Diversity in hymnnuttiness

I am a hymnlover and a hymnal nut. I enjoy singing (not to say I’m all that good at it) a wide variety of kinds of hymns, both in formal worship and in hymn-sings, a cappella and with organ, unison and in polyphony, from Gregorian chant to Getty-Townend, from Fanny Crosby to G. R. Woodward, in English and Esperanto and many other tongues, lyrics orthodox, heterodox and parodic, and I have over 300 hymnbooks in my collection, from Bradbury’s Fresh Laurels to Ingalls’ Christian Harmony, from the Spanish AOG Himnos de Gloria to the Cheyenne Mennonite Tsese-Maheone-Nemeotȯtse, and from the 1883 Baptist Hymnal to the 2013 RLDS Community of Christ Sings, just to name a few of my favorites.

Peto al Sallaga Urbo

Ĉe jena paĝo en la oficiala retejo de la Mormona Eklezio mi sendis jenan reagon:

I wish there were links to translations of the Standard Works in Esperanto. (Transcripts of General Conferences would be nice, too.) Parts of the Book of Mormon are at http://pemanoj.blogspot.com/ but it would be nice to have them available at the official site, where I go to read the Scriptures of the LDS Church in Japanese, Spanish, French or Tongan.

Nayka Nim Haluo

KlaxayEm!

Accessible minutes, anyone? (my email to the 43rd district Dems)

Hey there, 43rd!

At the last minute today as I was filling out my ballot, I found a couple races where I realized I didn’t know for sure for whom I ought to vote. So I thought, “I’ll check and see what the Democrats recommended” and I googled “43rd district democrats endorsements 2009” which of course brought up your site, but the item I thought I probably wanted to look at, namely what was billed on your home page as “Minutes of 9/15 endorsements meeting”, turned out to be available only in elitist late-model Microsoft-proprietary formats (xlsx and docx) which nothing on my computer will open (nor do I wish it to). I use OpenOffice and will continue to do so, and you will not reach me or those like me with your endorsements unless we are lucky enough to know where we put the opposite-end-of-the-technology-spectrum flyers you leave on our doors. I would encourage you to make your endorsements and minutes available in more broadly accessible forms. Barring that, I have no choice but to ignore your recommendations.

Incidentally, have you noticed the Chinese-language voters’ pamphlet did not contain any information on 71 or 1033? (I vote in Chinese, and the absence of those measures from my pamphlet was glaring. I wrote King County Elections about it but have yet to hear back from them.)

Sincerely yours,

Leland Bryant Ross

My top ten hymnpicks

In response to a call for the question at Semicolon, I have posted my top ten picks as of May 31 at Mia himnareto.

Was Jesus a Racist? – drift starting point

Denver seminary prof Miguel De la Torre recently had an opinion piece in the Associated Baptist Press entitled “Opinion: Was Jesus a Racist?” I responded with this:

De la Torres’ reading seems to follow the text better
written by Leland, February 24, 2009

De la Torres’ reading has a certain eisegetical content, to which some of the prior commenters react vociferously in the negative because it clashes with their own eisegesis. That’s how it looks to me anyway. Eisegesis is often the factor that gives scripture its greatest power. The value of, say, “Go Down Moses” and any number of other spirituals of the mid-1800s, lies primarily in the way the Spirit of God spoke to the people who sang them through an eisegetical method. The anecdote about the Canaanite woman whose kid was sick is no worse an analogy to an undocumented (whether criminally or by accident) Latina with a sick kid. I’m not sure I see her demanding equality, but I certainly don’t see her as shrinking on theological grounds from talking back to Jesus in order to get her needs met. Personally I’m in favor of laissez faire migration, I’m definitely not a nationalist (I think nationalism and many forms of patriotism are just as sinful, and in the same way really, as racism), but regardless of one’s position on immigration law I can’t see how you can deny kids health care based on their parents’ paperwork status and call yourself a loyal follower of Jesus.

I’m going to have to subscribe to your paper, I guess, to make up for one of these other brethren who are canceling…

and an exchange of some potential interest ensued between me and one Ken (I’m guessing not Sehested).  Ken critiqued my apparent lauding of eisegesis, supporting his criticism on two passages that I think he himself eisegetically interpreted. Etc. etc. etc. I’ve been following this not only at ABP, but on BaptistLife.com and also in the Mudcat Café, all while severely under the weather with the worst major cold of the season. Hopefully both the controversy and the cold are winding down, but I thought I’d better mention the ABP series here so belated comments could be appended.

So if you see this, Ken, you’re welcome to continue the discussion here.

Hymnal Update

Actually, I think this is probably mostly not going to end up at fremontbaptistchurch.org after all, but at a new site to be set up through my Texan friend Jerry Leeper. Nothing finalized, but that is how it looks to me as of 2/28/09. Stay tuned.

New Hymnal

NOTE ADDED 2/17/2010: This post is completely out of date. Most if not all of my online hymnal’s content is now accessible via Reocities (and also possibly Geocitrus).

I have embarked on the transfer of the best of my online hymnal ,

Nova TTT- Himnaro Cigneta (logo)

TTT-Himnaro Cigneta, to the Fremont Baptist Church site, to function as an outreach of our church and to integrate it with my Evergreen Sings hymnal project.

As an example of how a hymn might look in the new hymnal, here is Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord set to a different tune (and with a different refrain) by Ann E. Beatty, an early Esperanto hymnist. This example is really only of historical interest, but will serve as an example of how other hymns may be treated. I intend to expand the English contents, and to add more in other languages (including, I hope, Kyrgyz).

I intend to begin publicizing this project and soliciting advice and assistance at this Saturday’s Evergreen Building Bridges Project.

Haruo

Cheyenne Dotted Vowels

Just to make things easier for those of us who occasionally post in Cheyenne, and don’t have a keyboard to do it with, hence perforce have recourse to copy-and-paste techniques, here are the Cheyenne dotted vowels:

ȧ ė ȯ

The Kyrgyz Boys

In early October, two young men from Kyrgyzstan, Edil and Sanzhar, started attending the evening service at Fremont Baptist.

This coming Sunday I am going to take them both to Japanese Baptist to attend that church’s bimonthly bilingual communion service.