Monday, December 22, 2008

Prepare ye the way of the snowplow


Such a hush, this morning!

All summer, all through morning rush hour, cars are lined up in front of my house and they are going boom, boom, boom. I do not miss that! I love the way things are today. I can take my cup of coffee out into the sun room and there is nothing but whiteness and silence. It is like being dead! If I had been good, that is. If I were bad, the situation would be quite different. I might be in the Niagara Fallsview Casino. But I am getting ahead of myself.

This morning I celebrated my new peace and silence by listening my favorite part of "Messiah," "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings To Zion." Wow, isn't that an interesting video treatment? They put it on the streets and shopping malls of London. It is perhaps not as imaginative as my video yesterday but still, I liked it. I love when the chorus bursts in. "Say unto the cities of Judah..."

Then I checked out a different version. You have the luxury of doing that when there are not boom cars lined up in front of your house.

Yikes, that second version is fast! Maybe that is because of the video. I have never heard "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" accompanied by footage of casinos and McDonald's. I guess that clip is part of a movie. Ha, ha! It reminds me of what I saw a few weeks ago in Niagara Falls when I went there to meet with Leonard Pennario's decorator, Phil. All these people in sweatpants sitting at slot machines. I had to find the bathroom is why I went into the casino. Casinos are good for things like that as long as you can find your way.

Isn't it funny how the casino ads, like the one up above, always show happy, lucky, dressed-up people but when you actually go there and see for yourself, they are all depressed and wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts? That is God's truth.

Speaking of which here is a line I loved at church yesterday. I love Advent, the prophet Isaiah, all that. I love the beauty of these ancient texts and they scare me a little too.

Anno quintodecimo imperii Tiberii Caesaris, procurante Pontio Pilato Judaeam, tetracha autem Galilaea Herode, Philippo autem fratre ejus tetrarcha Itureae, et Trachonitidis regionis, et Lysanias Abilinae tetrarcha, sub principibus sacerdotum Anna et Caipha: factum et verbum Domini super Joannem, Zachariae filium, in deserto.

Ahem:

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrach of Gelilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iteurea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina, under the high priests Annas and Caiphas: the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert.

Now there is a sentence! You just know something important is coming.

I should start my book on Pennario like that. Grab people from the word go.

2 comments:

Howard Goldman said...

I think those people are celebrating because they found a place with nice bathrooms.

Budd Bailey said...

Maybe tomorrow you can listen to "Santa Claus is Smoking Reefer" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. It will give you a much different frame of reference for the arrival of the day.