Translation into English of "Geh' aus mein Herz und Suche Freud"

I have made this translation and you may use it as you please.

1.  Go forth, my heart, and seek joy in this beautiful summertime, enjoying the gifts of your God;  look, see the beauty of the delightful gardens and see how they have decked themselves out for you and for me.

2.  The trees stand full of leaves and similarly the earth is covering itself in green dress;  the narcissus and the tulips are attired more beautifully than Solomon in silk.

3.  The lark is swinging itself into the air, the little dove flies out of its habitation and flies into the forests;  the nightingale delights and fills the mountains, hills, valleys and fields with her song.

4.  The hen leads forth her little folk, the stork builds and inhabits his house, the swallow feeds her young. The fast stag and the light deer are glad and come from their heights jumping down into the deep grass.

5.  The creek is rustling in the sand, and paints itself into the border with the shadows of the myrtles.  The meadows lie next to it and resound with the joyful cry of the sheep and their shepherds.

6.  The undeterred swarm of bees flies back and forth, and seeks here and there the noble food of  honey;  the strong juice of the grapevines is bringing daily further strength into its tender shoots.

7.  The wheat is growing with power. About this rejoice the young and the old, praising the great goodness of the One who feeds with such abundance and gives so many good gifts to the soul of man.

8.  I, myself, can't and don't want to keep quiet. The great deeds of the great God enliven all my senses;  I sing along as everything sings, and let flow out of my heart what resounds to the Highest.

9.  Ah, I think, if you are so beautiful here and show us such lovely sights on this poor earth, how wonderful it will be, after this world, there in the rich heavens and life in the golden palace.

10.  Oh, what a high pleasure and bright light there will be in Christ's garden!  How will it sound when so many thousand seraphim will sing their Halleluia with a firm voice and sound.

11.  Oh, that I were there, oh, to stand there, already, ah, sweet God before your throne, and carrying my palm:  I would adore your name in the manner of the angels with a thousand beautiful psalms.

12.  But at the same time, while I am still here and am bearing the yoke of this body, I do not want to remain silent;  my heart shall, as time goes on, bow itself, here and in all places, to your praise.

13.  Help me and bless my spirit with blessings that flow from heaven, so that I blossom to you;  grant that the summer of your grace will produce much fruit of faith in my soul.

14.  Make room in me for your Spirit, so that I will become for you a good tree and let me grow deep roots.  Grant that I might be for your glory a beautiful flower or plant in your garden.

15.  Elect me to your paradise and let me green for you into the least and furthest branches, in body and soul, so that I shall serve you here now and there in eternity--you alone and no other.

Some commenting on Luther posts, his "alleged anti-semitism" and his alleged approval of lying.

James Swan had some helpful posts recently on Luther, which I commented on.

To cross reference, they are:

On Luther and alleged anti-semitism.

On Luther and lying.

"Geh' aus mein Herz"

Song by Paul Gerhardt, a favorite song of my mother.  I should do a direct translation, when I have a chance.

How could it happen / Tannhauser cancelled

A Nazi-themed production of the Wagner opera Tannhaeuser, which featured scenes of gas chambers and the execution of a family, has been cancelled after audience members had to receive medical treatment for shock.

Michael Szentei-Heise, the head of the Jewish community in Duesseldorf, said the production was “tasteless and not legitimate”. He said: “This opera has nothing to do with the Holocaust. However, I think the audience has made this very clear.”
In a statement, the opera house management said it was aware that the production would “arouse controversy”.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/wagner-opera-cancelled-due-to-holocaust-staging-of-tannhaeuser-a-898937.html


http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/05/09/nazi-themed-opera-that-included-scenes-of-jews-dying-in-gas-chambers-cancelled-in-berlin/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/05/09/tannhauser-opera-nazi-cancel.html



Apparently Nazi-themed Wagner operas are nothing new and people are fed up with them, according to some of the comments.

Because it is a Wagner anniversary year, since he was born in 1813, there are a number of new documentaries available on his life right now.  If one googles it, there is even a Wagner movie:  http://richardwagnerfilm.com/

Personally, I am almost entirely unfamiliar with his music though I tried to watch Parsifal on Youtube the other day and got about 30 min. into it. But it is a fact that Wagner was very anti-semitic.  It needs to be faced and he was part of the spirit of the elites of the 19th century which paved the way for Nazism's new religion and outlook.  This sort of thing should be thoroughly examined and understood.  Perhaps the stunt at the opera will help with that?

This Spiegel article aims to deal with some of what I wish would get brought out, but what I've copied about below is about all we get.  It seems to be simply saying that yea, they were all kind of anti-semitic at the time and yea there is this German longing.  It does not do justice to the subject matter.

