Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

(Robert Robinson, 1757)

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

solace interrupted.

How interesting it is, to be set upon by visitors from your past. A sudden blast from the past, as it were, people who remember you for who you were, and help you relive that continuity, even if you might have forgotten it already. Roused, groggy, from hibernation.

It is even sort of redeeming - they believe in you, in how you were, how you might have been, and have this trajectory of how you ought to be now, in a good way, of course, free of the trappings of currency, of the recent, of fears present and dogged uncertainty: unearthed bits of conversations past, of music shared, of songs and sacred moments once held dear, of friends once shared, or places once haunted. Walking the halls of memory together, albeit from different stances, but the same halls, nonetheless, and the same echoes. Grace is a memory shared, however fleeting. A good memory. When times were simpler, and hope was much more innocent.

But here we are, shocked to the present. There is hope, yes, but perhaps a much more informed one. Tangled memories, disparate lives, hearts, hopes, dreams. Live and let live. Each their own way, fragile, led on by the mercies of God. But will the twain meet? Who, but for courage, knows...

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference. (Reinhold Niebuhr)

Faith, hope and love. (1 Cor 13, NIV)

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Internal Clock and Timezones

O Traveller...

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Mirie it is...

(Anonymous, early 13th century)

Mirie it is while sumer y-last (Merry it is, while summer lasts)

With fugheles son (With bird songs)

Oc nu neheth windes blast (But now draws nigh the wind's blast)

And weder strong. (And strong weather.)

Ei, ei! What this nicht is long (Alas! How this night is long)

And ich with wel michel wrong (And I, with much wrong)

Soregh and murne and fast. (Must sorrow, mourn and fast.)

So it's official - one of the coolest and certainly wettest Sydney summer - if it could still be called that - on record, with only one day edging above 30degC in the 91 days that was supposedly summer, all thanks to the tempering effect of La Niña (see ENSO) (and we now sit on the cusp of what could be the heaviest rainfall New South Wales has seen in 125 years).

But I didn't mind one bit.

I love the rain. I love the slow prelude of heaviness in the air, that building up of stifling, windless, prickly, hot, humidity characterising the pregnant, heavy air preceding rain. One almost hears crickets.

And then it breaks. At first a trickle, then a steady patter, and then it arrives - it just pours, and pours, and pours, and pours, and pours.

It's simply atmospheric when it rains: the skies become dramatic, painted and stern with all shades of grey and billowy textures, together with the glimmer of lightning or the occasional peek of sunlight piercing heroically through the tough hide that is the heavens.

And oh the sound! I love the sound of rain - how it falls gently on grass, and splashes on leaves, and clatters on roof-tiles, and splats on glass-panes, and slow, wary traffic sloshing about on wet asphalt. The air comes alive with the whistling wind, sometimes screaming like banshees over rooftiles and stirring industrial-strength rattles making great avenues of shivering leaves, dancing with the waving arms of trees creaking, heaving, and tossing under the wind like a fiery flamenco dancer.

And the SMELL! The clean, clear, cold smell of fresh falling rain leaves one feeling washed, rejuvenated and fresh. Even the pungent geosmin of a brief shower falling on hot earth is enlivening; have you smelt the desert right after a rain? Incredible stuff.

Something about the rain makes people slow down, be more deliberate in their movement, more contemplative. It's fascinating stuff, this hypnotic rhythm of the drip-drops and splish-splashes, if it doesn't drive you batty.

And in an act of grace, the rain mutes out the noises of daily life and casts a lacy veil on everything around, making ugly things less ugly, and beautiful things more beautiful.

I love the rain.

[Trudge trudge, slosh slosh, splash, splash...]

