Four More Songs from One Psalm

Life is struggle, often scary, so in God I find my place.

Evil’s out there, so be wary; turn toward heaven. Run THAT race.

Though an army camp against me; fear will not invade my heart. 

Confident in God intensely, I will find the better part.

…

Just one thing have I requested: near to God to daily dwell.

To be hidden in God’s shelter when life’s struggles come to gel.

Even though that time’s not here yet, joyfully I shout out loud

Sing of how my needs have been met as I’m living Out and Proud!

——-

Source: Psalm 27:1-6  

Text:   © David Alexander 2020

Tune:  St Asaph

Score:   https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/Score_PDF-2010/ThroughtTheNight-StAsaph.pdf

…..

You have saved me, don’t forsake me

God, my father, mother be.

As you lead me and you teach me

On the path where I can see;

Vanquish ev’ry adversary

Roust them out and make them flee. 

 …..

Psalm 27:9b-12

Text:  © David Alexander, 2020

Tune:  Bryntirion

Score:  https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/2013/Score/ThouWhoSentest-Bryntirion.pdf

———-

When I cry aloud, be gracious; turn your face and answer me.

Do not hide or turn me back, Lord; pay attention, I’m in need.

You have always been the one to whom, distressed, I’ve had to flee.

So I trust you’ve heard this call, and once again will set me free. 

…..

Source: Psalm 27:7-9a

Text:  © David Alexander, 2020

Tune:  Esther

Score:  https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/2013/Score/OToFathom-Esther.pdf

 ————————-

I believe that, while living I’ll see

God’s goodness that is meant for me.

So I take heart, even as I’m waiting,

God is far better than words can say.

…..

Source: Psalm 27: 13-14

Text:  © David Alexander, 2020

Tune:  Blomqvist

Score: https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/2012/Score/OBreathOfLife-Blomqvist.pdf  

…..

David Alexander continues to paraphrase madly and rhyme badly in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan

Never Trust a Paraphrase

As fun as it might be to just hit the “audio url. link” and follow the tune, I think it might be worthy to look up the text that was mangled and paraphrased into what comes below. The attitude I had when working on it this morning came through.

Because I trust upon you, Lord, I hope that you’ll protect me.

You’ll teach and guide me in your ways and save, ‘cause I’m expectin’

Remember, Lord, your steadfast love, your ancient ways of mercy.

Forget MY own more recent sin, be faithful to YOUR hist’ry.

…

You’re good, you teach us humble folk the ways that we should go in.

You pardon people like myself who “better” should be knowin’.

So we and our posterity will flourish in your presence 

And keep our eyes upon you Lord, when rescue is of essence.

…

So turn to me with lavish grace. I’m lonely and afflicted.

Relieve my trouble, bring me out of what’s on me inflicted.

My enemies are many and their hate I’m not deservin’.

You’ll guard my life, for I’m upright. Your servant needs preservin.

——-

Source: Psalm 25

Text:  © David Alexander, 2020

Tune: Was Mein Gott Will

Score:   https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/Score_PDF-2010/TheWillOfGod-WasMeinGottWill.pdf

 

David Alexander paraphrases madly and rhymes badly in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

What Happens if you Win?

Earlier this month I took an online writing class from the University of Michigan Law school. Many videos were clips of the writing professor conducting class as if (since it was) law school. I learned that I don’t pay attention well enough to even get started in one of those places.  

In the final week of the course, after spending time on making good word choices, writing good sentences, clear paragraphing and editing, editing, editing; we were asked to consider what the headline would be in the next day’s paper if we won our case in court. The discussion prompt was, “What happens if you win?”

Not being a lawyer who has to argue cases, I considered, then with tongue in cheek, wrote something in my own line of work, ecclesia. Imagining what might happen if a congregation took their pastor seriously for once. 

Sermon Costs Pastor her Job

The congregation First Bible Church, led by the Rev. Judy Vander Zaan, decided to do exactly as she said in her sermon yesterday morning. The moving van arrives tomorrow to take her back to Bible First Bible College, from which she graduated two months ago.  

 

Some churches and pastors end relationships over disagreements. Pastor Judy’s departure, in contrast, was precipitated by enthusiastic agreement. When she arrived at First Bible Church from college her impression was that things had become very lax under the leadership of her predecessor, Pastor Dan McGrew, who retired and moved to Arizona last September. The 10 months during which the congregation had been led by Mr. Scooter McFarland, chief of the town’s volunteer fire department, had marginally, but insufficiently, turned things around. Getting things, in her words, “back to where God wants them to be”, she commenced a 9-sermon preaching series entitled “The Biblical Church”. Yesterday’s sermon, the third in the series, contained her forthright declarations that responsibility for leading and operating a local church lay with the people whom God had called into fellowship and that paying for outsiders was both unnecessary and sinful. 

