O Holy Night

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and darkness pining
'Till He appeared, gift of infinite worth.
Behold the Babe in yonder manger lowly:
’Tis God’s own Son come down in human form.
Fall on your knees before the Lord most holy!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, o night divine!

With humble hearts we bow in adoration
Before this Child, gift of God’s matchless love,
Sent from on high to purchase our salvation
That we might dwell with Him ever above.
What grace untold: to leave the bliss of glory
And die for sinners guilty and forlorn.
Fall on your knees! Repeat the wondrous story!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, o night divine!

O day of joy, when in eternal splendor
He shall return in His glory to reign,
When ev’ry tongue due praise to Him shall render,
His pow’r and might to all nations proclaim!
A thrill of hope each longing heart rejoices,
For soon shall dawn that glad eternal morn.
Fall on your knees! With joy lift up your voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, O night divine!

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

I'm sure you've all heard the cheesy joke about the panda bear who walks into a restaurant, eats his meal, and then shoots the waiter. As the panda runs out the door, the hostess chases him down and demands to know why he would do such a thing. He tosses her a badly punctuated wildlife manual and says, "I'm a panda. Look it up." She looks up the word "Panda" and reads, "Large bear-like mammal from Asia. Eats, shoots and leaves."
Well, a rather clever lady from England wrote a book using this joke as the title. I just finished reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, and I enjoyed it very much. It is meant to arouse the inner stickler in anyone who cares about correct punctuation and is bothered when people use it wrongly. Personally, bad grammar bothers me a lot more. For example, I hate express lanes that say "10 items or less," and I am quite bothered by the T-Mobile slogan, "Call whoever, whenever." However, I do appreciate good punctuation almost as much as good grammar. I know we all make mistakes (spelling, using prepositions without objects, etc...) in our writing and speaking, but things that are permanent should not contain mistakes! I mean things like books which have supposedly been proof-read, signs, advertisements, etc...

In her book, Lynne Truss gives many examples of how punctuation can change the meaning of something that has been written. Here is one of her examples that is less life-threatening than the panda one:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy -- will you let me be yours?
Jill

By simply changing the puctuation and capitalization, you can make the letter read:

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill

Throughout the book she explains the history of all the common punctuation marks, as well as rules for punctuation (which most sticklers already know) in a humorous way with many good examples of people's errors. Here's a few funny ones:

Pupil's Entrance (on a very selective school, presumably)
Adult Learner's Week (lucky him)
Member's May Ball (but with whom will the member dance?)
Lands' End (mail-order company which roundly denies anything wrong with name)

Just yesterday I found this one on the Jamba Juice menu board:

Coldbuster Smoothie : Knock-out germs with this vitamin-loaded drink... (I can't remember the rest of the description.)
Apparently this smoothie contains some incredibly attractive infection that is so desirable, I should pay for it.

Now, according to Ms. Truss, I should sneak into the Jamba Juice kiosk around midnight and paint over that incorrect hyphen. Or, I should at least tell them about it. Maybe I could ask the Apostrophe Protection Society (yes, there is such a thing) to write them a letter.

The book I read is the American edition in which Lynne Truss interacts with the changes we Americans have made to English punctuation. She makes fun of us for things like always putting ending punctuation inside closing quotation marks or calling "round brackets" "parentheses." She's probably right; they did have the language first.

The last part of the book contains her rant about how e-mail and text-messaging have cause the decay of English punctuation and grammar. Here's how she feels about emoticons:

"You will know all about emoticons. Emoticons are the proper name for smileys. And a smiley is, famously, this:
:-)
Forget the idea of selecting the right words in the right order and channelling the reader's attention by means of artful pointing. Just add the right emoticon to your email and everyone will know what self-expressive effect you thought you kind-of had in mind. Anyone interested in punctuation has a dual reason to feel aggrieved about smileys, because not only are they a paltry substitue for expressing oneslf properly; they are also designed by people who evidently thought the punctuation marks on the standard keyboard cried out for an ornamental function. What's this dot-on-top-of-a-dot thing for? What earthly good is it? Well, if you look at it sideways, it could be a pair of eyes. What's this curvy thing for? It's a mouth, look! Hey, I think we're on to something."

Upon reading that, my inner stickler rises up against emoticons. Maybe I will stop using smileys in my e-mails; maybe I won't. But, if I do use one, it will certainly bother me like never before.

Happy Jane Austin's Birthday!

