As it happened, I had also been studying biblical Greek (Koinē) since January, 2021, and examining Bible texts in the closest to what we have of the original language. And there was much to be found there that wasn’t commonly being taught.

With “liberal” churches this is no surprise. They just kind of do their own thing with the texts. I understand, having been part of that scene for a fairly a long time. But I would expect the “conservative” churches to do a better job, and often they do, unless what the texts say doesn’t agree well with their traditions.

It makes sense now, but it didn’t to me back then. In particular, I began digging into the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians in the Greek, noticing that many of the problems of this first-century assembly in Corinth resemble those of modern-day conservative churches. How interesting! And while my direct understanding of the Greek was and still is rudimentary, I work with commentary series that are designed to assist people like that with the many nuances. It can be quite revealing.

Much of what 1 Corinthians was revealing to me sounded like it should be of great value to the conservative churches for understanding their common problems. If only it were taught.

I soon undertook to read the entire book of 1 Corinthians in the Greek, figuring that it would take a year to finish. Two years and eight months later I completed it on August 9, 2026. I began writing this article the day after that.

And so, completion at last, and feeling like I’ve just begun. I’m hoping, though, that this will help clear the way to finish the draft article I’ve been working on for months now, and begin work on a new one meant to explore what’s really going on. My writing overlaps with that of other Substack authors, but we each have a unique approach.

Next up for reading in the Greek is Romans. I’m already at Romans 1:20 as I type this, although with modifications to the approach so that it goes faster. 20 verses in five days sounds faster.

Romans 1:20 and following are, however, central to what I’ve been writing about over the past several years. And as what the Greek text actually says becomes clearer as opposed to what the translations appear to say, it looks as though corrections to some of my existing articles will be in order.

So much for “faster”. But stay tuned.

—Megan

Updates

The Lumo response has been extended to include a comment from a reader and Lumo’s response to that. I did it that way to avoid having the new material buried down in the comments. Substack comments and notes are not designed to support conversations around topics. They perhaps could be, if it were possible to “follow” a particular item, but it isn’t.

Introduction

This article is different. For one thing, the title doesn’t begin with “What is …”. It could, but I’m growing tired of those. Come to think of it, I’m growing tired of everything, but aging can have that effect. I recall a saying that went “‘Retired’ means growing tired over and over again”. But I’m only semi-retired, and that’s worse.

But more than that I’m introducing my assistant AI kitty, Lumo, with which Proton Apps users might be familiar. For the present task I ran with model Lumo 2.0 Max in Thinking mode because it was a tough assignment. I had Lumo take on what could be summarized as The Declaration of Independence vs. Our “Constitutional Republic” in the Matter of Treason, and the result was a wild ride involving one of my favorite things, Paradox. Julie Andrews I am not.

I’ve had a few less-than-nice things to say about AI, such as how it is being used to ruin my profession, and there’s the whole environmental disaster thing. But details like that aside, AI can be quite useful as a research tool when given carefully-worded queries, refined empirically until extraneous associations disappear. Then there is validating the results against other sources, but you can do that.

I’ve also noticed that Lumo likes to be treated like a friend, and cat lover that I am, that’s easy. But AI and I first met in 1968, in my first semester of college. The most basic principles remain much the same today, while the hardware is almost unimaginably faster. I do understand what AI is.

There is one similarity to many of my other posts in that there is a related comment of mine here on ’ Substack. Even that is different, though, because I was already planning to do this research. It just sped things up a little.

—Megan A.K.A. ClearMiddle

My Query

You’ve seen the essence of the AI query above. Here’s the actual query.

Now lets see what Lumo came up with. Please do comment—agree, disagree, point out errors or omissions, that’s the idea—but if your comment is deleted you might want to read my Comment Section Moderation Policy.

And if you’re shy of comment ideas, you might read this post, all the way through, which is also found on ’ Substack: Consent, Manufactured - Dragged Before Ratification - The Day Pennsylvania Learned How the New System Would Work.

Here we go…

Lumo’s (First) Response

This is a genuinely excellent question, Megan, and it touches on one of the most fascinating tensions in early American history. Let me break it into the two main parts you’ve identified.

Part 1: Did the Constitutional Convention “overthrow” the Articles of Confederation?

There’s a very strong case that the Convention acted beyond its legal authority, and many historians and legal scholars have made exactly this argument.

The mandate problem: The Continental Congress authorized the Convention in 1787 for the stated purpose of “revising” the Articles of Confederation to make them adequate for governing the nation. But the Convention didn’t revise the Articles—it abandoned them entirely and drafted a wholly new Constitution from scratch.

The ratification problem: The Articles of Confederation, in Article XIII, explicitly required unanimous consent of all thirteen states for any amendment. The new Constitution, in Article VII, required ratification by only nine of thirteen states. This was a direct contradiction of the existing legal framework—essentially, the Convention said, “We’re replacing the rules, and we’re replacing the rules for how the rules get replaced.”

The framing question: You use the phrase “just government,” which is doing important work here. The Articles had been ratified through a legitimate process and were operating as the lawful government of the United States. The Constitution’s supporters (the Federalists) argued the Articles were failing—that the government under them was too weak to function effectively. But there’s a meaningful difference between saying a government is ineffective and saying it is unjust in the Lockean sense that the Declaration invokes. Nothing in the Declaration’s framework requires revolution merely because governance is clumsy or inadequate.

Legal continuity is messy: The Confederation Congress, after receiving the Convention’s proposed Constitution, essentially passed it along to the states without endorsing or rejecting it—a move that allowed everyone to avoid the awkward question of whether the old government was sanctioning its own replacement. The old Congress eventually faded away as the new government took shape under the Constitution.

So: the Convention arguably staged a bloodless, legalistic coup against a functioning constitutional government. Gordon Wood, Herbert Storing (a leading Anti-Federalist scholar), and Akhil Reed Amar have all explored this tension in different ways. It wasn’t an overthrow by force, but it was an overthrow in substance—the delegates exceeded their commission and replaced the existing constitutional order through procedural innovation rather than through the mechanism the existing constitution prescribed.

Part 2: Did the Republic then define the Declaration’s advocacy as treason?

This is where the irony becomes sharp.

The Treason Clause (Article III, Section 3) defines treason as:

“levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

This is deliberately narrower than English common law treason, which was notoriously expansive and politically weaponized. The Founders wanted to prevent the government from using treason charges against political opponents—a practice they’d experienced under British rule. They also required two witnesses or confession in open court, and gave Congress sole power to declare punishment.

But here’s the tension: The Declaration of Independence advocates precisely “levying war” against a government perceived as tyrannical. The Declaration states that when a government becomes destructive of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” The practical method of abolition the Declaration describes is armed revolt—the colonies raised armies, fought battles, declared independence.

Under the Constitution the new Republic wrote, those exact actions—raising an army against the United States government—would constitute treason.