Mr. McFarland said that he’d been struck to the heart. “We’d been doing fine all by ourselves for almost a year. It must have been the Devil who got us to hire her.”   

The church board met Sunday evening and decided to obey what they’d been told. They committed a portion of the money the church saved while not paying anyone since Pastor Dan’s departure to defray the expense of sending Pastor Judy back to Bible college with a couple months’ salary. They also put the church’s parsonage on the market, and plan to use what they receive from its sale to pay down debt on the Sunday school building and purchase a new sound system, video projector and screen.  

David Alexander lets his imagination run wild in Holland, MI after 39 years in harness in Taiwan.

Not What We’re Used To

The heavens tell God’s glory, the sky her maker’s craft.

Both speech and knowledge flourish as night and day both pass.

But, words are not required, and voice need not be heard,

Creation tells God’s story: love for all on earth.

____

May words and meditations of mouth and heart and mind

Find heavenly acceptance in our creator’s sight.

Our rock and our redeemer, our source and only stay,

Our thanks to you we offer, this and ev’ry day.

—–

Source: Psalm 19:1-3 & 14

Text:   ©  David Alexander, 2020 

Tune:  Rutherford  

Score:    https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/Score_PDF/TheSandsOfTime-Rutherford.pdf

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Skies are proclaiming the glory of God.

Stars give their witness to all that’s been made.

Sun like a bridegroom bursts forth ev’ry dawn;

Running with strength and with joy all the way.

____

As the sun passes high over our heads

Nothing escapes from its light or its heat.

May all our thoughts and the words that we’ve said

Find full acceptance from God who redeems. 

____

Source:   (Psalm 19: 1, 4b-6 & 14)

Text:    © David Alexander, 2020

Tune:   Bonnie George Campbell 

Score:    https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/2012/Score/ChristBeMyLeader-BonnieGC.pdf

____

In the perfection of the law of God the soul can be revised.

Finding foundations in what God decrees, the simple are made wise

____

What can be known from e’re there was a mind; the heart in joy finds right,

and the commands that from our Maker come give light unto our eyes.

____

Awe-filled regard for all God is and does will evermore endure

What we have seen of God’s own righteousness is altogether pure. 

____

Sweeter than honey from the purest source, more valued than fine gold,

This law will guide us, lead to our reward within our shepherd’s fold. 

____

Thus may the meditations of my heart and ev’ry thing I say

Find full acceptance, for you, God, alone, redeem and keep me safe.

---

Source:   (Psalm 19:7-11 & 14)

Text:    © David Alexander, 2020

Tune:    St Nicholas

Score:   https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/2012/Score/OBrightnessOfThe-StNicholas.pdf 

 ———-

Who can detect their errors?

Lord, clear me of my faults.

Keep back your servant also 

from insolence and gall. 

_____

Let no one dominate me,

Then blameless I shall be. 

and free of great transgression.

Within your company.

______

In all I say and ponder

Let one thing be my aim

To find myself accepted

O Lord of holy name. 

Source  (Psalm 19:12-14)

Text: © David Alexander, 2020

Tune: Cherry Tree Carol

Score: https://www.smallchurchmusic.com/Score_PDF-2010/AnotherYearIsDawning-CherryTree.pdf

Slipping it out of Drive and into Neutral

Cars have gotten better, rules about children in safety seats have become more restrictive. Hallelujah. Once when my daughter was not yet 2 years old we were riding in someone else’s car. She was in what passed for a proper child safety seat for the time, but was seated in the middle of the front seat (a bench seat). She kicked the gearshift (which was on the steering column) out of drive and into neutral while we were on the road. 

Student life in Taiwan has changed, too. There was a time when merely to get into university one had to have done well in high school and supplemental classes that prepared one for the entrance examination. (Things are still like that across the straits in China.) But even with all that preparation, only about a third of the students who took the exam were admitted to university. The system produced really driven people. Those who were not admitted to university took the same approach to civil service and other examinations. Some couldn’t relax at all. Things are different now. Taiwan is more humane. Students are not so driven. (Some of their parents wish that they were.)

