The Christmas eve services went well. The choir sounded pretty good and I mostly nailed Messiaen. Today I have more family holiday stuff to do and not too much time to blog, so here’s my annual airing of my favorite religious Christmas poem:

The Burning Babe
BY ROBERT SOUTHWELL, SJ (c. 1561 – 21 February 1595

As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed.
“Alas!” quoth he, “but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.”
With this he vanish’d out of sight and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day.

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All the World’s a Game, and Business Is a Player – NYTimes.com

Gamification hits businesses

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In Aiding Quake-Battered Haiti, Lofty Hopes and Hard Truths – NYTimes.com

Excellent lengthy report by Deborah Sontag

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