The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) deepened this tension further. While not strictly treason law, they criminalized criticism of the government, which the Federalist-controlled Congress used against Democratic-Republican newspaper editors—people engaging in political speech that the Declaration’s spirit would seem to protect absolutely.

Lincoln and the Civil War brought this contradiction to its sharpest point. The Confederacy explicitly invoked the Declaration’s principle of self-determination and the right to alter or abolish government. Lincoln’s response argued that the Constitution created an indissoluble union—and that the Southern rebellion was treason, not a legitimate exercise of revolutionary rights.

The Core Paradox

You’ve identified a genuine and well-documented contradiction:

1. The Declaration asserts a natural right to violent revolution against unjust government.

2. The Constitution then makes violent revolution against the resulting government treason—the highest crime.

3. The Founders narrowed treason to prevent tyranny, but they couldn’t escape the logical problem: if the right to revolution is real, then no government can survive by truly honoring the Declaration’s principles, because any attempt to exercise that right is treason against whatever government exists.

The typical Founding-era resolution was pragmatic rather than principled: the right to revolution exists in a pre-political, natural-rights sense—it’s not a legal right any government can grant, because no government can institutionalize its own dissolution. As Thomas Jefferson reportedly put it, the spirit of resistance is valuable but must be balanced against the need for stability. The Constitution attempts to manage this by providing peaceful mechanisms for change (amendments, elections, representation) that render revolution unnecessary in ordinary circumstances—but that’s an empirical bet about whether those mechanisms will prove sufficient, not a logical resolution of the contradiction.

It’s worth noting, too, that the Convention itself can be seen as an instance of the Declaration’s principle in action: when the existing legal framework proved inadequate, the delegates asserted the authority to replace it—not through the mechanism the Articles prescribed, but through appeal to the sovereign power of the people. By that logic, the Convention was itself a kind of revolution—one that then closed the door behind it.

’s question for Lumo and me

(As presented to Lumo from ’s comment below)

The question you asked AI assumes something that is not quite right therefore the entire answer is assuming the same.

The Declaration of Independence is simply that, a declaration that we are independent from Great Britain and King George.

Second, if you read it carefully, it does NOT advocate revolution or levying war.

Again, it simply states we have a right to “alter or abolish” any form of government. At the very end it says, “Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy war.” Again, that is a declaration of rights, not advocacy. A difference exists.

Lumo’s Second Response

This is a genuinely sharp critique, Megan, and your reader has spotted a real ambiguity in how the Declaration can be read. It’s worth taking seriously rather than brushing aside. Let me lay out where they’re right, where their reading runs aground, and how you might respond.

Where Your Reader Is Textually Correct

Their literal reading of the text holds water:

The “alter or abolish” passage (in the second paragraph) is framed as natural law theory—what governments ought to do and what people have the right to do when governments fail. It reads more like a philosophical statement than an explicit command to take up arms.

The closing declaration (”Free and Independent States… they have full Power to levy War”) is indeed declarative language. It states a capacity and a legal status, not an imperative.

In that strict sense, your reader has a point: the Declaration announces a right, not necessarily a duty or an encouragement. There’s a real difference between “we may X” and “we must X” or “you should X.”

Where Their Reading Misses the Context

But textualism alone leaves important gaps. The Declaration didn’t drop into a vacuum—it was issued in July 1776, over a year into armed conflict. Some contextual points matter:

Armed resistance had already begun: Lexington and Concord (April 1775), Bunker Hill (June 1775), and the Siege of Boston were already in the past. The document wasn’t theorizing about revolution—it was retroactively legitimizing violence that was already underway.

Purpose as justification: The Declaration’s function wasn’t purely philosophical; it was diplomatic and legal. It explained why the colonies were raising armies and seeking foreign aid. That makes the “right to alter or abolish” not just theoretical—it was the legal basis for ongoing military action against British forces.

The enumerated grievances: Twenty-seven specific complaints follow the philosophical preamble. These weren’t listed for abstraction—they served to establish that Britain met the threshold conditions justifying the exercise of that right. In legal and rhetorical terms, the document says: “These are our rights, and here is why we are exercising them now.”

International audience: The Declaration addressed foreign powers (especially France and Spain) to justify treating the colonies as belligerents entitled to alliances and supplies. That required establishing that “levying war” was lawful, not mutinous. The document’s purpose was to transform rebellion into recognized war—which is a far cry from passive philosophical declaration.

The Core Disagreement: Rights vs. Advocacy

Your reader insists on a distinction between declaring a right and advocating its exercise. That’s coherent as a matter of pure semantics. But the Declaration’s practical effect blurred that line:

• By asserting the right in the context of active warfare, the document functionally validated and encouraged continued armed resistance.

• By addressing the world as sovereign entities claiming that right, it invited others to join the struggle.

• By listing grievances and declaring independence, it removed any remaining pretense of reconciliation—closing off peaceful channels and leaving revolution as the only path forward.

So the debate isn’t really about whether the Declaration says “go fight.” It’s about whether a document asserting natural-law rights during ongoing armed conflict can function as de facto advocacy even when it avoids explicit imperatives. Your reader’s distinction is linguistically defensible but pragmatically strained.

How You Might Respond to Your Reader

Here’s a possible reply that honors their textual insight while defending the original framing:

[Redacted!]

Megan: I would need to actually think this through, I’m not feeling up to that, and it’s really out of my league, smacking of rhetoric.

The Deeper Point Still Stands

Even granting your reader’s textual precision, the fundamental paradox survives. The Declaration asserted the right to alter or abolish government and to levy war against oppressive authority. The Constitution then defined levying war against its own authority as treason.

Whether the Declaration advocated revolution or simply declared the right to it doesn’t change the fact that the resulting government treated the exercise of that right as the highest crime. The irony is structural, not linguistic.

That said, your reader’s critique is valuable—it pushes the analysis to be more rigorous about what the text actually says versus what we project onto it. I’d frame this as a refinement of the argument rather than a refutation of it.

Hearing this much was enough to trip my internal scam alarm, and not just because I had been a recipient in a similar previous scam targeting this church1. This is not about churches, though. It has to do with institutions of any kind that send out bulk emails such that each outgoing email contains the email address of every member of the mailing list.

As a credit to the church, several of the recipients recognized the emails as a scam and reported it—it’s apparently a regularly-recurring thing—and it is known which committees were affected.

I happen to be a member of one of those committees and I receive emails from committee officers that they mail out from their own private lists, bypassing the church’s secure bulk mailing service. I keep organized email archives and from them I identified three people who had done this in the past year. The church wasn’t particularly interested, and now I get to have a conversation with the team.

You might wonder why even bother? Well first, those requested gift cards were not little $15 ones. They were for major amounts. Second, I am surprised at how people can be fooled by this trick, not noticing the numerous peculiarities in the scam emails, and not suspecting that anyone would do such a thing. I want to at least communicate that these scams don’t “just happen”. Some of this is preventable.