I write on June 7th at the end of a “run” of producing something different every day for the past couple of months. On most days of 2020 I’ve posted something to this blog. In January it was because I thought that I had so much to say; whether anyone needed to read it or not. I needed to get it out there. Sometime in April I learned how to draw more traffic to the site, so daily statistics became overly important to me. Getting “likes” and “responses” became the goal. 

I need someone to kick me into neutral for a while. I think I’ll do it myself.  You’ll see something here again when there’s something to show. Until then, kick back. Relax. Enjoy. 

David Alexander kicks back and enjoys in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.

The Unpopular Populist

Riding a wave of discontent with “the way things are for people like us”, a backlash against a popular female politician, and with support of overseas interests and local right wing groups, a rich loudmouth businessman got elected as mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, late in 2018. Taiwan’s political establishment was shaken. BOTH the party that had held the mayorship of Kaohsiung for 20 years AND the traditional political leaders of the more conservative party which the winner had hijacked, engaged in soul-searching. How could this have happened?

Upon taking office in December of 2018, the new mayor characterized the people whom he appointed to serve the people of Kaohsiung as the best in the country. He hardly paused to take a breath before launching himself into the campaign for Taiwan’s presidency. His media machine was loud and fine tuned. It seemed as if he would come up with a new antic every day to keep himself in the public eye and the headlines. The incumbent president and her party learned from the message of the loudmouth’s mayoral victory. They mended fences internally and mounted a successful re-election campaign that saw her draw 57% of the vote in an election where 74% of eligible voters (including both members of the Aboksu household) cast ballots. 

In defeat, the “revealed to be less than universally popular” populist returned to Kaohsiung, and discovered that a recall movement, like that by Californians against their governor in 2003 had started. (Ten US states do not allow recall elections. 37 have various conditions attached, and only 3 allow recall of any elected official for any reason. The one in California grew out of its government’s poor handling of a financial scandal regarding electricity prices.) The restrictions in Taiwan deal with numbers of valid signatures on petitions, limited time for gathering those signatures, and turnout if and when an actual recall election is held. Between January and April, 377 thousand voters signed. The election took place on June 6th. 43% of Kaohsiung’s voters cast ballots (a minimum of 25% was required). The result, 950 thousand voters FOR recall and 25 thousand AGAINST, was telling. 

Recall elections, ideally, are “for cause.” This one, admittedly, was to undo an election that went powerfully wrong. But Taiwan’s law does not require that a mayor be anything other than unpopular for such a move to be made.  This guy, said to have “… shot himself in the foot and put the other foot in his mouth…” is now, blessedly, gone. 

David Alexander keeps a light watch on Taiwan affairs from Holland, MI, where he now resides after 39 years in Taiwan.

Yard Signs

Maybe I didn’t notice yard signs as a kid in Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s. There were “for sale” signs, but not political or advertising. That was long ago and far away from where I now reside half a continent away. 

For a few years in the 1990s when Taiwan, free at last from a martial law dictatorship, went crazy with campaign flags. These were attached to almost every light pole and tree. Eventually even the campaigns (which paid for all those flags) and the governing authorities (who had an interest in drivers being able to see around corners) settled on where flags could be posted. Now when an election is in the works, flags can be found around parks but not schools, and on private but not public property elsewhere. 

With the recent move of school to “online” and the distribution of high school diplomas by post rather than at the end of a walk across the stage, yard signs have proliferated in the city where I live. They are all “regulation size” and carry the name of the school, the graduate, and the information that everyone at the school and in this house is feeling proud. Not to be outdone by those finishing high school, more signs have been posted about feeling good about a 5th or 6th grade student at this school or that. Inspirational signs thanking health care workers, ambulance drivers and others have appeared. Others bear slogans assuring us that “We’ll get through this.” 

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=686507

In those long ago days as a California child, I endured regular car trips to the Midwest to visit grandparents. Roads through the corn belt in the summer presented rather monotonous vistas when compared to what we typically saw along the freeways of Los Angeles. Occasionally a stretch was enlivened by Burma Shave signs, carrying witty and educative slogans, a few words on each of four or five signs spaced every hundred meters or so, leading to the product’s name on one more. Today on a corner here in town I saw a yard sign bearing the inspirational message, “Life’s Good”.  With Burma Shave on my mind, I looked down the street for the “Death’s Bad” sign. It wasn’t there.

David Alexander remembers the old days and the Taiwan days in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan. 

