I have for some time now written into an arabesque of posts by other people here on Steemit. One thought grabs the next. I learn about people here through their writing, most touchingly this post by @shortcut that very frankly tells about a part of his life that must have been both terrible and liberating
So thinking about Christianity, I just got to think of the Danish priest and poet, Jakob Knudsen, who is somehow a prototype of the Danish poet-priest. There are others of course: Grundtvig, the most influential of them all, but also Blicher, Kaj Munk, Kingo, and most resent Johannes Møllehave.
Knudsen wrote two psalms that is still sung. Here is the first which has the joyful title: heavy, dark night clouds.
The other psalm is used for burials and baptism alike. The tune by Olaf Ring is written in almost pure pentatonic minor, but it is about joy. It is called Look, the sun is rising.
The strange thing about these priests is that they were openly doubtful, suffered from angst, manic-depression, they chased young girls, they were drinking - Some years ago the whole country was in uproar as some policemen had arrested the old priest Johannes Møllehave for drunken disorderly behavior. One of the policemen's wife had scolded him when he came home.
With such priest doing all the adultery, the drinking, being manic, being angst and depressed, but first and foremost doubting everything, doubting their faith, we Danes do not need to fret about our failures. Your priests are doing all the failing for us. We don't even have to be believers.
Interestingly your most beloved psalm are about the return of the light. From heavy, dark night clouds to Look, the sun is rising. It is not about glory or sin or something like that. It is about the presence or absence of light (look at my translation of Grundtvig here) - Somehow there is a parallel to the fifth symphony of Carl Nielsen that I wrote about the other day.
Someday we might sing this in church.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2z5owx
How are your impression of priests, Imams, rabbis etc. in your locality? :)
My friend @shortcut has started to write some posts every morning - #morgenseiten he calls it - morning-pages. Here is his explanation of the project:
It goes like this: you shall each morning write from the soul, anything going through your head.
He writes a lot more, but this is the essence :) (Read his first morgenseiten post here)
I have decided to try the same. I write from the top of my head every morning or late morning if I have been sleeping late. I only correct typos and make a headline afterwards. Else everything is left as written. Expect some of it to sound like stage directions.
