Harper Lee

...was the obvious answer to Jeopardy!'s rare triple-stumper Final Jeopardy question one night last week. The three contestants, Gen-Z members all, failed to give the right anwer, stunning older members of the viewing audience. Gen-Z'ers may know a lot of things we seniors know nothing about, but let it never be forgot that once there was a spot, one brief and shining moment that was known as Camelot that the converse is also true. Seniors know a lot of things about which the Gen-Z'ers haven't a clue.

Thus it is now, and thus has it ever been, that the older generation pities the younger generation even as the younger generation ignores and despises the older generation. I don't say look down their noses at; that would be going a bridge too far.

It's Thanksgiving Week in the U.S.A. and Canada (I don't know whether it is also true elsewhere) and the whole holiday season is upon us once again. I don't include Halloween in 'the whole holiday season' even though judging from the decorations in their yards, many of my neighbors did.

Our whole family, or as many of them as can make it, will be gathering on Thursday at the home of our firstborn who lives about an hour's drive away from us. I'm hoping and praying for you and your family friends entourage rag-tag collection of humanity the same thing I am hoping and praying for our own group, that a good time will be had by all, that all tummies will be full, and that all attendees will make the trip there and back again *waves to Bilbo Baggins* safely.

I recognize that blogposts from here have been sparse this month. I shall endeavor to pick up the pace apace.

T.T.F.N. *waves to Tigger, Pooh, A.A. Milne et al*

A little more about the Battle Hymn Of The Republic, plus two unrelated postscripts

There is one bit of housekeeping to do, specifically:

In the preceding post, I happened to mention that references to passages in the Bible are numerous in the Battle Hymn. In a comment, Australian reader kylie tai reckoned as how a list of the biblical references would be good because she wanted to know how many she recognised. She then said she would ask chat gpt. I replied that I am old school and have never used chat gbt and asked her to let us know what she found out.

Lo and behold, she did.

In a subsequent comment, kylie sent what can only be described as gobs of information. Here it is with reference numbers added by moi for ease of discussion, if any should ensue:


Copied and pasted direct from my (kylie's) chatgpt search:

1. “the glory of the coming of the Lord” Isaiah 40:5 (OT); Revelation 1:7 (NT)

2. “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored” Isaiah 63:1–6 (OT); Revelation 14:19–20; Revelation 19:15 (NT)

3. “loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword” Deuteronomy 32:41 (OT); Isaiah 27:1 (OT); Revelation 19:15 (NT)

4. “His truth is marching on” Revelation 19:11 (NT)

5. “builded Him an altar” Genesis 8:20; Genesis 12:7–8; Psalm 43:4 (OT)

6. “His righteous sentence” Psalm 9:7–8 (OT); Daniel 7:10 (OT)

7. “His day is marching on” Zephaniah 1:14–15; Malachi 4:1 (OT)

8. “fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel” Jeremiah 23:29 (OT); Ephesians 6:17 (NT)

9. “As ye deal … so … shall My grace deal” Matthew 7:2; Romans 12:19 (NT)

10. “Hero, born of woman” Genesis 3:15 (OT); Galatians 4:4 (NT)

11. “crush the serpent with His heel” Genesis 3:15 (OT)

12. “sounded forth the trumpet…” 1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 8–11 (NT)

13. “sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat” Matthew 3:12 (NT imagery from John the Baptist); Hebrews 4:12–13; 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NT)

14. “Christ was born… in the beauty of the lilies” Poetic; lilies echoed in Matthew 6:28–29 (NT)

15. “He died to make men holy” Hebrews 10:10; 1 Peter 2:24 (NT)

16. “coming like the glory of the morning” Matthew 24:27; Malachi 4:2 (OT/NT)

17. “the world shall be His footstool” Psalm 110:1 (OT); Isaiah 66:1 (OT); Acts 2:35; Hebrews 1:13 (NT)

18. “the soul of Time His slave” Theological/poetic; echoes Revelation 1:8; 2 Peter 3:8 (NT)

(end of chat gpt's list)

I was duly impressed and replied to kylie, "Wow!"

I have never used chat gpt for anything even though its popularity is undeniable. On the spectrum of human resistance to change, I probably lie somewhere between a pseudo-troglodyte (that is, without the cave) and a neo-Luddite (that is, without the property damage). Perhaps I will have to go with the flow and reconsider. I am reminded of a famous couplet by the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744):

"Be not the first by which the new is tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."

Dear reader, help me to make up my mind. Give me some input. Do you use chat gpt? Why or why not?

P.S. -- Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I saw the film Wicked on television last night for the first time. At least I now know who Ariana Grande is. Please share your thoughts on Wicked also, if you have any.

P.P.S. -- We also watched our old favorite Jeopardy! for the first time in several months. I was able to answer two questions that not a single one of the Gen Z contestants could, Who is Kenny Rogers? and What is Hadassah?

Be jubilant, my feet! and other ruminations

Here it is the middle of November already and I haven't produced a single blogpost all month. I am losing it, people.

Let me remedy that right now. I woke up this morning with the words to Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn Of The Republic" on my mind. The mind is a peculiar, unpredictable thing. Who can know it?

Anyway, here are the lyrics, with a few observations afterward:

1. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

2. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

3. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal";
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

4. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

5. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

6. He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on!

(end of song)

So it turns out that Julia Ward Howe wrote six verses in all, although the sixth verse is neve heard nowadays. I cannot resist saying that on the seventh verse, Julia rested.

I don't know why, but during the last quarter of the 20th century, many public performances of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" substituted the lyric "As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free" in the fifth verse in place of Howe's original lyric "let us die to make men free." In the 21st century, the original lyric is being sung more and more. I could be wrong, but my guess is that the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, had a lot to do with reverting to the original lyric.

It has always fascinated me that Julia wrote "Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!" in verse four, the opposite of what a more prosaic writer might have exhorted (that one's soul should be jubilant and one's feet should be swift). Julia Ward Howe was anything but prosaid.

It saddens me that people of the 19th-century seem to have been far more familiar with Scripture, if Julia Ward Howe is any example, than most people of the 20th and 21st centuries. References to passages in the Bible are numerous in the Battle Hymn. It is another sign of cultural decline.

I thought perhaps the song was on my mind because we might be near the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in 1863, but I looked it up and that battle occurred in July. Then I thought of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the battlefield later that year, the address which ends with "that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birh of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I looked up that date too. It was November 19th. Three days from today.

Near the beginning of this post I said that the mind is a peculiar, unpredictable thing.

I will end with a Scripture reference: We are fearfully and wonderfully made.