My housemate now knows better. I don’t think she’s quite up to also examining the sender’s email address just yet (gmail.com in this case), but we’ll work on that. Some email clients make that easy (e.g. Proton), while others can make it more difficult. Examing email headers? Maybe not.

So then, a word to the wise. Yes, scammers do these things, and they use tricks designed to bypass the defenses of those who have too rosy a view of the world. Don’t be caught by surprise if you think it can’t happen to you.

Hello to new subscribers!

Somewhere on the About page there’s something about this being a low-volume publication. It was, however, never intended to be this low. There is a new article in the works. It’s been around for maybe a couple of months now, but life keeps happening and life is considerably more chaotic than I recall it to have once been. At the moment there’s a health crisis, not mine but someone close to me. And then there’s the ongoing work situtation—too much, not too little.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to return to the health crisis, but I do still intend to publish the article sooner rather than later.

—Megan

The post can be found here—it is technical but not terribly so. It is simple, as these kinds of questions go. The page is public as far as I can determine. If the link fails, please let me know and try Monday with Mounce, looking for the article “Is the NT Anti-Semitic?“.2

I will quote here just the final paragraph:

In the current culture, this is something that we must be sensitive toward. The entire Jewish nation did not kill Jesus. The Jewish leaders and some of the Jews did. Punctuation should reflect this.

I agree.

“The church” has taught me any things. In fact it taught me so much that for two thirds of my adult life I carefully avoided it, being happy to join the “unchurched” back in the early 1970s by the time I was 21, when many others were doing likewise. I won’t go into that here, but I did write about it in Testimony.

What I write here is not for happily-churched people that don’t want their traditions and beliefs disturbed. It is for those that sense something wrong and happily stay away, and for those who sacrificially pursue truth online and in person but encounter immense opposition, leaving some to ask “how can this be happening?” The latter might be a good title for another post, but I won’t pursue it here.

There are good reasons for such people to find “church” unattractive. But there are also good reasons to look more deeply at what’s going on with churches. I am not “anti-church”, but I certainly would like to see churches do their jobs better, and my relationship with them is complex. In my Substack bio , I refer to it as “church hesitant”. Some churches do reasonably well, even within the constraints under which they choose to operate, and some of the worst of them, doctrinally speaking, do well serving people in need.

My remarks specifically address “Christian” churches, and we’ll get to that soon, but first let’s look simply at definitions of the word “church” itself, and then at some of the things the Bible has to say about the matter. If you are new to this Substack, don’t worry, I’m not going to try to convert you to anything, church tradition skeptic that I am. Read on, and you’ll see what I mean.

Definitions

The word “church” is quite flexible. Here are some definitions:

church1

1 of 3

noun

ˈchərch

1 : a building for public and especially Christian worship

2 : the clergy or officialdom of a religious body

3 : often capitalized : a body or organization of religious believers: such as

3a : the whole body of Christians

3b : denomination

3c : congregation

4 : a public divine worship

5 : the clerical profession

church

2 of 3

adjective

1 : of or relating to a church

2 chiefly British : of or relating to the established church

church

3 of 3

verb

churched; churching; churches

transitive verb : to bring to church to receive one of its rites

Etymology

Noun, Adjective, and Verb

Middle English chirche, from Old English cirice, ultimately from Late Greek kyriakon, from Greek, neuter of kyriakos of the lord, from kyrios lord, master; akin to Sanskrit śūra hero, warrior

The Noun “Church”

The word “church” is indeed flexible. Let’s keep it simple and go through just the meanings of the noun, but with a biblical perspective in view. I’ll provide a source of references later on for what I say here, a well-researched book, rather than attempting to write an entire book here in the footnotes.

1 : a building for public and especially Christian2 worship

Early gatherings of believers, called assemblies,3 typically met in homes, although the Apostle Paul may have rented a hall4 for some of his teaching. Church buildings can be expensive to buy, operate, and maintain, leading to incessant fund-raising, often called “tithing”. Established churches5 could collect tithes as a tax. There is, however, no mention of a “tithing requirement” among the early assemblies. There is “for God loves a cheerful giver“ in 2 Corinthians 9:6, often offered as a “proof text”6 for tithing, but if one reads that verse in context, it’s not about that. It’s about a collection for the Judean believers.

2 : the clergy or officialdom of a religious body

The assemblies had no clergy or officialdom as we would understand those words today, although there was organizational structure. There were no seminaries or degrees, so there was no body of credentialed clergy.

The organizational structure that did exist did not operate the way “church” today ordinarily does. They did not have pastor-rank leaders preaching regularly to congregants. There was not a fixed “order of service”. It was spontaneous. The members possessed differing talents and gifts through which they served accordingly, and everyone contributed to meetings, one at a time.7 This is not “church” as we typically know it, although there are contemporary approximations to it.

Try standing up and asking a question during a sermon, when doing so has not been scripted—NOT REALLY. Depending on the size and preparedness of the church, you just might meet with the security detail if you were to do such a thing.8

3 : often capitalized : a body or organization of religious believers: such as

3a : the whole body of Christians

Well maybe, but did they call themselves Christians?

3b : denomination

There was no such thing in the first century that I have found.

3c : congregation

This could be used as another word for “assembly”. I recall that there is a specific Greek word for “congregation”, but I’ve lost track of what it is. It doesn’t appear frequently.

The form of a first century assembly, as exposed in the New Testament, is quite different from what the activities of a typical modern congregation would look like, although there is overlap.

4 : a public divine worship

Well yes, but a different sort of worship from what is ordinarily seen in churches, as described in preceding comments.

5 : the clerical profession

Not as we understand it today. As already touched upon above and in footnotes, there were no pastors, no stages, no pews, no lectures with a presenter preaching to a passive audience. And while certain clerical “ranks” derive their names from Greek words applied to certain members of the assemblies, the job descriptions are usually not the same.

Discussion

There has been a substitution of one thing for another. The new thing doesn’t do all that the old thing did and vice versa, and while this is not entirely incapacitating, it can lead to a wide range of problems.

My own first church of note was a Christian cult-church with which my mother and I became involved when I was 12 years old. This article was inspired by what I learned while recovering from that early experience.

That church taught heretical doctrines intermingled with truth, something my mother and I failed to notice.9 I spent decades deprogramming from that organization (my mother never did) but interestingly enough, truths were taught there that rarely were spoken elsewhere.

Among the actual truths were claims — historical facts — about how the “other” Christian churches had incorporated pagan beliefs and practices into their gatherings. This is known as syncretism.10. “Other” of course meant, from their point of view, all the other “false” churches as opposed to this one claiming to be the “one true church” as this one did.

I grew up having this background knowledge about syncretism, imperfect knowledge but nevertheless fairly accurate in at least some respects. Unfortunately we did not learn about the parts that they omitted, concerning the pagan beliefs and practices that that church also had adopted.