Wagner himself conceived his music as political. He didn't want to be merely an artist, but to build a new society, a society of the emotionally transported, of people who seek love instead of striving for money and power. His music was also a propaganda tool for this idea.

This was convenient for the Nazis, because they too used intoxication, ecstasy and overpowering images in their propaganda, such as at their Nuremberg rallies. In the Germans, they encountered a pronounced susceptibility to emotional turmoil and pathos, which is particularly evident in German Romanticism, in the poetry of Friedrich Schiller or the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. An essentially German longing permeates Wagner's music.

Today, commenting on his theory that Wagner was partly to blame for the Holocaust, he says: "Hardly any more so that the anti-Semites Hegel, Marx and Schopenhauer. An intellectual anti-Semitism was almost socially acceptable at the time."

To whom shall we go...

"One, who goes through the world and time, does not call like those who are selling on the market. He speaks to the heart, today, and gathers his people. And even if we'd rather just stand still, to whom shall we go? He gives us everything--truth and life." 


Juergen Henkys

Thinking about the thinking while knitting / Meditation/ No need to go to the Himalayas

The cowl featured in the last post is almost finished, due to the addictive nature of the knitting process.

While I was sitting there thinking the following over and over as I went:

"yarn over, slip one, knit two together, pass the slipped one over, yarn over, knit three,
yarn over, slip one, knit tow together..."

--for 210 stitches in the round, I realized that the state of consciousness I was achieving must be the elusive emptying of the mind that Eastern meditators try so hard to accomplish. It is completely mesmerizing.  I can go on for hours and not even think about food.  It is completely relaxing and yet completely absorbing.  I once read a book about a man from Canada who went to some Himalayan Buddhist monastery to learn to meditate.  The book might have been something like:  The Buddha laughs.  The Canadian sat there and sat there trying to learn to meditate and think nothing.  It was really tough and he got really constipated with all the sitting and eating of nothing much besides rice.

So my recommendation is, if you have trouble meditating and emptying your mind, try a long repeating lace pattern.  I am serious.   yarn over, slip one...   The repeating knitting instructions were my mantra.  The result was a cowl plus stopping the monkey brain, as they say.   It's a good thing, but at some point you have to stop and get some real work done.  It's hard to put the lace work down.  "yarn over, slip one..."

When women sit together over their handicrafts, it is also not so nicely called a "stitch and bitch".  In those sessions there also happens something akin to what my Quaker friend (enemy) says to me:  "We just sit together and when someone is inspired, then they say something." -- It's just like with the crafty women.  My sister-in-law from Swabia says in the village where she comes from this is called a "Vorsitz", which is a play on words.  A "Vorsitz" is mostly a committee meeting of important people, like the church or town elders, or in the olden days, the men sitting in the gate...  Now, with the crafts, the women sit outside in front of their houses, together, in the evening, getting this handiwork done and doing some gabbing, of course.  As I said in Swabia, that's the "Vorsitz"--a little nicer than "stitch an bitch", indeed.  The word  "Vorsitz" adds a certain playful dignity to the affair.

But, truly a lot of counselling does get worked on in such meetings--important matters of life and death and illness and faith and husband and children and cooking and the neighborhood...  They are very human and very healing get-to-gethers.  It makes one wish one lived in different times, where people sat around outside darning sock and such.  But no, we all have to go to yoga now.

I'm joking.  I wish I were in some kind of core strengthening exercise, now that my back is out. (Hexenschuss).  Only so much time for everything.  I will make some more cowls, but I will try to pace myself.  Two rows or 420 stitches only per day, now.  Self-control is in order.

Knitting Project

Here is my knitting project.  I purchased Balustrade pattern online for $5.00 and it is my first lace project.  I am finding it very suspenseful to see how the thing works out.  The silk and merino wool was cheaper from Amazon than my local shop.  I feel a little bad about shopping at Amazon for it.  Overall, it is a harmless hobby that is giving me relaxation and excitement at the same time.

People who have knitted Balustrade Cowl will note where I have gone wrong, right about row 10, where the ladder pattern was supposed to be off-set.  Oh, well.  I like it this way, too.

This winter turned out to be so long, though it seems over now, that I've begun to comfort myself with learning knitting skills.  I may have mentioned this before.  Youtube is really amazing for learning new practical tasks with the availability of so many demonstrations willingly shared by caring experts.  In the olden days, people might have kept some of their skills secret, seeing they had the better recipe than the neighbor... and other silly things.  What a boon for us.  We can just keep learning.

Some say that knitting is undergoing a revival because of Youtube.  Certainly, I will add knitting to my drug-free and calorie-free comforts. There really is a meditative quality to it.  People also come and talk to you, but because you are sitting there just busy with your hands.  This is interesting.

