“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, “I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
DANIEL 3:19-30
19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. 20 And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. 21 Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. 22 Because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 23 And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.
24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” 25 He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. 27 And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. 28 Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. 29 Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.
COLLECT FOR PURITY
Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify your holy Name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
ART APPRECIATION
This painting is one of van Gogh’s paintings of the night sky and the effects of light at night. In this painting, we see a more realistic nighttime sky. We see a contrast between the two different types of light: starlight and light coming from the gas lamps, reflected on the river.1
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was born the son of a preacher in 1853 in Holland. He pursued a career in art for most of his life; he was never considered successful, though he worked tirelessly for days, sometimes without stopping to eat! Even though he painted over 800 works, only one painting sold during his lifetime. Van Gogh’s works are characterized by large, sweeping brush strokes using paints in a very thick amount. Sometimes he would store the paint on with a knife, almost like working with clay. Van Gogh also painted still lifes of fruits (lemons and pears) and of flowers (irises and sunflowers). Today, several of his paintings rank among the most expensive in the world! Other painters that lived during van Gogh’s lifetime were Jean-Francois millet, Paul Gaugin, Camille Pissarro, and Claude Monet. 2
MUSIC APPRECIATION
“Lullaby,” op. 49, No. 4 by Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms may have written the world’s most famous lullaby. Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No.4 was dedicated to Brahms’ former lover, Bertha Faber, after the birth of her son. The melody found its way into the first movement of Brahms’ Second Symphony in a slightly altered form.
3
Johannesburg Brahms (1833-1897) was one of the big “Three B’s” of the classical music world and is most widely known by modern audiences for his melodic lullaby, but his influence goes much further afield than simple children’s tunes.
The son of a lower middle class family, Brahms was born in Hamburg of the early 19th century; a scruffy port city filled with exotic traders and seedy traffickers alike. Although in an earlier era, it had been home to a number of fine musicians, it was, at the midpoint of the 19th century, a unseemly and unlikely a place for a future legend to arise as one might imagine. Although admittedly he was no child prodigy, he occasionally dislikened himself to the young Mozart, Brahms would tell listeners on later occasions that his father, a trained musician himself, often arranged Brahms’ early concerts in the public bars of the town. Bars of that place and era doubled as houses of ill-repute; it was an entirely shocking inverse portrait of Brahms’ life overlaid by evoking the measure of natural and wholesome adoration Wolfgang’s father’s evidenced for his child in securing him appointments to all the finest courts of Europe.4
- Lange, Krista, and Leigh Lowe. First Grade Enrichment: Classical Core Curriculum. Teacher Guide. Memoria Press, 2017. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Judd, Timothy. “Brahms’ Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4.” Timothy Judd, Suzuki Violin Lessons, 7 Oct. 2015, timothyjuddviolin.com/tag/carnegie-hall/. ↩︎
- “Johannes Brahms: Kennedy Center.” The Kennedy Center, http://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/b/bo-bz/johannes-brahms/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. ↩︎
Providence School of Tifton 