Today is Jane Austin's 230th birthday. One of my co-workers saw me reading my 7-in-1 volume (yes, it's pretty thick) of Jane Austin's novels and realized I was a fellow fan, and today she sent me an e-mail about Jane Austin that talks about her life in honor of her birthday, etc... So, today is a good day to write about the new Pride and Prejudice movie which I saw this week.
I liked it very much, though having re-read the book recently, I noticed lots of changes. But there is no way a 2-hour movie can follow a 220 page book. I have heard that the 6-hour version does, but I have not seen it.
The acting was excellent, the scenery was beautiful, and the movie seemed more realistic than the other Jane Austin books-turned-movies that have come out lately. Not that I really know how it was in 19th century England, it just seemed that way to me.
Of course when you read a book, you imagine and picture characters a certain way, and in a movie they are often protrayed differently. For me, that happened with characters like Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet, and Mary. I imagined Mr. Collins as a little more jolly, Mr. Bennet as more sarcastic and quick-witted, and Mary as more proud and less sensitive. Georgianna Darcy was definitely too outgoing and friendly, and I don't picture Bingley being so silly and awkward. I also imagined Mr. Darcy as more strikingly handsome than the actor they chose, but the guy definitely grows on you during the movie. And it's not about the looks anyway.
Because of time, a few characters went a little under-developed like Caroline Bingley (not to mention her sister who was left out). She had very little interaction with Jane in the movie, while the book displays her (and her sister's) hypocrisy of being Jane's best friend one minute and backstabbing her the next. Another unfortunate exclusion was the vindictive pleasure that Elizabeth gets from the intended match between Darcy and Anne DeBourgh. That is not mentioned until almost the end so Elizabeth can't really enjoy imagining them married (which she only does until she stops hating him, that is).
My last regret is that the comments about Elizabeth's "fine eyes" were missing along with the signature opening line, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fourtune, must be in want of a wife." I guess it would be impossible to include that line without a narrator, and that would have been cheesy.
So, in all, it is a great movie. I'm sure it will come out on DVD sometime around my birthday in April if anyone cares. Oh, wait, I don't have a DVD player. Never mind.
Oh, has anyone noticed the coincedence with the names of the actresses they pick for these movies? Elinor in Sense and Sensibility was played by Emma Thompson and this movie starred Kiera Knightley as Elizabeth. Hmmm...

Sunday's Message

I usually don't cry in church, but this past Sunday I did. Pastor Piper preached on Romans 15:7-13, specifically emphasizing verse 12, "And again Isaiah says, 'The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.'” You can read the transcript here: http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/05/121105.html ( I know there's a cool way to hide the link so I can write "Click here" and the "here" will take you there, but I'm just not that blog-savvy.), but it's not exactly complete. I guess when the Desiring God staff writes the transcripts of Piper's sermons, they must edit a little to keep them short. Either that or he says different things during different services. Anyway, the part that brought tears to my eyes is not in the transcript so I will write it out.
He talked about how Christ is what we hope in and gave 3 things that we hope for. The 3 things are the glory of God (v. 6.7.9), the new heavens and earth, and new bodies with no pain or death (Romans 8:23, “We ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for . . . the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”).
Piper says that we are hoping for,

"Not only a new heaven and a new earth, but a new body with which to enjoy it for the glory of God. So Paul is writing to help us abound in hope, and the hope is based on Jesus Christ—in him shall the Gentiles hope—and eagerly anticipates the fullness of the revelation of the glory of God, the new heavens and new earth, and new bodies with no more crying or pain (Revelation 21:4)."

Then he talked a little more about these 2 and said something like this (not an exact quote):
"We rejoice in this hope so much because our bodies are sick and dying. We get cancer and lose our hair and die in car crashes. But the Gospel is for all these things. Getting new bodies and living in a new earth is a huge benefit of the Gospel. The health-and-weath people preach their false gospel loud and clear, but do you know where they don't preach it? The 4th floor of Augustana (that's a nursing home about 3 blocks from church, and I'm guessing the 4th floor is where the very sick people stay). But I've got a Gospel for them! My Gospel is good in the cancer ward or the nursing home. One thing my Savior purchased for me is a future existence without suffering."
(Again, this is not exactly what he said but the general idea.)

Somehow, having my focus put there was just what I needed at the moment. This world is sick and dying, and I am aware of that every time I have a cold or some other pain. The thought of being freed from decay is so beautiful, and it brought tears to my eyes.