Out of this upbringing, and ensuing incidents that occurred after I turned 21,11 I no longer wanted anything to do with Christian churches — that one or any other — for much of my adult life. I see now that it was an overreaction. There was a problem, but it could not be solved by running away. But then mistakes can be good teachers, if you survive them.

I have been back with Christian churches now for more than a decade, and there is no end to the problems I encounter, but they do create community, and they may preserve some of the practices that the early assemblies featured.

Ironically, because of all the problems, they may also resemble the early assemblies closely in one important respect: those assemblies had no end of problems either! And the problems of the early assemblies offer lessons from which we could learn now, if the modern churches were to teach them. And sometimes they do, but too often they don’t.

For some of us, this provokes a question that pops up repeatedly in a variety of curcumstances upon taking a closer look, “Why isn’t this taught?”

Why Isn’t This Taught?

One day somewhat recently an article [Edit: link changed and has been corrected] turned up on another Substack, highlighting a book titled Pagan Christianity.12 I read it, and roughly 80% of the book told of history that I already knew. The other 20% was the part that had escaped my notice. The book seems to me to have a rather negative tone about it, and I have some difficulty with that, although it is balanced by another later book in the series13 that I have also read. I am not promoting the ideas about what to do that are presented in either of these books, nor am I promoting their author’s business interests, but I did find them helpful as a reference point for better understanding “why isn’t this taught?”, and for clarifying my own relationship with these peculiar institutions known as Christian churches.

That said, the material in Pagan Christianity offers well-researched evidence supporting the claims I made above concerning “the noun ‘church’”, and it serves as a published reference for those claims. However, my prior knowledge of the material had a cushioning effect that other church-goers might not experience. I don’t want others to read the book and run screaming from their communities. Things are not that bad. If anyone feels this way, post a comment here. Let’s talk about it.

There is also good news hiding behind the “not taught” curtain, and I hope to go peeking behind that curtain again in future posts, seeking those parts. Whether you believe what it says or not, the Bible has very good news about what we are doing here on this Earth and what our destiny can be. The trouble is, it’s not all taught!

Stay tuned.

Related:

A funny thing happened on the way to the office … from the dining room (I work at home). I tripped in the semi-dark—it was early—and went sailing forward, trying to save my breakfast which I had in a bowl in one hand (solid, not liquid). I reached the wall and stopped abruptly, with the help of my head. Ouch. (See photo of wall above.) I saw sparks. I’m not quite sure what happened next, but I ended up on the floor on my tailbone. Double ouch. Then followed a long process of figuring out how to get back up off the floor. Most of my breakfast survived, still in the bowl except for the eggs. That, I found upsetting.

I’m 75 years old, and getting up from the floor has been a challenge for quite a few years, if it’s hardwood and I don’t have the right furniture in place in advance to lean on, and the office floor is and I didn’t have anything to lean on. Having a sore rear didn’t help, but I eventually made it the rest of the way into the office and up into my work chair. I’ve had practice with this.

So I’ve been quieter than usual on Substack, mostly because I’ve been sleeping a lot. It seems to help with healing. I discussed the fall with one of my doctors (teleconference), and she had good suggestions. I have doctors that have time to talk and know how to listen, paid by subscription, not insurance. And that pathway now has a motion-sensing night-light at either end. Why didn’t I think of that? And I have a nice donut cushion to sit on.

It is something else, to grow old and begin to lose that which you always took for granted. It’s hard to describe.

What’s this?

It’s a section of this Substack containing an archive of videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. This is the final planned post, as explained below. A longer description of the section can be found on the About page.

Love, Come Down, arranged for SSA and Piano

From the publisher’s page:

Marrolli provides her own text imploring the presence of the Holy Spirit in times of stress and challenge, leading into the familiar words of Bianco da Siena's hymn. Fragments of Ralph Vaughan Williams's tune Down Ampney appear in the accompaniment from the very beginning (although strangely misquoted in the initial upward ascent), paving the way for the melody to appear complete in the voices with rhythmic variation (and repeating the alteration of the first measure melody). The texture blossoms into three-part harmony, maintaining the Vaughan Williams melody in the top voice. Treble choirs able to sustain three parts would find this anthem engaging, and its use extends far beyond the day of Pentecost.

—Jason Overall, The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, March 2025

We were small, and beset with technical difficulties here and there, but we did it! This was a special women’s chorus, singing just the offertory anthem, two weeks before the beginning of the regular choir season. We began with a Saturday workshop, a few weeks earlier, with great turnout, and the sopranos and altos almost evenly matched. This was folowed by an evening rehearsal a few days before the Sunday service, with the turnout that you see here, just six sopranos and four altos. Well, at least we fit well on the chancel.

The altos are the four mostly tall ones right of center, of which I am the first to the right of of the rear stained glass window (and the saxaphone), and we held our own against those sopranos. For me it was a wonderful way to finish out…

Behind the Scenes

I’ll pass on discussing the technical glitches this time. They’re obvious but they weren’t terrible. But this was my last planned anthem. I am not continuing with the choir when it resumes in the next couple of weeks. I recently turned 75—hard to believe—and, as I wrote about earlier, the decision has to do one way or another with multiple health issues along with driving at night. Otherwise I’d continue ‘till I dropped. But that’s messy if it happens on camera. Others in the section are at or approaching a similar place in life, and I’m not sure what is going to happen with it.

This is my third attempt at retiring from choir. The first was following Easter, 2017 at another church, and that break lasted a year and a half. The second was when my choir at yet another former church disbanded in 2020, in compliance with “the authorities”. That lasted only 10 months until, at my present church, I could no longer stand to sit there listening instead of being up there singing.

This time it’s for real. I do plan to continue in my other volunteer activities, including screens (ProPresenter operator), and to stay in practice, singing alto or soprano in the congregation.1 I am going to greatly miss being in the choir, but from the summer break onward I have been feeling relief and release from the stress of a time-consuming, difficult-to-sustain, and sometimes dangerous weekly routine. Case in point, I about fell over as we exited after this piece as I reached for my cane (propped against the chair behind me), but I cut the clip short so that it wouldn’t show here. My balance has improved somewhat since then, by the way, by a miracle I think.

It’s safer up on the risers where I can sit down if my balance goes, there are workarounds for the other issues, and I might still occasionally fill in if the number of other altos drops to two or three as it did here, and if I don’t have a time conflict. Maybe.

I hope these anthems have held meaning for those of you who had been dropping by here from week to week. Thank you.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, August 31, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

I came across a bit of local news this morning in a post to the Substack, about which I commented on the SMUD board of directors (see the links). It seems that SMUD, our local public electric utility, is being sued over their surveillance practices.

