Thoughts on the Beatles and the Psalms

My church had an evening of the arts last week and invited people to share creative works that somehow related to the Psalms, which we have been studying and using in worship during the last 3 months.  I thought people might enjoy my Beatles quilt, and then tried to figure how that could ever relate to the Psalms, especially since the Beatles were not traditionally Christian (or Jewish). 
So after some thought, I wrote the following to go with my quilt:

Thoughts on the Psalms and the Beatles

It seems completely contradictory to put these ideas together, as the Beatles said some outrageous things about the church and even Jesus during their heyday. So what do they have to do with the Psalms?

But first, consider this question:

1.       How many Psalms have you memorized?  For most of us, probably the 23^rd Psalm, and maybe Psalm 1, or 91 (eagle’s wings)?

2.       How many Beatles songs do you know the words to? 

Unless you’re very young, or very old, probably 5 or 6 or even more that you know the whole song (there are a lot of repeats), and many more that you know the first couple of lines just from hearing the song title.

 

As English evangelist George Whitefield said in the early 19^th century, “Why should the devil get all the good tunes?”

 

Our handicap with the Psalms is that we don’t have the tunes they were sung to.  We have some good hymn tunes  based on the Psalms, so we probably actually have more of those memorized than just the Psalm text.

 

But getting back to the Beatles, I think not only the tunes but the words reflect some of the same yearnings of the human heart that are reflected in the Psalms, even though Paul or John or George didn’t necessarily think they were talking about or to God. (Whereas the Psalmist clearly has a conversation with God in mind).

 

So here are some thoughts on similarities in themes and, perhaps more important, emotions,  in certain Beatles songs:

 

Psalm of Lament:  The Long and Winding Road, Eleanor Rigby

Wisdom Psalm:  the Fool on the Hill (compare Psalm 1)

Historical Psalm – Yesterday, In My Life

Psalm of Deliverance – Help!

Psalm of Comfort – Let it Be

Imprecatory  Psalm - Revolution

 

And a new testament theme :   Love is All You Need

 

French philosopher Blaise Pascal said:   “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”
- Blaise Pascal, Pensees

 

I think the Psalms and the great secular songs that touch our hearts come from that hole crying out for God, even when the singer doesn’t even know God.

 

--Linda Newman

end of summer

It's been a busy summer, with a lot of business travel, so not a lot of time for quilting, but I finished a couple of quilts that started last year.  The quilt above is from a block of the month from my local quilt shop, called "Tisket a Tasket."  I pretty much followed the directions, but had to adjust the setting instructions for the on point border blocks; the math was just off.  Local Longarmer Maria Hall did a fabulous job on the quilting; I can't get enough of the quilting feathers.  I hope you can see it in the photos. 

The other quicky quilt I finished was a donation quilt for our Guild's Covers for Kids.  Our friendship group did jumbo disappearing 9-patch quilts, and I did mine with large I-spy fabrics, with this quilt geared for an elementary age boy.   My friend Donna King did a great job with the quilting.  This one has already been delivered to the Guild for donation.  This makes 5 I-spys that I have made so far, and I'm working on another one for my niece.

My other current project is the Row Along from Lori Holt's Row along, and I'm on the 7th row.  (I'm substituting Sophie's birds for the mugs that were suggested.  I also have my eclipse blocks to cut to size and assemble, and putting the border on my Millions of Cats quilt.  So progress is underway!

One more House

This will make three houses for me.  this house is the home of a quilt lady who has just won a ribbon, and she is a Beatles fan, with the Ringo poster visible through her window! 

so many books, so little time!

