Favorite Hymns

This morning in church we mixed it up and only had a piano (a fantastic pianist) and only sang hymns. Although we sang several favorites, The Old Rugged Cross is by far my favorite for several reasons including great lyrics, it's in a 6/8 time measure and one particular memory.

I can remember sitting in the evening service with my grandparents in the Ellington Wesleyan Church, bright red carpet, long pine pews that reflected the bright fluorescent lamps and the feeling of being the youngest in attendance by at least 25 years. Regardless, attenders would request hymns and the small gathering of 10-20 people would sing. I can see and hear my grandfather singing in his off pitch, extra loud voice with incredible unexplainable joy. Just looking back on that memory makes me smile and I hope that my life becomes one of service in tune with God's will as much as his is.

You can always find this hymn online, I'm sure all over YouTube but here are the lyrics, I challenge you to carefully read each verse and chorus and take a couple minutes to reflect on the story this tune tells.

1. On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
   The emblem of suff’ring and shame;
   And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
   For a world of lost sinners was slain.
2. 
   
3. Refrain:
4. So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
5. Till my trophies at last I lay down;
6. I will cling to the old rugged cross,
7. And exchange it some day for a crown.
8. Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
   Has a wondrous attraction for me;
   For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
   To bear it to dark Calvary.
9. Refrain:
   So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
   Till my trophies at last I lay down;
   I will cling to the old rugged cross,
   And exchange it some day for a crown.
10. In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
    A wondrous beauty I see,
    For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
    To pardon and sanctify me.
11. Refrain:
    So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
    Till my trophies at last I lay down;
    I will cling to the old rugged cross,
    And exchange it some day for a crown.
12. To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
    Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
    Then He’ll call me some day to my home far away,
    Where His glory forever I’ll share.
13. Refrain:
    So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
    Till my trophies at last I lay down;
    I will cling to the old rugged cross,
    And exchange it some day for a crown.

Staying sharp

A couple years back I had asked my boss to help me with learning the UNIX file system running my wonderful Mac OS X. More or less, it's the "under the hood" for Apple's operating system as well as other UNIX distributions like Ubuntu. He soon realized he wouldn't have time and instead bought me a book, "A practical guide to UNIX for Mac OS X Users" found here at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-UNIX-Mac-Users/dp/0131863339

It's a good book and I've decided I'm going to do at least a chapter a week, answer the end of the chapter questions and turn them in to the boss or one of our other system administrators as "homework" and allow them to keep me accountable.

Of course this seems fairly manageable... however... One of the Borders bookstores near us is closing and my wife and I stopped by to see if there were any decently discounted books. I was disappointed, all the books I was interested in were still cheaper on Amazon. (Oh how much money my iPhone has saved me being able to check prices while in a store!) I was standing in the technology section and had a stack of books I was still interested in and it was feeling rather depressed. So much of the information on those pages I just wanted to absorb so I could use the knowledge and practice as tools in my day to day work as a web designer (JavaScript Joomla, Flash, etc), help desk technician, Mac OS X guru etc.

Needless to say, I'll work my way through my current text book (approximately 2 inches thick) before starting my next one. Luckily enough, we've been talking about some training time for work so I'm excited about that when the time comes.

I challenge you to take an hour a week to study something in your field and don't skip the questions at the end of the chapters!