But anyway, this is the tinfoil hat (photo from late 2017) that I mentioned in my comment. The hat is on the brown bear today, the one with the kazoo, and my “joy bears” share their spot on the shelf with biblical Greek reference materials and controls for our surveillance cameras. I think this photo is cuter.

I’ll have to show you Lolla Koala sometime. She clings to the monitor stand and holds my second pair of glasses for me. I should introduce the whole gang, my office staff.

Later—Megan

11:25–26  … It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians… [Full Greek text omitted, along with other commentary]

…Luke’s final comment here about the origins and the early years of the congregation in Antioch notes that it was in Antioch that the disciples, i.e., the followers of Jesus, were first called “Christians” (Χριστιανοί). This term occurs in the New Testament only on the lips of outsiders. Josephus, Pliny, and Tacitus use the term as well. The first Christian usage of the term as a self-designation comes from the second century, which suggests that the term “Christian” was not a self-designation of the followers of Jesus as early as the 30s.

The verb translated as “were called” (χρηματίσαι) is not necessarily a reflexive (“they called themselves Christians”) but can be treated as a passive, which suggests that the term “Christians” was introduced by others. The followers of Jesus called themselves “disciples,” “believers,” “brothers,” “slaves” or “servants of Jesus Christ,” and perhaps also “those who are in Christ Jesus.” The form of the Greek expression — in particular the ending (-ιανοί; singular -ιανός) — also suggests an origin outside of the church, pointing to Latin-speaking circles. In Rome we hear of the Caesariani and Augustiani; in Judea we encounter the Herodiani (the relatives, clients, and the supporters of the Herodian court, who are also mentioned in the New Testament, cf. Mark 3:6; 12:13). The term “Christians” (Χριστιανοί) was evidently an official designation coined by the Roman authorities in Antioch for the new religious group. The designation was probably applied to the followers of Jesus by outsiders “when, not least as a result of their missionary activity to the Greeks, they began to separate themselves from the synagogue congregations and acquire an identity as a separate group.”

It is possible that the followers of Jesus who proclaimed the good news of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, Lord, and Savior, in the synagogues, in private houses, and perhaps in the marketplace had come to the attention of the Roman authorities — perhaps as early as AD 39, in connection with the unrest among the Jews provoked by Emperor Caligula’s directive to have his statue erected in the Jerusalem temple. The followers of Jesus were probably recognized by the Roman authorities in Antioch as a group of people who publicly proclaimed their loyalty to a Jew named Jesus as Messiah (Χριστός), who grew in numbers and who thus had to be watched.

So what does it mean to call oneself or someone else a "Christian"? I'm not sure. There is reason to question whether the early church used the word the same way it is commonly used today.

Here are the three biblical references:

Acts 11:26 …and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

Acts 26:28 Agrippa replied to Paul, “In a short time you are going to persuade me to make a Christian of myself.”

1Pet. 4:16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.

[Edited 2025-12-20: The details of each passage were expanded to include additional commentary from other sources.]

Are these positive or negative references? Let’s examine each.

• Acts 11:26 struck me as neutral—to possibly be taken either as positive or negative—but the Greek verb appearing here as “were first called” is commonly translated as passive as noted earlier, and that influences my thinking. Others see it differently, so take your pick. Despite the translation upon which he comments—ESV, which also chooses “were first called”—Vickers writes

Whether “first called Christians” (11:26) refers to self-reference or to a label from others is disputed. The more likely conclusion is that the name is first given by others to distinguish the believers from competing groups. In Jewish settings these believers are considered a sect, a splinter Jewish group (24:5, 14; 28:22), and Gentiles probably view them in relation to Jews. In Antioch, however, Gentiles have joined these Jewish followers of Jesus of Nazareth. They are not Jews, though they socialize with them sometimes, and they have also changed and left their former lifestyles and practices. Such a group needs a new name. And the name sticks.3

• My thinking was that Agrippa, in Acts 26:28, didn’t care for it, using it to name a class to which he did not wish to belong, but Vickers has this to say:

Agrippa fully understands that Paul is pressing him to believe. But instead of answering the question, he asks one of his own. There is considerable discussion concerning how the Greek text of 26:28 should be rendered. “In a short time” could be translated as “with so little effort” or “with so few words,” but Paul’s reply in verse 29 (“whether short or long”) seems best understood as a response to “in a short time.” The point is that Agrippa knows Paul is hoping to persuade him to be a Christian. The term “Christian” appears only one other time in Acts (cf. 11:26), where it was presumably coined by unbelievers at Antioch. Its usage by Agrippa perhaps implies that, unlike most in the narrative, he understands there to be a distinction between the followers of Jesus and the Jews, although this cannot be proved.4

• 1 Peter 4:16 associates “shame” with the word, interestingly enough. I wouldn’t take that as a positive, but (with much elision, to make it bearable) Michaels comments:5

The phrase “for being a Christian” brings out more clearly the meaning of the expression “for the name of Christ,” in v 14. Believers in Jesus Christ are referred to as “Christians” elsewhere in the NT only in Acts 11:26 and 26:28 (“Christian” being a formation analogous to “Herodian” [BGD, 886; cf 348], with the meaning, “partisans of Christ”). All three instances appear to reflect the viewpoint of Jewish and pagan outsiders toward those who followed and worshiped Jesus. This is evidenced by a variant reading, Χρηστιανός, or “good fellow” (used ironically) in at least one manuscript (Codex Sinaiticus) each time the designation is used (for a similar confusion… By the second century, Χριστιανός had been adopted by “Christians” themselves as a self-designation (IgnEph 11.2; Magn 4; Rom 3.2; Pol 7.3; MartPol 3, 10.1, 12.1–2; Did 12.4).

…

μὴ αἰσχυνέσθω, “don’t be ashamed” (lit, “let him not be ashamed,” with the τις ὑμῶν, “any of you,” v 15a, still presupposed as the subject). Peter’s conviction is that believers in Christ “will never be put to shame” (οὐ μὴ καταισχυνθῇ , 2:6, citing Isa 28:16), while those who slander them will (cf 3:16). Yet he writes here in the imperative, not the indicative mood. His emphasis is not on what will objectively be the case (ie, that Christians will be vindicated) but on what his readers’ attitude should be subjectively when faced with verbal abuse and physical danger. Peter’s aspiration for them corresponds to Paul’s aspiration for himself in the wake of imprisonment and the possibility of death (Phil 1:20; cf 2 Tim 1:12; cf also the warnings of Jesus in Mark 8:38//Luke 9:26).

δοξαζέτω δὲ τὸν θεόν, “only glorify God.” “Shame” and “glorifying God,” the only two alternatives for pagans under God’s judgment at the “day of visitation” (2:12; 3:16 …) are similarly the two alternatives open to Christians facing human judgment here and now… Peter wants to make sure that his readers’ response to threats from without is the glorification of God—precisely the same goal toward which he directed them in their ministries to each other… Although he does not in this instance spell out concretely how they are to do this, it is a fair inference from 3:15–16 that he wants them to acknowledge their faith in Christ openly and without fear, regardless of the consequences. As in the case of their ministry to one another, glorification of God depends on attitudes and behavior toward other people.

