Hey I wanted to Comment on the film clip of soldiers singing Leaning on the Everlasting Arms and it said paid subscribers only. Which I am still. Or were comments on that disabled?
Thelma, you are right. For some reason the comments were set to "disabled," which we would never do, particularly on a hymn. No wonder we got so many likes and NO comments! Please do go back and post yours!!
I think I went back to the original after seeing your reply and ignored the warning for subscribers only and posted my comment. Then I saw your repost and tried to repost my comment but I’m not sure what happened. I think it’s somewhere.
Two thoughts on this: first, I had never thought about it, but it sounds to me as if "salve," the ointment which is rubbed onto an injury, "saves" us from the pain (or worse) of that injury. Interesting! Never thought of putting on triple antibiotic ointment as a form of salvation, but given the blistered foot which killed Calvin Coolidge's son, maybe it is!
Second – English "whole" and Greek "holos" may not be related (I've got to take your word on that, Tony, as I am Greek-illiterate), but if I recall correctly from my admittedly very minimal exposure to Old English, "whole" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "halig," which means "holy," "hale" (e.g., healthy, as in "hale and hearty"), and, yes, "whole" – complete, entire, fully functional as it were. So perhaps there may be some relation after all...? Just a thought! :-)
A very interesting and thought-provoking piece, in any case! And I am in complete agreement about the obsessive concern with "safety" found in contemporary society. I don't think we need to or should live our lives in Thunderdome, mind you! But expecting life not to challenge us at all, physically or intellectually, is both unrealistic and the coward's way out. In my humble opinion!
Tom, the etymologies are always interesting to trace. We've got a post to go out one of these days about "Grimm's Law" (that would be Grimm of fairy tale fame), which explains a good deal about how sound changes happened in German. Linguistics is an endlessly fascinating field. I know that Tony has written about the "whole" and "hale" connection before, but I'm not sure if it came up at W&S yet.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
"Are you safe?" asks actor William Devane while urging folks to invest in gold to be safe from financial instability. He then demonstrates how gold can be securely stored in a wall safe at home. But many gold commercials advise putting gold in an IRA and never mention that gold in an IRA must remain with the IRA custodian and cannot be stored at home, or else IRS penalties would make that gold highly insecure.
James, we have not yet ventured into the silent movies. When we do, Harold Lloyd will be at the top of the list. I confess that we have only seen a few (famous) clips from "Safety Last." It's a great suggestion..
Yet another one of the delightful paradoxes of the world we live in! We can only do good if we have the free choice to do evil, we can only truly live because we must pass through death, and we can only be saved if we experience danger first. Many people find these paradoxes strange and hard to grasp, which I understand completely...but I can't help but find them wonderful. Perhaps it's the storyteller in me, that I can sometimes see (though only dimly, and quite infrequently) the way the world seems like a great narrative, with twists and turns that even the greatest novelist on Earth could never imagine.
When I was pondering whether to return to work (at the time I taught driver education, which involved being enclosed in a car with students of unknown health for two hours at a time) during the height of the covid pandemic, in June of 2020, I consulted my primary care provider. She said what I had been thinking: "We can't be so afraid to die that we are afraid to live." Good advice not only for pandemics, but for life itself, imho!
Also, J.R.R. Tolkien spoke of the world as a great narrative:
Sam: “But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten…”
Frodo: “And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.”
Sam: “No, sir, of course not… Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?”
Frodo: “No, they never end as tales. But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.”
Which could be a little bit depressing… but it’s not, really, because the tale itself keeps going! :-)
Hey I wanted to Comment on the film clip of soldiers singing Leaning on the Everlasting Arms and it said paid subscribers only. Which I am still. Or were comments on that disabled?
Thelma, you are right. For some reason the comments were set to "disabled," which we would never do, particularly on a hymn. No wonder we got so many likes and NO comments! Please do go back and post yours!!
I think I went back to the original after seeing your reply and ignored the warning for subscribers only and posted my comment. Then I saw your repost and tried to repost my comment but I’m not sure what happened. I think it’s somewhere.
Anyway, these things happen. Thx.
Thelma, we didn't disable the comments. I will look to see if something odd happened. We love the comments.
From “safe spaces,” deliver us, O Lord.
Two thoughts on this: first, I had never thought about it, but it sounds to me as if "salve," the ointment which is rubbed onto an injury, "saves" us from the pain (or worse) of that injury. Interesting! Never thought of putting on triple antibiotic ointment as a form of salvation, but given the blistered foot which killed Calvin Coolidge's son, maybe it is!
Second – English "whole" and Greek "holos" may not be related (I've got to take your word on that, Tony, as I am Greek-illiterate), but if I recall correctly from my admittedly very minimal exposure to Old English, "whole" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "halig," which means "holy," "hale" (e.g., healthy, as in "hale and hearty"), and, yes, "whole" – complete, entire, fully functional as it were. So perhaps there may be some relation after all...? Just a thought! :-)
A very interesting and thought-provoking piece, in any case! And I am in complete agreement about the obsessive concern with "safety" found in contemporary society. I don't think we need to or should live our lives in Thunderdome, mind you! But expecting life not to challenge us at all, physically or intellectually, is both unrealistic and the coward's way out. In my humble opinion!
Tom, the etymologies are always interesting to trace. We've got a post to go out one of these days about "Grimm's Law" (that would be Grimm of fairy tale fame), which explains a good deal about how sound changes happened in German. Linguistics is an endlessly fascinating field. I know that Tony has written about the "whole" and "hale" connection before, but I'm not sure if it came up at W&S yet.
About Aslan:
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
"Are you safe?" asks actor William Devane while urging folks to invest in gold to be safe from financial instability. He then demonstrates how gold can be securely stored in a wall safe at home. But many gold commercials advise putting gold in an IRA and never mention that gold in an IRA must remain with the IRA custodian and cannot be stored at home, or else IRS penalties would make that gold highly insecure.
UGH. Advertising is not about "safety," evidently!
The spirit of the post will be fulfilled if Safety Last is the film for the week. There has never been a silent choice yet, has there?
James, we have not yet ventured into the silent movies. When we do, Harold Lloyd will be at the top of the list. I confess that we have only seen a few (famous) clips from "Safety Last." It's a great suggestion..
Yet another one of the delightful paradoxes of the world we live in! We can only do good if we have the free choice to do evil, we can only truly live because we must pass through death, and we can only be saved if we experience danger first. Many people find these paradoxes strange and hard to grasp, which I understand completely...but I can't help but find them wonderful. Perhaps it's the storyteller in me, that I can sometimes see (though only dimly, and quite infrequently) the way the world seems like a great narrative, with twists and turns that even the greatest novelist on Earth could never imagine.
When I was pondering whether to return to work (at the time I taught driver education, which involved being enclosed in a car with students of unknown health for two hours at a time) during the height of the covid pandemic, in June of 2020, I consulted my primary care provider. She said what I had been thinking: "We can't be so afraid to die that we are afraid to live." Good advice not only for pandemics, but for life itself, imho!
Also, J.R.R. Tolkien spoke of the world as a great narrative:
Sam: “But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten…”
Frodo: “And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.”
Sam: “No, sir, of course not… Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?”
Frodo: “No, they never end as tales. But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.”
Which could be a little bit depressing… but it’s not, really, because the tale itself keeps going! :-)