dual personalities

Tag: Isaac Watts

January 24, 2022

Hey, baby. There ain’t no easy way out*

by chuckofish

Mood. Life just keeps getting weirder, right? But we try to persevere in our own small way. Chin chin.

Happily, daughter #1 came home on Friday and we spent a nice weekend doing what I like to think of as normal things. We went to our new favorite place for happy hour and then came home and listened to music. The OM provided dinner. On Saturday we went to two estate sales and bought a few books and a couple of other do-dads. We went out to lunch. On Saturday night we watched the first part of The Ten Commandments (1956) which, between Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner and John Derek, features a lot of old fashioned male pulchritude.

As I’ve noted before, the film really holds up and we will watch the second half at a later date (we know how it ends.)

Sunday morning I made a tater tot casserole to serve for lunch after church. Then we all met up with the boy and his petite famille at church where we sang our Presbyterian hymns lustily and listened to a long sermon on Acts 20: 28-38 by the youth minister about being attentive to yourself (in respect to grace), to one another and to the Gospel. I am so happy to leave church feeling joyful and not annoyed as was previously always the the case. (The boy was annoyed because we sang Rock of Ages with the alternate tune, but this is a small price to pay for doctrinal satisfaction in my opinion.)

Lord, how delightful ’tis to see

A whole assembly worship thee!

At once they sing, at once they pray;

They hear of heaven, and learn the way.

With thoughts of Christ and things divine

Fill up this foolish heart of mine;

That, hoping pardon through his blood,

I may lie down, and wake with God.

(Isaac Watts)

After church we finally celebrated daughter #3’s birthday which was delayed from earlier in January because she was sick and then quarantined.

It had been almost a month since we had seen them! The wee laddie got a chance to drive the Raptor so he was a happy camper.

I suppose this may all sound extremely dull, but for me it was lovely and I am thankful. I am thankful that my husband went out in the cold and brought home a fast food dinner. I am thankful that my daughter spun records for me. I am even thankful that my grandson said he didn’t want to come over to my house after church because it is weird and ugly, but then he did and ate conversation hearts and a donut and was quite content. Life is weird and ugly, but there are also donuts.

Anyway, I am now a certified nerd because I actually understood these two Babylon Bee “stories” and they made me laugh out loud.

*Tom Petty

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November 27, 2012

A settled rest: Isaac Watts remembered

by chuckofish

Yesterday the Episcopal Church remembered Isaac Watts (July 17, 1674 – November 25, 1748), preacher, pastor and a prolific and popular hymn writer, often recognized as the “Father of English Hymnody” and credited with some 750 hymns. It is also worth noting that he was the first hymn-writer to give expression to the Reformation emphasis on a personal appropriation of the faith by using first person pronouns in hymnody.

Watts, unable to go to either Oxford or Cambridge on account of his non-conformity, went to the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690, and much of his life centered around that village, which is now part of Inner London.

London’s only public statue to Isaac Watts is in Abney Park, Stoke Newington.

He is honored with a memorial in Westminster Abbey.

Among his more enduring hymns are Jesus Shall Reign, Joy to the World, Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past, and I Sing the Mighty Power of God. One of my favorites has always been My Shepherd Will Supply My Need especially the last verse:

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Thy house be my abode,
And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.

Marilynne Robinson (see yesterday’s post) quotes Watts in Gilead:

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

“Good old Watts,” she writes. “I’ve thought about that verse often. I have always wondered what relationship this present reality bears to an ultimate reality.”

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone…

Truly they don’t write hymns like that anymore, do they?

Enjoy! (the choir of the Washington National Cathedral)

God of truth and grace, who didst give Isaac Watts singular gifts to present thy praise in verse, that he might write psalms, hymns and spiritual songs for thy Church: Give us grace joyfully to sing thy praises now and in the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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