Soothing the soul of a bibliophile

The bibliophile in me was more than satisfied earlier in the week. I placed an order last week for a facsimile of Charles Wesley: Seen in his finer and less familiar poems (1867) along with the three volumes of Unpublished poetry of Charles Wesley. Although the former book was sent before the three volumes, the three volumes arrived on Monday, with the other yet to be seen!

I also got a beautiful three volume Life and Times of John Wesley by Tyneman, published in 1873. This is a chronological biography, with each year of Wesley’s life described using his letters and journals and those of people around him (Charles Wesley, George Whitefield among others).

Also acquired were a two part History of the Sermon from around 1910, and The land and the book from the 1880s.

Two more recent theology texts were a 1st English edition of Karl Barth’s Dogmatics in Outline and Emil Brunner’s Dogmatics.

Now the challenge is to actually read some of it!  Wish me luck.

The thanks I get

It has been one of those weeks this week.  One thing of note is a spike in the number of page views on my site.  Someone has been googling me.  I can see that both on here and on the library site.  It was probably my mother, but if it isn’t, and you come back, hi!  Thanks for coming and please come back soon.

Now, I take a back seat!

After 13 years at school, an Arts degree, a Science degree and a Science Masters, my beautiful wife has today commenced her first full-time job as an Audiologist.  She is 5 months younger than me, has been working toward this job for the last 5 years, but still thinks that she has left it late to go into a profession.

Charles Wesley – Desiring Death

To languish for his native air
Can the poor wandering exile cease?
The tired his wish of rest forbear?
The tortured help desiring ease?
The slave no more for freedom sigh,
Or I no longer pine to die?

As shipwrecked mariners desire
With eager grasp to reach the shore,
As hirelings long to obtain their hire,
And veterans wish their warfare o’er,
I languish from this earth to flee,
And gasp for immortality.

To heaven I lift my mournful eyes,
And all within me groans, how long ?
O were I landed in the skies !
The bitter loss, the cruel wrong,
Should there no more my soul molest,
Or break my everlasting rest.

No faithless friend shall there be found
To mock me with his offers vain,
By deep ingratitude to wound,
To cause, and then upbraid my pain,
To leave me at my greatest need,
Or trample on my sinking head.

In that Jerusalem above
No pain the happy spirit meets ;
No sense of ill-requited love,
No sad complaining in their streets.
Crying, and curse, and death are o’er ;
And there temptation is no more.

O could I break this fleshly fence,
Drop all my sorrows in the tomb,
On angels’ wings remove from hence,
And fly this happy moment home,
Quit the dark house of mouldering clay,
And launch into eternal Day !

from ‘Charles Wesley seen in his finer and less familiar poems’, 1878.

Happy Christmas

Well, I sort of lapsed with my Christian of the Week posts, but what a way to get back into it.

CotW this week is Jesus – why not?

I’m not quite sure what Jesus did to deserve having his birthday turned into such a farce. There aren’t to many birthday celebrations where it is taboo to acknowledge the birthday boy in public. Yeah, I know he wasn’t actually born on December 25.

Anyway, from all accounts, Jesus was a pretty good sort of a bloke, who, like most popular people, was a little antagonistic towards authority and people around him. Not that he was rude or anything, just, well… He held fast to his convictions.

He was God remember.

The story of Jesus is fairly well known. He was born in a stable, got a few friends, did a few impressive things, became unpopular with Jewish leaders, was killed and came back to life.

He invited faith, but after 2000 years, all that there seems to be religion. He offered wisdom, but has inspired fundamentalism (both of the Evangelical and liberal persuasions).

Despite best efforts, he is one of the most misunderstood people in history, not suggesting that I know all the answers, but there are so many different ways he is looked at, some of them must be wrong, or at least not quite right.

I guess we’ll understand one day, and the big J-dawg can let us know whether he is real, just a story, or a bit of both. I’m comfortable with believing, even if it means I might be wrong.

Happy Christmas, from Narrandera, NSW, on my iPhone. I have no spell- checker, and have a whopper of the flu, so I apologise for spelling and grammar.