Besides quilting, reading and collecting books are big hobbies for me.  In addition to a couple of the half dozen books I got for Christmas and still haven't read (A Discovery of Witches, Building Stories (graphic novel in a box)), there are 4 or 5 books coming out this month that I want to buy and read.  I love Carl Hiassen, and he has a new Florida send-up"Bad Monkey" that I'm sure will be a laugh riot.  An author named Meyer has a new Texas-based multi-generational novel call The Son.  And one of my favorite novels of this century is Colum McCann's "Let the Great World Spin", and he has a new novel called "Transatlantic", a multi-generational book about Ireland.  And another of my favorites, John Favorite has a new Lucas Davenport Minneapolis police procedural, Silken Prey.
I need two weeks on the beach to devour all these!
My current bedside reading is Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, (multi-generational novel in Italy, Hollywood, elsewhere), and my car audio book is What is the What by Dave Eggers about one of the Sudanese "Lost Boys".  Beautiful reading, and powerful content.
I just finished "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follett (another audio book beautifully read), and I have the book sequel, Winter of the World.
I also listened to a short set of novellas, called "Road Rage." The first was "Duel", which was the story that the TV special with Dennis Weaver from the 70s was based on.  (Old tanker trunk pursues driver relentlessly in an almost wordless drama). The other was a similar story by Stephen King and Joe Hill but with motorcycles. 
I also just picked up some used quilt books at $1 a pop to browse through.
And sort of book related, our summer "Challenge" for our Guild is a quilt using Nancy Drew fabric. 
My idea is to make a checkered counterpane, and make computer copies of book covers that an adolescent girl would read, and applique them on the counterpane, scattered about, and have the head of a girl at the top of the counterpane, reading the Nancy Drew book.  A lot to do by the end of August! (plus my day job!)
the link photo is my son and his fiance!

Millions of cats - work in process

I started this little project back in 2009 and then laid it aside.  It is a tessellation exercise, really very simple blocks, but the trick is in the arranging.  Originally I was going to phase it from purest white in the upper left corner to deepest black in the lower right, but there just wasn't enough VALUES CONTRAST! (thanks for all the lessons in this Sophie). So during our recent quilt retreat, I got to play with these on a design board, so now I'm in the process of sewing the little ears to the rectangle above, and then I'll just have 7 columns and 7 rows to join to gether.  I'm calling this "Millions of Cats" based on the Wanda Ga'g children's book from the 1920's (which Captain Kangaroo read aloud frequently on his old tv show (I'm dating myself  -- now my husband and I may be the little old man and little old woman in the book!) So the book's cover is yellow, so the border will probably be the brighter yellow on the left (but wider). To give a sense of scale, I think the rectangles are 4x5, with 1inch squares "flipped" to become the ears.  I haven't decided whether the whiskers will be added before quilting or as part of the quilting, to give depth.  (I would wecome suggestions). It's been interesting to work just in black, white and greys, as I am normally a color gal.

On other cat fronts, we've been thinking of getting another cat, as we have been just a single cat family since a year ago when our dear Jennifer died of kidney failure, and a quilt friend just texted me that kittens are available from a rescue group, so we may be investigating that this weekend.

On a separate front, I just downloaded about 15 or so quilt apps onto my I phone, so I may start reviewing them on this blog. stay tuned.

Eclipses into the sunshine

all

At a quilt retreat 2 weeks ago I got the assistance of my friendship group to assemble this on the design wall of the retreat center.  These are now sewed together in 4 block squares, and ready to be sewn together. I need to trim them to a uniform size and then it should be a quick task to sew them all together into a finished top.  These were the blocks I won from the Block Lotto in January nst2012, so I'm very grateful to all the other participants who made the blocks. the backing will be cool color chevron stripes against white, so a nice contrast of shape, I think. 

 

Gardening observations - flowers in the sidewalk cracks?

This weekend I put in about 3 hours planting caladiums and annuals in our front flowerbed.  I had my IPhone tuned to Pandora in my shirt pocket, and my mix is a lot of piano jazz, so it was a lovely breezy morning, not too hot yet.  I had to do a lot of bed cleanout, pruning, and leaf raking too (filling almost a whole trash bag).  One thing I noticed was how easily weeds grow in those little grooves between the sidewalk and the curb.  Just little bits of soil and moisture get in there, but those weeds just really root down and get well-established (and hard to pull out).  Which leads me to a hypothesis that if I wanted to start some flowers or vegetables from seed in the spring, I should skip all those special seed-starter pots and systems, and just dribble those little seeds in those cracks by the road side, and just see what happens!