Some music to help you pace yourself over Christmas

[Myrddin]

Hope you like estastonne.bandcamp.com/

[Mikey47]

This is more mine (Gato Barbieri)

youtube.com/watch?v=Jm9LheA...(Not working as expected?)

[Hidden in reply to Mikey47]

You just have to move to the music, Thanks Mikey

[Mikey47 in reply to Hidden]

Even more so with this youtube.com/watch?v=VffRqNo...(Not working as expected?) Gato Barbieri in a sax/guitar duet with Santana

[Myrddin in reply to Mikey47]

Santana is good too

[Hidden in reply to Mikey47]

Yes!! Thanks again. Bub

[Myrddin]

And for when the sun comes out and you are more energetic - youtube.com/watch?v=uoERl34...(Not working as expected?)

[Kwenda]

Myrddin, Just so you know, this complete one hour of music is also available as an Amazon download for £ 0.89 .

Internal Flight 2013 (guitar version)

by Estas Tonne

[Mikey47]

....and for those of us with a faith, Stuart Townend 'There is a Hope' (Live from Ireland)

youtube.com/watch?v=qyMWBx6...(Not working as expected?)

[PaulaS Volunteer in reply to Mikey47]

Beautiful music, beautiful words. Thanks Mikey47

[Myrddin]

One for the quieter moments

youtube.com/watch?v=6-i1ESI...(Not working as expected?)

[Myrddin]

or youtube.com/watch?v=KXlxR5e...(Not working as expected?)

[PaulaS Volunteer in reply to Myrddin]

Thanks for this, Myrddin. I actually have this CD (Le Onde), and it's one of my favourites. So soothing...

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero]

My favourite carol over the years is Fairytale of New York by the Pogues...

Please be warned this is not an easy song or situation... might be offensive as well...

'if we can recall that Jesus came not for picture-perfect congregations of plastic people, but ordinary, contradictory, emotional folks like you and I, then maybe it will be alright to hum "Fairytale of New York" under your breath as you walk up the path to the carol service...'

Video

theguardian.com/music/2012/...

christiantoday.com/article/...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy...

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator in reply to Cllcanada]

Definitely a favourite carol of mine Chris!

As is so well stated in Chris's second reference: " It seems to me that the messy, hopeless, curse-ridden, drink-sodden and seemingly God-forsaken world of which the song paints a picture is exactly the scenario into which God in Christ chose to come as a human being. The setting into which Jesus came was not glorious or glitzy, but marked by hopelessness, violence and despair. Jesus is Emmanuel – God With Us – for people such as the couple in the song."

After all if humanity was perfect, then there would be no need for Christ to be born and we wouldn't have a special day in our calendar to mark that occasion.

If you did get along to a Church service, I hope you found it more lively than Jesus apparently did in the bottom picture:

wordsmithjohn.com/blog/sept...

While we don't know exactly when Jesus Christ was born (day or year), there is more evidence outside of the Christian Bible that he did live around 2,000 years ago than there is for many other historical figures we accept as factual.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep...

If anyone is interested in the difficulties associated with the preservation of ancient written documents over the centuries, then I can highly recommend a book about the recovery of some of Archimedes' writing:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archi...

"How do you read a two-thousand-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over*? With a powerful particle accelerator, of course! Ancient books curator William Noel tells the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously-unknown original writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others."

Here's the TED talk by the curator, William Noel, who managed the recovery of this palimpsest using specially developed imaging techniques to highlight the 'erased' text under the newer text:

ted.com/talks/william_noel_...

A while back, I really enjoyed reading his co-authored book on the history of this palimpsest and how the erased text was recovered:

amazon.com/Archimedes-Codex...

A paperback version is also available.

*Why was the manuscript "erased, cut up, written on and painted over"? Parchment was expensive, so recycling was in vogue centuries ago!

Neil

[Hidden in reply to Cllcanada]

One of our Christmas staples. Love it.

[Mikey47 in reply to Cllcanada]

I've seen the Pogues twice at wembley, what a riot As you say Chris Christ came for the sinners, that's all of us

[PaulaS Volunteer in reply to Cllcanada]

Thanks for posting this, Chris, and thanks for your responses, Neil, Bub and Mikey.