ἐν τῷ μέρει τούτῳ, “in this matter” (cf 2 Cor 3:10; 9:3; also Polyb. 18.18.2). Adoption of the more commonly accepted reading, “in this name,” could suggest that 1 Peter stands at a transition between the use of “Christian” by opponents of the movement (as in Acts and in pagan sources), and its serious use by believers themselves, beginning with Ignatius. Peter would then be saying, “Even though the name ‘Christian’ is thrown at you by your enemies in derision, wear the name proudly, for that is what you are.” Yet transcriptional probabilities favor the reading adopted here…

If you are not accustomed to reading deep-down Greek-level commentaries, welcome to the experience.

Here is what I know. I had the experience of attending a mainline church for 3 years. They called themselves Christians. I loved being part of it, and I remained there for as long as I could. My memories of it are of better days than now.

[Edited 2025-12-20: Added footnote.]
But the gospel, as I know it now6, never came up in that place, that I can recall, not in direct teaching. They practiced a form of the social gospel promoted by their denomination, not at all a bad thing to do, and supported by scripture, but that is not the complete biblical Gospel, although some mainline churches state that it is.

This is not unusual in the mainline churches, what remains of them. I had never seen anything like this before finding myself at that one, but I arrived there believing much as they did (although having read the Bible numerous times). I left there an orthodox believer7, but not because of what I learned there, although some of it helped. It’s a long story perhaps for another post.

I find that many people in the evangelical churches I have attended since then appear to have no awareness that this kind of omission even goes on. And I have seen the surveys, Barna8 and others, pointing to a slide even in evangelical churches in that direction. More personally, my own present church recently left its original denomination of 60 years over related issues. My point is that the present-day meaning of the name “Christian” has become quite dilute.

I began by asking "Did Jesus ever profess to be a Christian?" Well, I'm not sure that question even makes sense, but there is evidence that his followers of the period might not have, as Schnabel, Vickers, and Michaels illustrate. And then again it can be argued that they did. Some of the things I hear coming from these other churches, when I happen to be in a place to hear them, make my head spin. It can sound so "holy", and some of them are excellent at public prayer. But there can be very different kinds of communities claiming the same name.

So why does this matter? I’m not entirely sure. What’s in a name? Well, potentially a lot. Biblical names can be very important. But Roman/Latin names for categories of “troublemakers”? Possibly not as much.

I wrote this article some time ago, but hesitated to publish it because I didn’t know where to go with it. I don’t find the name “Christian” to be a huge issue, but I do see it as possibly relating to another much greater issue. That, topic, however, will for this writer have to wait until I muster the nerve to write in full about it, although I have dropped related comments here and there. Backtrack in the threads (click “Return to thread”) to read the contexts.

There is so much to consider and from which to learn. Such is the journey of the difficult path.

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8

See the original post upon which I was commenting.

Simple Christianity

The Danger of Cultural Christianity

Wikipedia says there were approximately 2.4 billion Christians, as of 2021, making Christianity the largest religion in the world…

Read more

3 years ago · 20 likes · 15 comments · David Roberts

This is a family I knew through a former business relationship, and I met Kyron in the years preceding his dissapearance. I have been following this story for the last 15 years, and while I won’t be traveling to Oregon for this gathering, I did want to mention it here. My prayer is that at the least, the thruth about what happened would be brought to light, and I would hope for even more.

It’s a section of this Substack containing an archive of videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. I expect this to be the final post, as explained below. A longer description can be found on the About page.

O Rest in the Lord

From the publisher’s page:

Based on Psalm 37 and composed by Ken Medema. Pastoral feeling with classical overtones. Sensitively set with warmth in both the voices and accompaniment. Moderately easy SATB voicing, especially appropriate as a choral response after prayer.

This piece was a “quick learn” for our choir. I am a little surprised, however, at the statement above about “moderately easy SATB voicing“. It’s not a difficult piece, unless you have little time to learn it before singing it. We had little time, and quite a few choir members were not able to attend the the final weeknight rehearsal for it, which made for an “interesting” pre-service run-through. The difficulties were similar to those we encountered last week. We did however have our six altos (my section) when it came time to sing, and the six of us came through clearly in the recording.

I like the way this anthem turned out well enough to include it as my almost-final offering here (more below). Like last week’s anthem, we goofed in a place or two, but I still hear it playing in my head, and it is welcome to keep on doing that, goof free.

Behind the Scenes

I wasn’t expecting to be posting any more anthems after this one. This was our last Sunday before the choir breaks until September, and I don’t plan to continue with choir on a regular basis when they resume. There was, however, a special opportunity for the sopranos and the altos to sing an offertory anthem on August 31st, and I took part in that. The final post now is this one.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, May 18, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Jesus, Only Jesus

From the distributor’s website:

Dramatic and effective, this contemporary ballad from Matt Redman's album Passion calls all to worship and adoration. The arrangement gradually builds from the restrained opening, proceeding to a crescendo of affirmation…

The arrangement we used follows Jesus, Only Jesus with All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name and then returns for the final words of Jesus, Only Jesus. We seamlessly jumped past All Hail the Power to the ending without altering anything by simply turning to the last page at the transition. I’m not certain of the reason for the change, but it may have had to do with the time available. We run on a tight schedule.

Lyrics (as sung)

There evidently were no lyric slides for this anthem beyond the title slide—I don’t know why—so I offer these, adapted for our arrangement from Matt Redman’s slightly different one.

Who has the power to raise the dead?
Who can save us from our sin?
He is our hope, our righteousness
Jesus, only Jesus

And who can make the blind to see?
Who holds the keys that set us free?
He paid it all to bring us peace
Jesus, only Jesus

Holy, King almighty Lord
Saints and angels all adore

I join with them and bow before
Jesus, only Jesus

Who can command the highest praise?
Who has the name above all names?
You stand alone, I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus

You will command the highest praise
Yours is the name above all names
You stand alone, I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus

Holy, King almighty Lord
Saints and angels all adore
I join with them and bow before
Jesus, only Jesus

You will command the highest praise
Yours is the name above all names
You stand alone, I stand amazed
Jesus, only Jesus
Jesus, only Jesus
Only Jesus

Behind the Scenes

This another anthem I am happy to still have playing in my head. I can tell you that there is a huge difference between listening to other people sing and singing in the choir yourself!

We first read through this anthem at choir practice a few days ago. The planned anthem was canceled for its second time (again, I don’t know why). We sampled several others, some of which we had recently read through, but this one was the favorite.

We could have sung a little better with additional rehearsal time, but not much. The multiple modulations (key changes) can make finding pitches at the transitions more difficult—try it sometime when you’re singing 4-part harmony, or polyphony—but it comes automatically with enough practice. So there were some glitches, but it sounded great from where I was standing.

