William Zeitler's Music Box

Author: william

  • ‘Selah’

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    william
    in

    There’s a curious word that occurs 74 times in the Psalms and three times in Habbakuk. It’s so problematic that many translations, starting with the King James, don’t even try to translate it, they just transliterate it — phonetically spell it into English: ‘selah’. The meaning of the word is not known, though various interpretations…

  • Thought for the Day

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    william
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    Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.

  • Psalm 1

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    william
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    Blessed is the man who did not walk in the council of the impious, nor stand in the road of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the pestilent. Rather, his will is in the law of the Lord and on his law he will contemplate day and night. And he will be like a…

  • The Septuagint Psalms

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    william
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    The Psalms are unique in the Bible in that they are both God’s words to humanity and humanity’s words to God. Only in modern times have the Psalms lost this centrality in the heart and mind of the church. It was not so in former times. Indeed at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787…

  • Five Canonic Lamentations

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    william
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    What can one say in the midst of the madness and mayhem into which our country seems to be descending? The musical response that captured my imagination was the Book of Lamentations — poetic laments about the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Somehow that seemed apt. The Book of Lamentations is…

  • Thought for the Day

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    william
    in

    Hard times makes for a community-minded and industrious people. A community-minded and industrious people make for good times. Good times make for an entitled and indolent people. An entitled and indolent people make for hard times.

  • Who Breathes Whom?

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    william
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    Apparently we have varying degrees of control of the dimensions of our lives. For example, I can control my breathing — by holding my breath. But not for long. Rather than "I'm breathing my breath", maybe a better way to look at that is "My breath is breathing me!" After all, who ultimately is in…

  • Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 5, Charles-Marie Widor

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    william
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    For Coronavirus Easter 2020. Dedicated to all those on the front-lines of Covid-19. On YouTube.

  • William’s Razor

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    william
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    In philosophy there's the idea of Ockham's Razor, attributed to English William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), which states that given two solutions to a problem, if they have the same outcomes but one is simpler than the other, choose the simpler. I use a similar approach to spiritual questions: if an idea or doctrine makes…

  • Amazing Grace (Video)

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    william
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    On glass armonica and harp/keyboard, on YouTube.