Incarnate Deity

There are many things I love about celebrating the incarnation of Christ, and singing Christmas hymns nears the top of the list.

During our Christmas worship service yesterday, a couple of things struck me while singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

While singing the second stanza, I was pierced with the beauty of the phrase: “Incarnate Deity”. What a great expression of God in the flesh!

I also recognized Malachi's prophecy in these beautiful words from the third verse:

Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings.

I looked in Malachi and found the prophecy in the second verse of the fourth chapter:

But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings;

I love the imagery of Christ rising with brilliant wings to bring healing to His people.

This morning, I again considered that wonderful phrase, "Incarnate Deity." It's prefaced with another great phrase, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see." But I've always wondered about the phrase that follows it: "Pleased as man with men to dwell." It seems a little awkward to me, as if it suddenly twists our thoughts to focus upon men and our pleasure before refocusing on the miraculous grace that is God in the flesh. Somehow that little twist always seemed inappropriate and out of place to me.

In looking up "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" on the Cyber Hymnal website, I discovered that this wording accurately reflects Charles Wesley’s original version of that stanza:

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here!

But I think the arrangement

by William H. Cummings, which appeared in the Con­gre­ga­tion­al Hymn and Tune Book published by Richard R. Chope in 1857, better captures the essence of the thought:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

God was pleased to dwell with us and walk among us in the flesh. Of course, this pleases us, but the emphasis should remain firmly fixed on God. It was His good pleasure to appear as our Savior, who came in the flesh. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Deity, who came to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Renee Fleming

Last night Dave and I enjoyed watching Renee Fleming perform Christmas music with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and orchestra on PBS. Fleming's performance was a treat; she obviously relished each song. The show also featured Claire Bloom reading the biblical Christmas story in wonderfully rich tones. It was a great show. I stayed up another hour to watch Fleming sing sacred songs and carols at the Mainz Cathedral in Germany on Great Performances.

I discovered Fleming when I heard her haunting performances of "Twilight and Shadow" and "The End of All Things" on The Return of the King movie soundtrack. At the time, I had no idea that she was a diva. She's a wildly popular soprano who travels all over the world singing a wide range of music in all kinds of venues.

And she's accomplished something I never thought possible in me: she's piqued an interest in opera.

Knowing Nothing

"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God" (1 Corninthians 2:1-5, ESV).

God sometimes makes amazing connections in my mind. Yesterday I was wondering if I should give up writing altogether because I know nothing. Today I began reading Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life by Bret Lott. He confesses that "...the longer I write--and this is the one sure thing I know about writing--the harder it gets, and the more I hold close the truth that I know nothing" (pp. 12-13).

Struck by that timely discovery, I turned to today's scripture reading in my Tabletalk devotional from Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul and read the above scripture passage. While it primarily speaks to the importance of Christ's atonement on the cross, it also speaks to me about the value of knowing nothing.

If writing continues to grow more difficult for Bret Lott and if he continues to grasp the truth that he knows nothing, and if the Apostle Paul chose to know nothing but Christ so that God would be glorified in spite of his weakness and fear, then I may be in good company.

I do not come proclaiming anything with lofty speech or wisdom. Everything I do is with fear and much trembling. My speech and my message are not in plausible words of wisdom. But I know Christ and him crucified, and I trust in the power of God. He is able to demonstrate the Spirit, even in my weakness and ignorance, for the strengthening of faith and for His glory.

Improvisation

After nearly 35 years of cooking for my husband and family, I improvise a lot. I don’t take time to look up every recipe or carefully measure every ingredient. Since I’ve prepared many family favorites so often, I simply pour in a little of this and add about so much of that. And I sometimes avoid a trip to the grocery store by substituting an ingredient that I have on hand, such as using green beans rather than celery in hamburger soup. My cooking improvisations work because I have a basic knowledge of complementary flavors and I have years of experience.

But my oldest son’s cooking improvisations were not so successful when he was young. On days when the children were home while I was at work, he was in charge of his three younger siblings. They often talk about the meals he used to serve them. Being a rather scientific and highly creative young man, he frequently added ingredients—sometimes a lot of very odd ingredients—to foods he was preparing for lunch. Of all his creative efforts they remember, the curry-flavored mac’n’cheese is most frequently and fervently mentioned. I believe that even his loyal canine friend wouldn’t eat it.

My son’s early cooking improvisations weren’t as successful as my current improvisations because he didn’t have the necessary knowledge and experience.

My cooking improvisations work because, during the early years of our marriage, I spent a lot of time consulting cookbooks and following recipes. And even at the conservative estimate of one meal per day over the last 34 years, I’ve cooked over 12,000 meals. That’s a lot of cooking experience.

