It'll take your family heirlooms, but it can take your darkest sins

[sovay]

I have just had a poem accepted that I will announce tomorrow. I am extremely happy about the acceptance, if not about the political situation that sparked the writing of the poem.

I just received an e-mail from President Peter Salovey of Yale that the university has decided to rename Calhoun College for Grace Hopper. The statement and the two linked reports are worth reading.

This song from Brandi Carlile's The Firewatcher's Daughter (2015) has been playing on repeat since ladymondegreen linked me to it. But nothing scares me more than the stranger at my door who I fail to give shelter, time, and worth.

Last night I started coughing and this morning I woke up sneezing and I just had to cancel an invitation for dinner from friends who really don't need whatever the hell this is on top of whatever their small child might already have brought home from daycare. I think my plans for the rest of the day are to finish writing about a movie and then see if I can either stare at another one or pass out.

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Wasn't "Amazing Grace" written by a slave trader? Admittedly he repented later, but still.

[sovay]

Wasn't "Amazing Grace" written by a slave trader? Admittedly he repented later, but still.

Yes, which I think is sort of the point. He also became a serious and active abolitionist, so it's not as though he just wrote songs about his change of mind.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

There's a chapter of Alan Moore's _Jerusalem_ that attempts to grapple with that contradiction.

[sovay]

There's a chapter of Alan Moore's _Jerusalem_ that attempts to grapple with that contradiction.

Does it do it well?

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I thought so, though I make no claims as to the mileage of others.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

From all the evidence I've seen, the hymn was written well before his change of mind. I could be wrong about that, and I'm sure I'm biased as I disliked "Amazing Grace" before I knew anything about the author.