يا الرايح (Yâ ar-râyiḥ)

Dahmane El Harrachi (Amrani Abderrahmane), 1970s

رشيد طه - يا رايح

يا رايح وين تسافر تروح تعيي وتولينى
ايش حال ندموا العباد الغافلين قبلك وقبلى

ايش حال شفت البلدان العامرين والبر الخالى
ايش حال ضيعت اوقات وايش حال زيد ما زال تخلى
يا الغايب فى بلاد الناس ايش حال تعيي ما تجرى
تزيد وعد القدرة ولى الزمان وانت ما تدرى

علاش قلبك حزين وعلاش هكدا كى الزوال
ما تدوم الشدة ولا تزيد تعلم وتبنى
ما يدومولى الايام ولا يدوم صغرك وصغرى
ويا حليلو المسكين اللى غاب سعده كى زهرى

يا مسافر نعطيك وصية تيجاها ع البكرى
شوف ما يصلح ليك قبل ولا تبيع ولا تشرى
يا النايم جانى خبرك كى ماصرالك صار لى
هكدا رد القلب والجبين..سبحان العالى

Ya rayah win msafar trouh taaya wa twali

"O Departing Traveler, where are you going? Eventually you tire and return!"

Chhal nadmou laabad el ghaflin qablak ou qabli

"How many ignorant ones before me, and you, have tried, failed and regretted it"

Chhal cheft al bouldan laamrine wa lber al khali

"How many crowded cities I have seen, and empty deserts"

Chhal dhiyaat wqat chhal tzid mazal ou t'khali

"How much time I have wasted, how much more, still, you are yet to lose"

Ya lghayeb fi bled ennas chhal taaya ma tadjri

"O vagrant alien - you tire from running - do you even know what's going on?"

Tzid waad el qoudra wala zmane wenta ma tedri

"Destiny, history and time flow relentless on its course, but yet you wilfully ignore it"

Aalach qalbek hzine waalach hakdha ki zawali
"Why is your heart sad? And why do you remain there miserable?"
Matdoum achadda wila tzid taalem ou tabni
"Hardship will end and you no longer learn or build anything"
Maydoumou layyam walay doum seghrek ou seghri
"The days do not last, just as your youth and mine didn't"
Ya hlilou meskine li ghab saadou ki zahri
"Oh poor fellow who missed his chance just as I missed mine"

Ya msafer naatik oussaayti addiha el bakri

"O Traveler, here's my advice to take right away, and ahead of time"

Chouf ma yeslah bik qbal ma tbia ou ma techri

"Look after what is in your interest before you sell or buy (Algerian proverb)"

Ya nnayem djani khabrek ma sralek ma srali

"Oh Sleeper, have I news for you: what has happened to you happened to me"

Hakdha rad el qalb bel djbine sabhane el aali

"In this the heart must accept, and thus return to it's Creator, the Amighty"

綠島小夜曲 (Green Island Serenade)

(Zhou Lanping, 1954, Taiwan)

这绿岛像一只船

zhè lǜ dǎo xiàng yì zhī chuán

在月夜里摇呀摇

zài yuè yè lǐ yáo ya yáo

姑娘哟妳也在我的

gū niang ya, nǐ yě zài wǒ de

心海里飘呀飘

xīn hǎi lǐ piāo ya piāo

让我的歌声随那微风

ràng wǒ de gē shēng suí nà wēi fēng

吹开了妳的窗帘

chuī kāi liao nǐ de chuāng lián

让我的衷情随那流水

ràng wǒ de zhōng qíng suí nà liú shuǐ

不断地向妳倾诉

bú duàn de xiàng nǐ qīng sù

椰子树的长影

yē zi shù de cháng yǐng

掩不住我的情意

yǎn bú zhù wǒ de qíng yì

明媚的月光

míng mèi de yuè guāng

更照亮了我的心

gèng zhào liàng le wǒ de xīn

这绿岛的夜已经

zhè lǜ dǎo de yè yǐ jīng

这样沉静

zhè yàng chén jìng

姑娘哟妳为什么

gū niáng yo, nǐ wèi shén me

还是默默无语

hái shì mò mò wú yǔ

[This green island, meanders like a boat through the moonlight;

Likewise, Beloved, you float in my heart's ocean.

Let my song be the breeze that flutters through your veiled windows,

Let my ardour be a stream poured for you.

The shadow of palms cannot dim my affection;

The moonlight lightens my heart.

This green island nocturne is serene,

But Beloved, why do you yet remain silent?]

Superficially a lovesong, but really a call to the irrevocable past. A socio-political overview of this song's historical context is discussed here.