5/22/2026

 Friday, May 22, 2026

1950 Richard Strauss' "4 Last Songs" (4 letzte Lieder) premiered in London

2016  President Barack Obama arrived in Vietnam for a 3 day tour

2022 Report released on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, detailed 20 years of suppressing many allegations 

2024 Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced they will formally recognize a Palestinian state on 28 May, joining nine other European countries 

2025 DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the termination of Harvard University's Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, removing the institution's ability to enroll new international students and requiring current international students to transfer or lose their legal status.

In bed at 9:30, up at 4:15; 0425 146/73/53 101, 0440 125/72/52 205.0;  46/59/46 cloudy day, BEACH HAZARD CONDITION CONTINUES 

Morning meds at 6 a.m., and half-dose of Bisoprolol at 5:15a.m.

A long exchange with an old pal:

On Monday, May 18, 2026 at 04:49:59 PM CDT, Lawrence Anderson wrote:

  Read with some interest your discussion of favorite hymns. Having done K-8 at a Lutheran school, necessitated singing in church with the school choir around once/mo. for 8 years. Consequently, I was exposed to several hymns out of "The Lutheran Hymnal” (Northwestern Publishing House, 1941). Chapel every night at Northwestern Prep alternated between “All Praise to Thee My God This Night”, (First or Second Tune) and “Abide With Me”. Abide With Me had 8 verses so we only sang about 4. But my favorite verse always included was verse 5 in the TLH. Since we were all teenagers, it was apropos.

                           Thou on my head in early youth didst smile
                           And though rebellious and perverse,meanwhile
                           Thou hast not left me oft as I’ve left Thee
                           On to the close, oh Lord, abide with me!       s/f

On May 19, 2026, at 2:30 PM, Charles Clausen wrote:

As a general rule, I'm kind of turned off by hymns that speak in Elizabethan English, with "thee," "thou" for you, and didst" for did.  I make a big exception though for "How Great Thou Art," which always moves me.  Given my druthers, I'll always chose Black spirituals and C&W gospel music.  For some reason, I have a hard time picturing you as a choir boy, but you probably have a hard time picturing me as an altar boy, which I was regularly from 6th to 8th grade and irregularly even into my undergraduate college days. s/f

On Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 02:38:04 PM CDT, Lawrence Anderson  wrote:

     I wasn’t exactly a choir boy. It’s not like this was a voluntary exercise. At Good Shepherd Lutheran School in West Allis the lower grades (1-4) sang in Church about every other month. Choir wasn’t hard because we were all in one room.  The “Upper Grades” (5-8, again, all in one room) sang about once/mo. Interestingly, my upper grade teacher, Miss Huth, is still alive at 105. Lives in Hurley and I went to see her last year. Lived in her regular apartment till she was 101. The 4 grades probably had around 40 kids. The woman had to be dedicated.   s/f

Charles Clausen To:  Lawrence Anderson. Fri, May 22 at 8:10 AM

At St. Leo Grammar School at 78th and Emerald Avenue on the south side of Chicago, we were also expected to sing as a group when we attended Catholic services together, masses or benedictions or Stations of the Cross.  Some of the lyrics, though, were in Latin which most of us did not understand.  However, we altar boys, hot shits, knew at least some Latin because we had to speak it when we served at mass.  The priest would start the mass with "Introibo ad altare Dei", meanng I go unto the altar of God, and we altar boys would respond, "Ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meum," meainng To God who gives joy to my youth.  It went on from there.  Tom St. John and I used to test each other on how much of the mass Latin we still remembered in our adulthood, which was quite a bit.  But the great unwashed who were not altar boys and knew no Latin, used to make fun of the Latin hymns, like turning the Tantum Ergo Sacramentum into Tantum Ergo makes your hair grow.  Very irreverent.  I still remember some of those Latin lyrics, like Genitori Genitoque / Laus et iubilatio, which is almost more spirit-deadening in English "To the Begetter and the Begotten/ Be praise and jubilation,"  Lyrics like these should make it easier to understand why I prefer Emmylou Harris singing "When He calls, I'm going to live with Jesus.  In His Kingdom, he welcomes everyone" and Mahalia Jackson singing "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands."  My Dad, who was raised Catholic never attended church after his experiences on Iwo Jima used to love to watch Mahalia Jackson's show on Chicago television.  I just watched the YouTube recording of Mahalia singing "Precious Lord" and it still makes the skin on my neck tingle and tears to well up in my eyes.  We held a memorial service of sorts at the law school for Ray J. Aiken after he died and I gave a eulogy, which I regret I no longer have a copy of.  What I remember vividly thought is that at his funeral, they sang Precious Lord, and I spoke in part about the contrast between Ray in his old age when he had a bad case of Alzheimer's, and his teaching days when he was so strong and vigorous, sometimes almost pugnacious, as in his youth when he a Golden Gloves boxer.  I was so moved by those lyrics "I am tired, I am weak, I am worn."  I've struggled with religious faith all my life, indeed at least since the sixth grade, and throughout even my churchgoing years as an adult, but I've never stopped being touched deep inside by good gospel music for which I guess I should say 'thank God.'

Some random and not-so-random thoughts as I finish Traveling Mercies, in no particular order.

(1) I'm wondering whether a large part of Anne Lamott's popularity comes from her offering her readers a modus vivendi for living with what Reinhold Niebuhr accurately calls "an impossible Christian ethic."  Niebuhr argues, irrefutable I think, that the ethic of Jesus is contrary to human nature which does not incline us to turn the other cheek when attacked, to love our enemies, or to forgive those who wrong us not once or twice, but seven times seventy.   Human nature inclines us to protect ourselves, to defend and preserve ourselves.    It's human nature that causes us, even Jimmy Carter, to look at others with lust in our heart, not the Devil.

(2) She is not afraid of saying or writing "fuck" and "shit" and "asshole" and their variants.  She acknowledges sleeping with her boyfriend though they are not married.  I note that she is a member of a mostly Black congregation of Presbyterians, and that she probably would not be accepted in a lot of more evangelical, fundamentalist congregations.  I wonder whether she has a lot of Southern Baptist readers and fans,  I wonder what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would think of her kind of Christianity.