Trophies and Statues and Plaques

Part of how I fill my time in retirement involves taking online classes. I go for the free ones, though , occasionally, I’ll part with US$50 for something of special appeal.  Of late I’ve takenb writing courses intended for people planning to attend college or graduate school. I’ve done a couple from the University of California, one from the Technical University of Munich, one from Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, and am currently in one from the University of Michigan Law School. A recent lesson on the “rule of three” asked students to come up with examples from literature, advertising and movies. Submissions included US Marine Corps recruiting slogans, quotations from Julius Caesar, and titles of children’s literature books.  A sculpture garden in Holland, MI (where I reside) called to mind, “Lions and tigers and bears, Oh My!”

When we resettled here after four decades in Taiwan, we unpacked all of the stuff we brought with us. We discovered more than enough trophies and statues and plaques to make us exclaim, “Oh my!” Some became scattered throughout the house, but others fetched up on windowsills on the porch (a room that also came to hold other unused things that found corners out there).  A recent decision to make that space “pleasant and usable called for the trophies, statues and plaques to be consigned to boxes, cabinets and drawers. 

In a separate, but related, move, we updated our wills. That’s merely prudent for folks our age; getting our affairs in order before they have to be ordered. Our gewgaws and dust catchers will either become part of what eventually deal with when moving to a retirement facility or what our heirs will deal with should we not make that move. Oh my!

David Alexander takes online classes and ponders vain things in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan. 

Outside the Wall

Tainan City, where I worked from 2000 to 2018 and resided from 2008 until retiring two years ago, was originally walled. You can see that wall on the 1885 map above. Over the decades that have passed since the map was drawn the city has grown and the wall has come down. In some places roads and property lines, originally based on the wall’s route, still follow the old pattern. In other locations lengths of old wall and ancient gates are still in place. When English missionaries set up a base in Tainan, it was Taiwan’s capital city. That’s what the “foo” part of Taiwanfoo on the map means.  The capital moved at least twice between then and the second world war.  To reside “inside the wall” meant safety.  

Before the missionaries arrived in 1865, such education as was available to boys was preparation for the Imperial Civil Service examinations. There was nothing for girls. In the 1880s funds from the UK were used to purchase land to start a boys school. It opened in 1885.  Within a few years more money came from English churches to establish a nearby girls’ school. Both campuses were “outside the wall” which was both a physical and metaphorical presence. The British women who started the girls school refused to educate girls whose feet were bound. Today the school is home to monuments presented by Taiwan’s government, commending those pioneers who “unbound the feet of Taiwan’s women”. More than feet were unbound. Minds were, too. 

Challenged as we are by America’s racial, economic and class divides in the 21st century, we need this metaphor, too. “Outside our walls” is where we’ll find our minds opened and our wounds healed.

David Alexander mourns for the America he found after 39 years away in Taiwan.

Retrospect and Prospect

Across four of my 39 years in Taiwan I served as an assistant to the president of Tainan Theological College.  I wasn’t the “assistant president.”  That little “to” in the job title was very significant. My duties were partly administrative, partly pastoral (regarding international students) and a lot of “sit in meetings.”

Dr. Huang, my boss, fancied himself to be a scholar, and since he had a “Doctor” in front of his name, he probably was one. I know for sure that he was an excellent administrator, but I edited enough of his writing in English and translated enough of his writing from Chinese, to see him as more of an ideologue than a scholar. A couple years before I went to work for him he had published an article “Retrospect and Prospect of Doing Contextual Theology in Taiwan” in a regional journal. While I was his assistant I often saw the themes of this article come out in later things he assigned me to edit or translate. They influenced the ways I subsequently came to think theologically. The need for “retrospect and prospect” operates in much of life. We look to both past and future all the time. Loss of either direction is catastrophic. Living without both, as many poor people are forced to do, is deadly. 

Chinese mythology includes the story of a successful single mother, whose son, Mencius, is often ranked just below Confucius as a sage philosopher. When Mencius was a boy, his mother was widowed. As the story goes, she moved three times. First because they lived near a cemetery, and her infant son was imitating the wails of the paid mourners he heard daily. When they resided near a marketplace, he came to imitate the calls of the merchants. Finally she moved near to a school. Her son came to recite the lessons that he heard chanted over the wall. As a grown man, Mencius became not an undertaker nor a marketer, but a scholar. He did not look at what had been lost, or to what would bring immediate profit, but toward what would endure. His mother gets the credit. 

I am no scholar. As I look at my past (retrospect), I seek to understand my present (context) and build out towards what I perceive on the horizon (prospect). 

David Alexander also looks both ways before crossing the street in Holland, MI after 39 years in Taiwan.