LET'S ROCK THE CANTEEN WITH
TUNES FOR OUR TROOPS!!
LET'S GET THIS SHOW OFF THE GROUND!!
Greetings to all at the Canteen!
To all our military men and women, past and present,
Shine On YouCrazy Diamond – Pink Floyd
Background music: "You're a Grand Old Flag" by the Kingsmen
I recall when Whitney Houston sang live at a baseball game.
She sang the Pledge of Allegiance, I believe.
Her voice was powerful and her performance technique was superb.
I’ve never forgotten it.
It's Tunes For Our Troops!
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The silent drill platoon rocks!
It’s been fifteen years since I struggled to learn the very basic 17 point manual of arms.
Bible in a Year :
Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him.
To express her sadness, Allie, a young girl, wrote on a piece of wood and set it in a park: “To be honest, I’m sad. Nobody ever wants to hang out with me, and I have lost the only person that listens. I cry every day.”
When someone found that note, she brought sidewalk chalk to the park and asked people to write their thoughts to Allie. Dozens of words of support were left by students from a nearby school: “We love you.” “God loves you.” “You are beloved.” The school principal said, “This is one little way that we can reach out and maybe help fill [her void]. She represents all of us because at some point in time we have all or will all experience sadness and suffering.”
The phrase “You are beloved” reminds me of a beautiful blessing by Moses to the Israelite tribe of Benjamin just before he died: “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him” (Deuteronomy 33:12). Moses had been a strong leader for God, defeating enemy nations, receiving the Ten Commandments, and challenging them to follow God. He left them with God’s view of them. The word beloved can be used of us as well, for Jesus said, “God so loved the world that He gave [us] his one and only Son” (John 3:16).
As God helps us to rest securely in the truth that every believer in Jesus is “beloved,” we can reach out to love others as Allie’s new friends did.
Reflect & Pray
How are you learning to rest securely in God’s love? How will you share that love with others?
May I be confident in Your love for me, dear God, and spread Your love to those around me.
The ancient Greeks, with their religion of Aryan Pantheism, had a different idea of what might occur in an afterlife than our modern religions. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the deep abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked. It’s much like the Christian hell, but with some differences.
The Renaissance saw tremendous interest in classical Greece and its mythology. The two Immortals of German poetry, Goethe and Schiller (1759-1805), wrote a lot of poetry about Greek gods and the mythology that accompanied them. This Schiller poem prompted Franz Schubert to attempt setting it to music once in 1815, and that left only a fragment. His attempt in 1817 at age 20 became one of his greatest songs and the best of all his settings of Friedrich von Schiller.
It begins with the right hand on the piano playing Cs, then C-sharps, then Ds while the left hand boils in the subterranean depths. Then a tableau of horror rises on the stage.
Horch – wie Murmeln des empörten Meeres,
Hark! Like the angry murmuring of the sea,Wie durch hohler Felsen Becken weint ein Bach,
Or a brook sobbing through pools in shallow rocks,Stöhnt dort dumpfigtief ein schweres – leeres,
From the depths arises a muffled,Qualerpreßtes Ach!
Heavy, empty, tormented groan!
Schubert springs the trap in D minor.
Schmerz, verzerret
Pain distortsIhr Gesicht – Verzweiflung sperret
Their faces – in despairIhren Rachen fluchend auf.
Their mouths open wide, cursing.
Now comes Schubert’s careful unwinding of tension.
Hoh sind ihre Augen – ihre Blicke
Their eyes are hollow – their frightened gazeSpähen bang nach des Cocytus Brücke,
Strains toward Cocytus’ bridge,Folgen tränend seinem Trauerlauf.
Following as they weep that river’s mournful course.
Now for the buildup, repeated in rising semitones.
Fragen sich einander ängstlich leise,
Anxiously, softly, they ask one another,Ob noch nicht Vollendung sei?
If the end is yet near?
The answer, the horror of that answer and the masterstroke of the song is something you would expect in a minor key. But Schubert delivers it in a glorious – and terrifying – blaze of C major. Again and again!
Ewigkeit!
Eternity!Schwingt über ihnen Kreise,
Sweeps in circles above them,Bricht die Sense des Saturns entzwei.
Breaking Saturn’s scythe in two.
The tableau of horror sinks beneath the stage, leaving it bare once again. A soft C minor triad arpeggio symbolizes the rings of Saturn.
Boys and girls, you’re going to be good, aren’t you?
This is a classic performance from the great Hermann Prey, taped in 1990.
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