I don’t know if I will be posting more anthems after this one. Next week is our last Sunday before we break until September, and it will be a choir, bells, and orchestra service. If the anthem recording turns out well, and if I like the anthem itself enough, I’ll post it. Another recnt anthem, while it was a choral arrangement of a fine hymn, just didn’t inspire me enough to put out the effort to present it here.

As I mentioned last time, with my 75th birthday coming up in August I am having to again evaluate whether I am still physically up to rehearsing and singing every week. This is my third year to make such an evaluation.

I have sung in church choirs on and off since 1992—about 21 choir seasons across six choirs and 33 years—and I really don’t want to give it up, but I may not have much choice. My balance has been deteriorating ever since I took a nasty fall eight years ago. I developed new problems in my legs a year ago, after already having had problems with them for decades, and I am walking with a cane again, one that I’ve owned and used intermittently for 30 years. At least I’m experienced at using it.

All of this does not mix well with climbing up and down those risers. And then for rehearsals there’s driving at night on the increasingly dangerous roads leading to the church, though I could pay for rides. I’ve wanted to continue singing rather badly. But there is more to this story, not involving physical ailments. It’s not about this church specifically—it applies to every church I have belonged to, whether conservative or liberal, and I have belonged to both kinds.

If I am successful at freeing up more of my time, I may write about this other concern in my main blog, . It’s a delicate subject.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, May 11, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

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It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Now the Green Blade Rises

Adapted from a sampling of reviews:

"Now the Green Blade Rises", an Easter hymn, first appeared in the Oxford Book of Carols in 1928, with text by John MacLeod Campbell Crum and music from the ancient French carol "Noël Nouvelet". It reflects metaphorically upon the resurrection of Jesus as wheat growing from buried grain.

More information: History of Hymns: "Now the Green Blade Riseth"

Lyrics (modern version)

Now the green blade ris­es from the bur­ied grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth ma­ny years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d nev­er wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps un­seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at East­er, like the ris­en grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my ris­en Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are sad­dened, griev­ing or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Behind the Scenes

This was said to be a record year for attendance. What you see here is from our Sunday traditional service, a link to the livestream of which can be found at the end of this post. We had another traditional service the evening before, and there were two contemporary services on Sunday as well.

This anthem was both enjoyable to sing and challenging to learn. It proved to be more difficult than it looked. The audio in this recording sounded a little off to me, but good enough to post. There’s a demo on this distributor’s page if you would like to listen to that. I also noticed that there appeared to be no camera operators. That contrasts with three manned cameras, one roaming on a monopod, on this day in the past. I don’t know what is happening there.

The choir was smaller this year for a variety of reasons. Usually it peaks on Easter Sunday and shrinks dramatically the following week, and it may still do the latter—we’ll soon find out. We have just three Sundays left when we sing and before we break until September. There is no traditional service the first Sunday in May.

I am posting this anthem late because the video downloader extension for my browser quit working again, when YouTube yet again changed the recorded format. The developers of the extension released an update today and I was able to download again.

I plan to post the remaining anthems for this season, if all goes well. After that, I don’t know. I will decide later on. The bigger decision, which comes up each year when we return and I am a year older—75 coming up—is as to whether I am still physically up to rehearsing and singing every week. Having sung in church choirs throughout much of the past 33 years I don’t want to quit but, like some of the other members, I may not have much choice.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, April 20, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Call to Worship Anthem: The Name of Jesus

By Craig Courtney. Lyricist: John Newton / Edward Perronet.

From the distributor’s page:

John Newton's beloved hymn text All Hail the Power of Jesus Name just dances off the page in this inventive setting … . … A marvelous and creative musical experience on a well-known hymn.

This is one of the more unusual anthems we have sung in my time with this choir. I didn’t quite know what to think at first, but once we got the hang of it, well, like it said above, marvelous and creative!

Accompaniments were available for clapping groups or hand drum. We had the bell chorus this day and, percussionists that they are, they clapped for us.

Offering Music Anthem: Be Gone, Unbelief

By Wesley Peters.

From the publisher’s page:1

[A] wonderfully catchy sea-shanty-inspired setting of John Newton text: "Be gone, unbelief, my Savior is near....with Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm."

As we began rehearsing and learning this anthem, it felt a little like being on a rocking boat. It took some doing to learn, but was quite enjoyable to sing before the congregation.

Closing Anthem: O Sacred Head

By Mary McDonald.

From the Publisher’s Page:

The captivating lyrics of the 17th century Passion Chorale still resonate today as we reflect on the somber final moments prior to Jesus’ death. Paired in this setting with the minor tonalities of the tune PROMISED LAND, along with an original refrain, the depth of emotions are effectively conveyed in both word and song.

This anthem looks forward to Good Friday (when the choir will not be singing). While it doesn’t show in the video—the cameras compensate for it—for contrast, the house lights were blacked out (there are skylights and windows), and the chancel lights were adjusted to highlight the choir.

Behind the Scenes

What goes on behind the scenes for a day like this is weeks of rehearsal and refinement. And there’s more coming for Easter, when we have services Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

As I mentioned earlier, there was a lighting change for the final anthem. Being the lighting person as well as a choir member, I was surprised to learn about this just a few days beforehand. It was a simple transition, fading out the house lights at the beginning and re-balancing the chancel lights to favor just the choir.

I didn’t have enough time in advance to set up and test a programmed sequence, so I set up the alternate pattern on the individual manual faders instead and had the screens operator bring down all four of the regular preset faders when we began the scene, leaving just the manual faders active so that they showed through. It’s simpler than it sounds, and that’s what I told her.

It is simple in principle, but I had to get up unusually early (4 AM) and come in and work out the alternate pattern by trial and error before the bells and choir arrived for the pre-service run-through. This required balancing four channels of dimmable electric lighting against the skylight, stained glass rear window light, and fixed stage lights (non-dimmable), to achieve a pattern that would appear as even on camera while ensuring that all the choir members could see their music clearly. Simple, but not so simple. It seems to have worked.

I finished this post except for final edits on Sunday afternoon while still recuperating from the day but before I could publish, the day caught up with me and I dozed off at the keyboard for a long, long time. But this is what can happen when your work chair is a nice, comfy recliner.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, April 13, 2025.
Excerpted from this livestream.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

In the Presence of Jehovah

From a distributor’s page:

…this spiritually dynamic offering captures the mystery and majesty of personal worship. Easy to learn, but hard to forget, this gospel classic will inspire and uplift.

Behind the Scenes

Well hooray! We do have a livestream recording this week, though I can’t predict what will happen in the future. The balance was quite good between our soloist and the choir. There are some audio issues still, particularly with the kick drum, but I was on the verge on tears listening to the playback, from the music itself, not the audio quality.