When one thinks about improvisation, jazz naturally comes to mind. I don’t know much about jazz, but I’m confident that it takes more than creativity to successfully improvise. It takes a thorough knowledge of music and it takes extensive time spent practicing the instrument.

William Edgar is an expert on jazz. In his book, Taking Note of Music, he laments how technological advances may contribute to a lack of the necessary skill and discipline for improvisation. He writes, “Ironically the great availability of different styles, and the ability of electronics to expand sounds in an almost infinite number of ways, may tempt us away from acquiring personal skills and disciplines” (p. 13). He relates the concern of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson about the dwindling number of competent pianists able to improvise, which Peterson attributes to the availability of electronic keyboards capable of producing so many sounds that young pianists no longer spend hours practicing their scales and arpeggios.

“In a word,” Edgar writes, “music is being reproduced today more than it is being produced” (p. 13).

One can’t take shortcuts with improvisation in jazz or in cooking. Improvisation works best when it is based on knowledge that comes through study and experience that comes through diligent practice.

Addictions

I used to think that addicts were drunken bums lying in the gutters of Skid Row. Now I realize that I am one.

There are at least two things I’m addicted to: email and spider solitaire. I'm not addicted to surfing the net or dialoguing in chat rooms, just to e-mail. And I'm not addicted to online games with a network of other gamers, just to spider solitaire.

Nevertheless, I've reached that point where I can stand up and say, "My name is Glenda and I am an addict."

One of the worst things about my addictions is that they kill my creativity. When I meditate in the cozy cocoon of my pre-dawn bed, curled in my own warmth and communing with God, creative thoughts come to me. I can easily get up and go into my office, but if I check my email first thing, I am distracted by a host of other subjects and most creative thoughts disappear. And, while playing spider solitaire may produce the occasional brilliant bit of dialogue, it is not as productive as actually writing. Even mining stream of consciousness ramblings would unearth more gems.

Elizabeth Bishop wrote, in a 1953 letter to Kit and Ilse Barker, “I am sorry for people who can’t write letters. But I suspect also that you and I…love to write them because it’s kind of like working without really doing it.” I identify with that sentiment.

Since dealing with email is kind of like working without really doing it, that's part of the reason I check my email first thing in the morning and frequently throughout the day. And it is part of the reason that I sometimes write lengthy replies in response to emails. I find myself spending a long time on a reply, trying to get the wording just right. And then I think, "Glenda, this is only an email!"

That also may be part of why I play spider solitaire. I have plenty of work that I should be doing, but I don’t always know how to tackle it. When I play spider solitaire, my mind placates myself with subconscious notions that at least I’m in the office at the computer and at least I’m relaxing and allowing my mind to think creatively.

But if I really assess my thought processes while I’m playing solitaire, I have to admit that it’s not all that relaxing because I am consumed by guilt. And it’s not all that creative because I primarily rewrite dialogue from recently viewed movies—a somewhat plagiaristic and definitely unproductive mental pursuit.

Worse than merely being an addict, however, I am slothful. I was recently convicted by a discussion on sloth in The Teaching Company’s excellent set of tapes on “Hell, Purgatory, Paradise: Dante’s Divine Comedy” (a course that is apparently no longer available, although Dante's Divine Comedy is). When Cook or Herzman said, "Sloth is doing something other than what you should be doing," I was stabbed in the heart.

Even before I heard that, I often felt overwhelmed by my extraordinary sloth. In a 1937 letter to her friend, Marianne Moore, Bishop wrote, “I am overcome by my own amazing sloth.” I strongly identify with that sentiment.

She went on to say, “Can you please forgive me and believe that it is really because I want to do something well that I don’t do it at all?”

Yet again I identify with what Bishop writes. My fear of failure is the foundation for my addictions and the primary reason why I procrastinate. My fear paralyzes me. I wrote about this in my poem "Invocation."

O Lord, if only You might pour on me
Abundant grace of Milton's heavenly muse!
That this gray mind would empty shadows flee
And into golden praise itself would lose.

But Lord, I'm paralyzed with Barak's fear
and blinded by my Pharasaic sight.
My hearing's grown as hard as Pharoah's ear,
While empty echoes rise to Babel's height.

You, Lord, gave Milton songs of worthy praise
And You alone can cause me to grow bold--
Explode in reminiscent rhythmic phrase--
That I, like him, might sing a song of gold,

No deathly talent hid or Lord denied,
But God in every line be glorified!

When I began freelance writing, I felt as if I had finally unearthed my one talent and put it to work for the Lord. Only He can help me overcome my addictions and their fearful foundation in order to use my meager talent for His glory.