The top choice for drug-free happiness for me is usually singing, which is also more aerobic, therefore, actually is better for me...  Anyhow, the learning of new patterns must be good for the old brain, though the purchasing of fancy wools is also more expensive than singing.  Bottomline:  can't beat singing for anything, hands down.  You can do it anywhere and gives a free boost. Very portable, healthy and even infectiously joyful.  Or sad.  Whatever the mood that is required.

But knitting is teaching me other methods for having fun, for thinking, for relating, for gaining patience and wisdom.

"God Grant It" by C.F.W. Walther

Just to mention, my husband and I have been faithfully reading C.F.W. Walther's devotional this year, mostly on my husbands initiative--which means something.

C.F.W. Walther has so much to give and everything he says rings true also about our time, if not about ourselves.  My husband has become dependent on his daily dose of Walther before bedtime.  It calms him down and sets things right with the world.  The clarity of it all soothes his soul and the forward looking to heaven puts him on the straight and narrow in thought and feeling.  (Happy husband.) Some of the sections can be a little long and the translation seems a bit convoluted at times.  So we have taken to each reading it and then talking about it. ( Happy wife.)  There is so much meat, here, that Walther's book is a real essential part of the home library. --  Five stars.  :)

Find it at Amazon.
Find it at CPH.

Ascension Day, today.

As Lutheran from Hesse and Bavaria, this picture essay of Ascension Day celebrations resonates with me:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321997/The-hills-alive-sound-folk-music-Villagers-tiny-Catholic-corner-Germany-celebrate-Ascension-Day-costume-song.html

When I lived in very Roman Catholic northern Bavaria, there were often processions by Catholics in which we did not participate, but on Ascension Day even some of us had outdoor services.  Brass bands always came in handy when there were outside events, also at Remembrance Day...  Ascension Day is always on a Thursday and it always was a statutory holiday, generally also featuring beautiful spring weather.

My new hymn book has five Ascension Day hymns in it and a verse:

Matthew 28:20
Jesus Christ says:  "See, I am with you all days until the end of the world."

And the first hymn, "Gen Himmel aufgefahren ist..."  which is one we always sang goes like this:

Risen to the sky (heaven),  Halleluia,
has the king of glory, Jesus Christ, Halleluia.

He sits at God's right hand, Halleluia,
and rules over all heavens and lands, Halleluia.

Now has been fullfilled what was written, Halleluia,
in the Psalms about the Lord Christ, Halleluia.

(Psalm 47,6; 68, 19; 110,1)

Therefore, we rejoice with great noise, Halleluia,
to the praise of the Lord Christ. Halleluja.

To the Holy Trinity, Halleluia,
be praise and honor to all eternity. Halleluia. 

Melody by Melchior Frank, 1627. 

Confusion of Terms

Lies are Truth.  Myths are Truth.  Love is Hate.  Hate is  Love.

I don't think we are served by this sort of thing.

Isaiah 5:20.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, 
who put darkness for light and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

Morning Song. "Schon bricht des Tages Glanz hervor." Translated.

Here is a morning song from the hymnal I just mentioned in the last post.

It was written by Jochen Klepper and I've never sung it before now or heard it sung anywhere else.   It does not seem to have been produced for Youtube, either.

It is found on page 807 and I will translate it for you.  The melody is very simple and plain chant style.  Apparently it comes from the 9th century, according to the Latin hymn "Iam lucis orto sidere", which maybe also is the same text, as it lines up with the title of Klepper's hymn.

The title is "Schon bricht des Tages Glanz hervor."


Already the brilliance of the day appears,
full of humility let us beg of the Lord,
that in all that may occur to day,
he would protect us from all harm.

May he keep our lips from sin,
may no discord distance us from each other.
May he open our eyes,
and show us what is vain and selfish.

Wrestle for the cleanness of the heart,
lay down  all hardness.
Bend and break the pride of the flesh,
and use appropriately our food and drink.

So that, when the sun goes down,
and the darkness envelopes us again,
and we lay down the burdens of the world,
we sing praises to Him in the heavens.

Praise be to the one, who is our Father,
and to his Son Jesus Christ,
and to the Spirit, also,
who grants us comfort,
in the past, now, and forever.  

Amen.  

Hymn Book

I just want to mention one more time this really very good hymn book.  It is the latest state church hymnal from the ev. luth. church in Germany.  It looks very modern, has a size and thickness for holding, is color-coded and besides the hymns contains many images and poems.   I picked it up last time I was in Aschaffenburg.

Here is a link which also has a review I wrote as Simul.

Recently, at a music workshop at Concordia, someone had brought back the Posaunenchor book (brass band book) to go with the hymnal.  It has the same kind of cover and is obviously co-ordinated with the hymn book.  I have not yet tried to locate it on Amazon.

Just because it's spring and I feel like it I will add a of pictures of this trip.