Happy New Year to Ref21 readers

Starting Monday, and every weekday thereafter during 2010, Ref21 will inlcude a brief devotional blog based on a reading from McCheyne's famous calendar. Check the front page on Monday for the link (it should appear on the left hand side in the same spot as the Calvin blog of 2009).

Can't say I've been reading Bunyan on this first day of the year. Instead, I've been reading Jeremy S. Begbie's Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the world of Music (Baker Acadaemic, 2007). Some might be aware that he recently left St. Andrews for a post at Duke. I understand that he will contiue to teach at Cambridge for a while but I may be mistaken about that. You might be interested in a provocative lecture he gave at U C Berkeley which can be watched (in 2 parts) here. But I must get back to his analysis of Olivier Messiaen and James MacMillan. Fascinating, was his citation of P. T. Forsyth's opinion: music is concerned essentially with releasing us from the bonds and limits of the finite and material order -- basically because of its impermanence, insubstantiality, inwardness and indefiniteness. Hmm, now the fact that I cannot get some chords of Morten Lauridsen out of my head for the past two weeks seems to belie the impermanence of music... but I'm missing Forsyth's point a little.

Don't foget the devotional blog.