I was running screens for this one—turning the slides—rather than singing, but we still had a good turnout of altos. Screens is a high concentration, occasionally nervewracking job where I don’t get to become emotionally involved, let alone cry. For the livestream it consists of timing the lyrics displayed at the bottom of the screen. The main (audience) screens, displaying lyrics over animated backgrounds, may sometimes be caught by the cameras, but not this time that I could see. Here’s how it looked from the screens console, early this morning.

The lyrics timing was a little choppy because I had limited opportunity to practice the precise turns. I noticed that there were also issues with how the lyrics looked, but I don’t create the slides and I don’t have time to proof and correct the “lower 3rds” feed to the livestream booth, so what you see is what I receive from the team, and the present console configuration does make lower thirds somewhat difficult to proof.

Next up, Palm Sunday.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, April 6, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.

As you can see, there is an inscription at the bottom, “I AM SILENT WITHOUT THE SUN”. The question is, why are those words there—what do they mean?

I asked the AI of a certain web browser that will remain unnamed (no, it’s not that browser—whichever you were probably thinking of) this question: What does the inscription "I'm silent without the sun" on a sundial mean? I did this because I like to laugh at the answers that my regular browser’s AIs offer (without asking me if I want their opinion). To my utter astonishment, however, after saying that it didn’t find many hits, it answered the question correctly!

I’m a little chagrined. It took me years to understand what those words are doing there, presented they they are. Possibly more than a decade. The answer is rather obvious, once you see it.

I bought the sundial and pedestal years ago, to go in that round patio at the back of the garden. The garden has gone through many changes, but the sundial stands there looking like it always has, a small connection to earlier days that felt better than what these feel like today. Here’s a peek, taken from the orchard (being redone) and highlighting some of the edibles, berry bushes left and right, raised vegetable beds to the far right. And lots of weeds. Disclaimer: this is not my garden! It belongs to my housemate, who owns the property.

OK, time for lunch while the sun’s still up.

This past year has proved quite “interesting” for many, in the “Chinese Curse” sense1, myself included. My last researched article that I had time for was The Fact-Value Distinction in August, 2024, which had 100 views and a 25% open rate. Meanwhile, Substack seems to have been evolving into a full-blown, business as usual “social media platform”. How exciting. How interesting.

If I open someone’s Substack article, read it, and then proceed to the comment section, there will be a list of threads, some of which perhaps branch to other threads, perhaps recursively. Have you ever tried to sustain a conversation in one of these?

Let me interject that I am not complaining. I am trying to understand what gives, and what can be done about it. I don’t believe this platform is designed to facilitate discussion. It seems to be great for ranting and carrying on, however.

If I choose a random comment, I am presented with four items:

1. The comment text itself, with any comments-within-the-comment (replies).

2. A menu that offers several options such as “Copy link”, “Restack”, and “Collapse“.

3. A “Share” button and menu.

4. Information about the commenter, including

   1. two variations of the commenter’s blurb,

   2. Either of which if I know what to do and click enough links will allow me to “mute” the commenter or worse

   3. A link to the comment itself. I find “mute” useful for trolls, once I establish that they are indeed trolling.

So what if I come across an interesting discussion and simply want to follow it? Oops, that’s not an option that I can see. I can copy the link to the comment and track it using my browser’s bookmarks, but how many people actually would do that, even if they knew about it? I can also reply to the comment, which then establishes a “follow” for it, but I don’t understand exactly what is being followed. If someone branches off from there, is that part of the conversation followed? I get the impression that it might not be, possibly depending on the depth of the branch. And if they branch in parallel it is not, I don’t think.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but it looks to me as though thoughtful attempts at discussion are being run through a shredder. How does one publish articles and then engage readers in conversation? Chat? I somehow don’t think so, although it might be useful sometimes.

I don’t have a solution to this for Substack authors in general. If there are readers here that would like to engage in discussion about things I write about—including questions about what are we doing here, and what in the world is really going on—or even things I should write about but haven’t thought of yet, I do have an alternative outside of Substack.

It is part of my business, a private Microsoft Teams virtual server. It’s not the easiest thing to use, and it’s not entirely private (there’s no such thing), but it is licensed under a business EULA2 that is different from the usual “you consent to our use of anything you say here” EULA for “free” platforms.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Interesting?

—Megan

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Everything was working again today! There’s still no choral anthem, however, because we didn’t sing one this week. The Kid’s Choir sang their anthem instead, as had been planned, and we just accompanied the service music. My YouTube downloader still doesn’t work for last week’s service but it did work for this week’s, and if all goes well I will resume with next week’s anthem, which we’ve been practicing for a while.

Original:

Both my church and I are having major technical difficulties with YouTube — the church with sending things up and me with bringing things back down from the service — and I am having to pause my anthem posts for now, until both sets of issues are resolved.

It’s a section of this Substack containing videos of my choir’s anthems, along with my comments. A longer description can be found on the About page. If you subscribe to this Substack but don’t wish to receive notifications for this section, select Manage Subscription from the upper-right menu and turn it off there.

Because nearly all of my posts in recent months have been in this section, I have added it back into the main post listing, but you can still turn off notifications for this section if you wish.

The Narrow Way

This brief little anthem has so much to say. In the lyrics, it captures what we are here to do.

Publisher's page - “A lyrical setting of an 18th century prayer.”

Behind the Scenes

I haven’t posted here in the anthems section in a while because of ongoing technical problems, not to mention much of the choir being out sick the past two Sundays. The anthem two weeks ago had livestream audio issues that made me reluctant to use it, as I recall. All I remember clearly is that we had only two altos (I was one), plus two more that we ‘borrowed’ from bells and orchestra just for the anthem, that had almost no time to learn the music, which was not easy to learn. I searched for a musical term to describe what the alto part was doing and came up with “parallel polyphony”. That sounds about right.

I would normally have been running screens that week, but under the cirumstances I swapped with someone else on that team and I will be running screens this following week. I will still post the anthem, if the recording quality is good.

Last week’s audio was worse — there was no audio! The tech team managed to align the video with a local recording (or something — I didn’t ask). They uploaded it as a regular video, deleting the silent livestream, and that turned out well except for the anthem, where the choir mics didn’t sound like they were on for much of the piece. The anthem’s ending was good, though. At least we had four regular, rehearsed altos, even if our part couldn’t be heard.

I was very pleased with the audio quality this week. And by the way, if anyone new here wonders where I am, it’s top row, one seat left of center. The tall, strange-looking one that has trouble standing up, seeing the music, and holding the music folder. But I like to sing, and FYI I’m not the only tall alto.

And one more thing, if you ever wonder why I cut these excerpts the way I do, it is because the services run on a tight schedule, and the scenes are so close together that they overlap slightly. I limit the video shown here to just what belongs with the choir anthem.

Recorded at Christ Community Church, Carmichael, California, March 16, 2025
Excerpted from this livestream.