24 September 2004 20:00
14 Septwell, i have taken a step back in time. marooned in my apartment with no internet. do we feel like the world is about to end?
darren took off with his dsl modem (almost like he thought it was his--which i have to admit, it was). ah well, i shall learn, rather, this shall be a learning experience. i get more done this way anyway. take this post for instance. i've started plugging away at it, but the tune i was humming distracted me. it's the hymn, "where you there (when they crucified my Lord)." somebody mentioned it to me in a letter not to long ago, and i happened to read it as i was packing (this is why cleaning or packing takes so long for me, i stop to read everything i come across). however, i can't get past the first verse, so here's where i'd stop (just for an ever so short bit) and look it up online. well, while i'm there i'd look up a few others, just browsing through the list. I found a hymn site the other day that plays midi files while you're reading the lyrics. i spent half an hour browsing around there, then got sidetracked on one hymn, "The Love of God (is Greater Far)." it's one of my favorites, and apparently has an odd origin. the third? verse goes like this,
could we with ink the ocean fill
were the sky of parchment made
were every stalk on earth a quill
and every man a scribe by trade
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry
nor could the scroll contain the whole
tho stretched from sky to sky
that verse was written by a patient in an insane asylum, it was found on the wall of his room when they took him out to bury him. that's second hand info, i'd give you the website but see... i'd also give you the name of the poem that the rest was inspired by, some 13th? century arabic poem by a rabbi. i spent another twenty minutes trying to track down a copy of that poem, but nothing doing. you'd think since the interenet was started on a bunch of universities that their libraries would contain soemthing like that. oh well.
so with no connection, i could always go look in my hymnals. i'm not real sure it'd be there, i don't have the official mennonite hymnal--i haven't worked up the gall to steal one yet. the two i have weren't really stolen. i prefer to say i rescued them from abandonment and gave them a better home. the things are expensive.. $15 or so apiece, so i'd feel really guilty snitching one from the pew rack. now that i have a full-time job, i should just buy one. i don't get why a book comprised of hymns written over a hundred years ago should cost so much. i really don't think dead people should be collecting royalties.
maybe it's like bibles. i hope and pray that the money i spend on a $50 bible goes mostly to giving bibles away to people who can't afford them. because that's atrocious, to spend that much for a bible. in gutenberg's day, maybe. today? no. see, here i'd take a fifteen minute recess to look up zondervan.org or wherever they're located and find out exactly what their spending habits are. too bad, today i'll just have to stay here and keep typing. actually, i went and looked up "were you there" in my hymnals. i'm typing this part in past tense, so i can't give you verbatim what the verses were. now not only am i lacking an internet connection, but i've boxed up my hymnals and put them in storage. i hope you're weeping in deep sorrow for me :). i could have used them today, i'm trying to program "how great thou art" into my phone.
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