab notebooks are essential, but more important than neatness is a careful documentation of observations whether the experiment works or not. Da Vinci's notebook (see yellowed page at right, his notes on mirrors) is a phenomenal work of art, as are Vesalius' notebooks (anatomical dissections below). Many famous scientists of course were extremely messy, doodled, wrote upside down, spilled things on their notebooks, etc. For those of us who are organizationally challenged, we may take heart in pioneering molecular biologist Max Delbruck's "Principle of Limited Sloppiness" that states we should be sloppy enough so that unexpected things can happen, but not so sloppy that we can't find out that it did.

One does need to start somewhere, though, so for a helpful and free online lab notebook, check out Thelabnotebook.com. A screenshot of a sample page is shown at bottom right.













Image references:
Vesalius' notebook
Isaac Newton's notebook
Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook
Curie's notebook