You probably never thought of these two things at the same time before. I don't think I did, until I read just now this great little commentary in the words of Saruman of Many Colors. (White robes were no longer good enough for him.) I am amazed at how fitting they are in the context of contemporary worship. You see, worship is about power. In the true worship of the Christian Church, it's God's power to save, manifested in the forgiveness of sins and administered through the Means of Grace -- Word and Sacrament -- by those appointed to do so, according to His will. However, it's possible to substitute something else for that power of God. Hear Saruman:

"And listen, Gandalf, my old friend and helper!" he said, coming near and speaking now in a softer voice. "I said we, for we it may be, if you will join with me. A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means."

The point is that God has provided certain means to accomplish His gracious will, when and where it pleases the Holy Spirit. I use the term "Contemporary Worship" to describe the worship movement that seeks not "any real change in our designs, only in our means." If you or your pastor is considering changes to the Divine Service in the interest of evangelism, or in search of effectiveness among a certain demographic, then there is a good chance that you are playing the part of Saruman of Many Colors. Yes, there is such a thing as Christian freedom, but even the Wise can easily lose their way in matters greater than themselves.

Hmm. Well, I've been tagged by Bruce. It seems like kind of a silly game, really, but I'm sure it has interesting results sometimes. And it's not without some fun. Those who know me understand that this is how I appreciate virtually all games.

When you're tagged, you're supposed to

1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages. (How's that for an arbitrary number?)

2. Open to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence. I don't know what you'd do if you run out of text. Maybe keep turning pages, or even get the next book.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people.

6. Tag another. (Which seems completely unnecessary)

I don't think I'll tag five people. It reminds me too much of Amway.

However, the closest book was one I just bought from the book racks of a Goodwill in Portland. It's not even shelved properly. It says:

"Maybe we'll be able to hear the difference between alien phonemes, given enough practice, but it's possible our ears simply can't recognize the distinctions they consider meaningful. In that case we'd need a sound spectrograph to know what an alien is saying."

Colonel Weber asked, "Suppose I gave you an hour's worth of recordings; how long would it take you to determine if we need this sound spectrograph or not?"

For the curious, the book is The Best of SF 4 edited by David G. Hartwell, from 1999. Those lines are from "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang.

I tag the Abrahamsons. That counts for all my tags.

I enjoy music, but several years ago I promised myself that I wouldn't buy any more albums. They were -- and are -- ridiculously expensive, and the rules for sharing, borrowing, and such were so restrictive that "buying" CDs no longer made any sense. Beside that, I have plenty of CDs already, but usually find myself out of range of a CD player.

(I don't spend lots of money on portable gadgets like music players. My only one now is a Palm Tungsten E2, which I use constantly and appreciate for its long battery life.)

Recently I've been listening to my music collection in digital form. I've ripped nearly all my CDs to Ogg Vorbis format, a flexible, high-quality, royalty- and patent-free encoding. Most recently I've been ripping to FLAC, a lossless encoding. One reason for my reluctance to buy a portable music player is the paucity of players supporting the Ogg Vorbis encoding and useful with a Linux desktop. There are some, however, and I think some day I'll take the plunge. Meanwhile, it's been nearly alarming to see the intrusion of the wma (Windows Media) format into the arena of digital recordings, and also the various drm (Digital Rights Management) -encumbered systems.

But now, there's an alternative that will have me buying new music recordings again: Magnatune! Get on over there and check it out. Apple enthusiasts will tell me "We already have this with iTunes!" Not so. Magnatune is an online recording label with a growing collection of quality artists from a broad spectrum of genres. According to a current Linux Journal article, fifty percent of the purchase price of Magnatune music goes directly to the artists. You can sample full albums before buying them. At this moment, I'm sampling a delightful album from American Baroque called Mozart, 4 Quartets for Strings and Wind. It's wonderful music to work by, and I'm only on the fourth track. I may actually buy this album, not only for the music but to support the great work that American Baroque are doing.

When I'm finished sampling this album, I'm going to check out at least one album from American Bach Soloists. They have a recording of Bach's Mass in B Minor. I already have an outstanding recording of that, but I'm curious to hear the differences of interpretation. I'm already tempted to buy their recording of Bach's Cantatas Volume V, and I'm excited to sample an album of Heinrich Schutz music: Musicalische Exequien.

Later, I'd like to hear the music of The Seldon Plan, just because the band's name caught my eye. (Since first writing this post, I've taken a listen. The Seldon Plan is pretty good, but I liked the bluesy guitar of John Williams even better. I'm tempted to buy one or more of his albums.)

So, how much will I pay for the albums I buy? According to the same Linux Journal article, there is a minimum cost of $5 per album, and there is also a maximum. Within those limits, I'll pay what the music is worth to me. What a system! I hope Magnatune's business thrives. Understood in a non-theological sense, their motto seems to be right on the mark: "We are not evil."

Oh, and apparently, Magnatune also provides recordings in the Ogg Vorbis and FLAC encodings, among others.

The publisher Baen, which publishes science fiction, makes certain titles available as free e-books. This was begun to combat the problem of piracy, which I suppose happens when someone buys an e-book and shares it with others by giving them a copy. (There's an unfortunate limitation for e-books, since sharing your printed copies of the same books is not piracy.)

Anyway, one of their freebies is Lars Walker's Wolf Time. If you haven't read any of his writing yet, this would be a good way to try it out. I found Wolf Time to be provocative and entertaining, but you have to like a dark plot. I enjoyed Walker's The Year of the Warrior more than Wolf Time, and have been trying to buy a copy to send as a gift to my dad, but so far it hasn't worked. Amazon can't seem to find a copy. Next, I'll try Powell's.

I've been quite busy this last week with unusual tasks, catching up with some of the big projects at home that have been "on backorder" for a while. I've hardly thought about posting to The Plucked Chicken.

It seems we're getting visitors from surprising places now. There have always been some in Australia. Now I'm seeing more in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. In fact it looks as though the only continent from which The Plucked Chicken is not receiving any visits is Antarctica. Well, it's running on Linux, so I know the penguins are interested at heart.

In Ohio:

• Perrysburg

• Toledo

• Mechanicsburg

• Trenton

• Tipp City

In Michigan:

• Plymouth

• Menominee

• Troy

• Saginaw

A new town in Minnesota with a lone visit this week is the town of Jacobson. Never heard of it before. I wonder if it's spelled right. Also:

• Rushmore

• Adrian

• Princeton

• Owatonna

• Lewiston

• Mcintosh

In Illinois:

• Skokie

• Chicago

• Buffalo Grove

• Windsor

If you recognize among these names the place where your ISP is located, please be welcome to drop me a note introducing yourself. Send it to jmjac at gorge dot net, after fixing the address.

(A Dissociated Press story from the trenches of our Postmodern Psycho-Times)

(For your enjoyment. If you do not enjoy it, do not read it.)

It's well known that Martin Luther had his problems. Here is a brief study of one of them that seems to be resurging in some circles.

No, we will not bring up his medieval opinions about how Christian rulers could best defend the eternal well-being of their subjects from the persistent challenge of unbelieving Jews. We'll save that study for another time.

I'm writing today about the Worms Complex. Martin Luther is the first known case, and it has passed on to Lutherans and others ever since. It seems to be a mutation of the more general Martyr Syndrome, exhibited by the likes of Stephen in Acts chapter 7.

The initial outbreak of the Worms Complex has been captured and reproduced in multimedia, and made available online.

The symptoms are as follows.