Where will you most easily find a maelstrom?
The word maelstrom is likely to be used today to describe a bustling office, downtown traffic or hurricane winds. Turbulence, chaos, bustle and similar notions are linked to a maelstrom.
Originally, however, way back in the mid 1500’s, it had a specific meaning which put it on the map, so to speak. The Dutch cartographer (map maker) Mercator, who has given us today’s commonly used map, the Mercator Projection, located a specific maelstrom off the northwest coast of Norway.
So, where will you most easily find a maelstrom? On an ancient Dutch map. Well, you might be lucky to ever find one anywhere else, since they are hardly common.
A maelstrom is a huge whirlpool. It comes from the linking of grinding/swirling and stream or waters. Grinding, swirling waters make a maelstrom.
Movie-goers will most easily find a maelstrom in the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Computer animation creates a vast maelstrom, even called such by the sailor who first spots it. So if you’d like to get the sense for a maelstrom in action get to your nearest video shop.
Because of the upheaval and destruction caused by a maelstrom it becomes an appropriate metaphor for intense activity and swirling destruction.
May your life be spared the maelstroms of nature, society and personal upheaval.
Archives for May 2008
Niclaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf – Christian Revolutionary
This is the day that … Niklaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was born, in 1700.
Born to an aristocratic German family Count Zinzendorf is described as the Rich Young Ruler who said ‘Yes’. At age 6 he impressed people with his prayers. At age 20 he felt the call do whatever Christ asked, no matter the cost. At age 22, as heir to one of Europe’s leading royal families, he opened his property to refugees.
Starting with a group of ten that arrived in December, 1722, Zinzendorf was hosting ninety by May of 1725, and over 300 by late 1726. The community was given the name “Herrnhut”, meaning “The Lord’s Watch.” In little time it grew into a small city of Christian citizenry. From here a number of missionaries went forth to evangelise. This was the beginning of the Moravian movement, which would later play a part in the conversion of John Wesley.
Zinzendorf renounced his life as a nobleman and is rightly regarded as “one of the greatest missionary statesmen of all times”.
Yet, one author speaks of his “arrogance and conceit” and the gruesome obsession” with our Lord’s physical sufferings which temporarily nearly wrecked this missionary movement (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, by Ruth Tucker).
From his pen came 2000 hymns, many of which still appear in church hymnals, including:
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness,
my beauty are, my glorious dress.
’midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head!
The Moravian community was well organised but soon fell into jealousy, division and discord. Zinzendorf sought to address this and in August 1727 the community was moved to repentance and experienced a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Zinzendorf died in Herrnhut on 9 May, 1760.
Logophile – Canorous
Which sense identifies what is canorous?
We have five senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. Something that is canorous might possibly touch two of those. Principally, however, it is the sense of hearing that will appreciate that which is canorous.
Canorous comes from a base which speaks of song and melody. Anything that is pleasant to the ear could be said to be canorous. Birds singing, a melodious speaking voice, choir singing and even the hum of a motor.
Now some sounds are not only resonant, but cause things to vibrate, such as with rumbling thunder. So a canorous sound could be sensed by our touch.
When I was in my first year at school, in the small country town of Lake Cargelligo, central New South Wales, there was a deaf boy in my class. When we did class singing the teacher would lead him by the hand and sit him at her feet, putting his hands onto the wooden panels as she played the piano. He could not hear the music but he could feel the vibrations from the sound-board. This would always bring the most delighted look to his face.
May the sounds that surround you be sweetly canorous and may your home be filled with the music of the heart and soul.
John Raleigh Mott – Ecumenist
This is the day that … John Raleigh Mott was born in New York State, in 1865.
He was an Ameican Methodist evangelist and became “the most influential world religious leader of the 20th century” – according to Ruth Tucker (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, page 268).
He influenced more students onto the mission field during his lifetime than any other Christian leader.
At the age of 32 he was acclaimed as “Protestantism’s leading statesman” (20th Century Dictionary of Christian Biography).
In 1886 he had responded for missionary service at D.L. Moody’s student conference … and in the nearly 70 years that followed he travelled two million miles, stirring up missionary interest … and “plagued with sea sickness”.
In 1910 he served as Chairman, and organiser, of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, a movement designed to bring mission societies together and face them with the challenge of “the evangelisation of the world in this generation…”
But it was not to be. The “social gospel” replaced evangelism and the Edinburgh Conference became the forerunner of the World Council of Churches. Mott was the opening speaker in 1948 when the W.C.C. was officially launched … and became Honorary President.
His ecumenical leaning was also seen as president of the YMCA when he encouraged Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians to become members (Dictionary of Christianity in America, page 779). Mott is credited with starting the ecumenical movement, initially as a protestant domain, but then extended to non-protestant denominations (Learning to Give).
At age 81 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He travelled widely covering more than two million miles (equal to seventy times around the world).
After his first wife died in 1952 he remarried a year later (at the age of 88). He died on 31 January, 1955.
And I notice that one book claims “Raleigh” was a fictitious name he gave himself when he was 11 years of age! (20th Century Dictionary of Christian Biography, page 265).
Frederick Arvid Blom – Swedish Preacher
This is the day that … Frederick Arvid Blom died in Sweden in 1927, at the age of 60.
Fredrick was born in Sweeden, May 21 1867 in Bred parish. In 1883 he took a degree in navigation and became a sailor. In 1902 he was declared “not found” in Sweeden – which suggests he absconded.
He spent some years in the Salvation Army in Chicago. He attended Bible College … and then pastored an evangelical church … until 1915. Then Mr Blom “fell deeply into sin and spent some years in prison.” His biographer does not reveal the details. Blom himself wrote: “I drifted from God … and became embittered with myself, the world, and not the least with ministers who looked upon me with suspicion because I was a member of the Socialist Party.”
Some time later Blom resumed his walk with God and pastored a Swedish Congregational Church in Pennsylvania until 1921. At that time he returned to Stockholm, Sweden and was active in ministry in the Swedish Covenant Church and the Swedish Baptist Church until his death six years later.
His well-known gospel song – popularised by George Beverly Shea some years ago – is:
He the pearly gates will open so that I may enter in …
One biographer tells us that it is generally believed Blom wrote this hymn either in prison or shortly after his release. Verse two may well reflect his own spiritual pilgrimage –
Like a sparrow, hunted, frightened, weak and helpless – so was I;
Wounded, fallen, yet He healed me – He will heed the sinner’s cry.
Amen!