A very full and fulfilling day, offering both joy and sadness

***

We’re just back from one of the best Utah Valley events of the Christmas season — the annual music night at the spacious home of Jeri and Steve Covey (whose son Britain, by the way, was there; he will be playing for the University of Utah in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day).  It was a magnificent evening, with operatic singing (including a singer affiliated with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; another vocalist, from the last time they did this, who would otherwise have joined us this evening was actually singing with the Met tonight), a violin solo, a carol involving everybody present, a hula, a piano solo, a section of sacred music, a rousing sing-along of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.  There was a student string group from BYU.  Also Jihea Hong-Park, of BYU’s piano faculty, and Clayne Robison, retired from BYU’s vocal performance faculty.  And so forth.  Along with excellent food.  We are absolutely delighted to have been among those who were invited for the evening.  The Coveys are remarkable people, and remarkably generous.

Earlier in the day, we joined up in Holladay, in the Salt Lake Valley, for a wonderful lunch with members of the monthly reading group to which we’ve belonged, I think, since the late 1980s.  (In other words, for something approaching thirty-five years.). It’s wonderful to enjoy such friends and such fellowship.

Sweet is the work, my God, my King,

To praise thy name, give thanks and sing,

To show thy love by morning light,

And talk of all thy truths at night.

One of our assigned tasks was for each of us to share a scripture or a quotation or a thought about Christmas.  My choice for sharing with the group this year was a poem by Sir John Betjeman, who served as poet laureate of the United Kingdom from 1972 until his death in 1984.  Appropriately enough, it’s titled simply “Christmas”:

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Unfortunately, I had to share with them the sad news of the passing of John L. Sorenson, who has been a member of the group since its formation in Santa Barbara, California, years before my wife and I joined.  He stopped participating about three years ago or so, for reasons attendant upon advancing age.  Nobody else had heard anything about his death today; I saw a report just this morning, and I was only able to confirm it this afternoon.

John Sorenson has been, in my judgment, one of the two or three most influential scholars of the Book of Mormon in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I’ll try to find some time in the next day or two to write up some of my feelings about the man and his contributions.  In the meantime, I like something that Jerry Grover wrote about him, announcing his passing.  Brother Grover had gone to visit Professor Sorenson fairly recently, and he mentioned a Book of Mormon issue that was puzzling him, asking Brother Sorenson for any insights that he might have on the matter.  “I’m not spending much time on such issues any more,” said Brother Sorenson.  “I expect to see Mormon fairly soon, and I’ll just ask him.”

***

Oy veh.  Here’s another appalling outrage from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File©:

“Church in Hong Kong Donates 1,000 Christmas Gift Bags to Underprivileged Children: Church and Foodlink Foundation partner once again to light the community with service and love”

It’s really hard to realize that such things are still going on in this age of progress, peace, and love.

***

For those who are able to find the opportunity, this looks like a whole lot of good, clean fun:

“Spectacular Geminid Meteor Shower Next Week – See Up to 120 Shooting Stars Per Hour”

And, while we’re on a scientific note, it’s not anti-science to be aware of the fact that a discouragingly high proportion of scientific studies have recently proven impossible to replicate.  Here’s a specific instance of that increasingly visible and disconcerting fact:

“A massive 8-year effort finds that much cancer research can’t be replicated: Unreliable preclinical studies could impede drug development later on”

It seems that science, like every other human academic undertaking, involves . . . well, humans.