The World and Everything in It: December 27, 2024

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning, We’re coming to the end of our Year End Giving Drive, and we do still need you if you’ve not given yet.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Would you do that today? wng.org/YearEndGift What you give here at the end of the year makes such a difference for the year ahead. It’s reporting worth supporting, and I hope you will.

EICHER: wng.org/YearEndGift Meantime, I hope you enjoy today’s program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Culture Friday the female athlete of the year Caitlyn Clark, does she really have apologies to make?

And we’ll talk about a few of WORLD’s Books of the Year, one on marriage, one on discerning the times.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We will. John Stonestreet is standing by.

Also today …

ORGANIZER: I hear Bob is playing electric now.

ALAN LOMAX: Not on our stage, he isn’t.

Oh, but he is … a new biopic on Bob Dylan … WORLD Arts and Culture Editor Collin Garbarino reviews the film, The Complete Unknown …

And later … your listener feedback.

BROWN: It’s Friday, December 27th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR: Azerbaijan Airlines crash update » Investigators looking into the Christmas Day crash of that Azerbaijan Airlines flight in Kazakhstan have uncovered some unsettling possibilities.

Russian military expert Yan Matveyev told the Associated Press it appears the plane was damaged by something very similar to an anti-aircraft missile from a Russian air defense system.

MATVEYEV: [Speaking Russian]

That’s Matveyev… saying Russia was using the air defense system to shoot down Ukrainian drones in the Chechen Republic as the plane was flying through.

He believes the plane sustained damage, but the crew kept going… wrongly thinking they could safely land the plane at the airport in the Kazakhstan city of Aktau. Of course, the plane ended up crashing.

A spokesman for Russian leader Vladimir Putin was asked about the possibility of the plane getting fired upon.

RUSSIAN SPOKESMAN: [Speaking Russian]

Speaking there, he says only that the investigation is ongoing… and it would be wrong to draw conclusions before it’s complete.

More than three-dozen people died when the plane, en route from Azerbaijan to a city in Russia, crashed Wednesday. More than two dozen people on board survived.

Israeli airstrikes in Yemen hit close to WHO leader » Israeli airstrikes meant to weaken Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen… hit very close to a high-level world leader.

World Health Organization leader Tedros Ghebreyesus says he was just a few meters from a control tower, departure lounge, and runway that were damaged… as he prepared to board a flight in the city of Sanaa.

Ghebreyesus was part of a United Nations delegation evaluating the humanitarian situation in Yemen. Israel’s army says it wasn’t aware of the visit.

U.N. leaders called Thursday’s airstrikes especially alarming. U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay…

TREMBLAY: The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and reiterates his call for all parties concerned to cease all military actions and to exercise utmost restraint.

The U.N. says three people were killed and dozens more injured in the strikes. Crews are surveying the damage today to see when Ghebreyesus and the U.N. delegation can leave.

GOP to be down one Senate seat for 10 days due to WV delay » When Congress reconvenes January 3rd, the new Republican majority in the U.S. Senate will briefly be one seat fewer than anticipated.

That’s because West Virginia Senator-elect Jim Justice will wait to take office until January 13th, the day his successor as West Virginia governor is sworn in.

JUSTICE: I don’t want to shirk any responsibility being your governor. At the same time, you were kind enough to elect me as your senator. And I want to do the greatness for this nation and absolutely continue to try to do everything I can possibly do for West Virginia as well.

That’s Justice addressing his constituents over local TV on WCHS.

His late start leaves less margin -52 GOP seats instead of 53- as the new Senate works to confirm President-elect Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Had Justice resigned his governorship early and joined the Senate on January 3rd, West Virginia would’ve had four governors in 10 days… thanks to a combination of West Virginia’s succession protocol and the November election results. Justice wanted to avoid that.

Growing interest from U.S. businesses in buying TikTok » Add billionaire Frank McCourt Jr. to the growing number of U.S. business people… showing interest in buying the popular TikTok app from its Chinese parent company to avoid a coming ban.

McCourt told Fox Business’s The Claman Countdown the app is a national security threat.

MCCOURT: We don’t want to see this ban. We want to see this app continue, just on a clean American stack, with China having no back door, no ability to surveil American citizens, no ability to manipulate 170 million Americans.

Earlier this year, Congress passed a law banning TikTok in the U.S. unless the app’s Chinese parent company sells it.

The ban is scheduled to take effect January 19th, but TikTok is appealing to the Supreme Court… with oral arguments also slated for next month.

Severe storms threat delays holiday travel in southern U.S. » A lot of people will be getting home from Christmas celebrations later than planned, especially if holiday travel took them South.

Stormy weather wiped out more than 700 flights Thursday, most of those headed into or out of Dallas-Fort Worth. National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Hurley describes the threat.

HURLEY: A likelihood in some areas of getting 60- to 70-mile an hour wind, non-tornadic, as well as potentially some large hail as well.

Several people in Texas captured video of possible tornadoes on their smartphones.

All told, 20 million Americans were under a severe storm threat Thursday… from Texas to Louisiana.

California Prop 36 » California now has a new tool in its arsenal to fight shoplifting.

The state's new Proposition 36 law is now in effect. Voters just approved it in the recent election. The law creates tougher penalties for shoplifting and drug trafficking.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told Fox and Friends:

SPITZER: We have the ability to charge felonies for repeat shoplifters. We can accumulate the dollar amount for repeat thefts by an individual. So we don't have to wait for it to hit $950. We can use all of their open cases against them to add up to the cumulative $950.

Nine hundred fifty is the threshold for thefts to become a felony in California. Close to 70 percent of voters cast their ballots in favor of the legislation… which, in addition to theft, also targets homelessness and addiction.

I'm Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: A few of WORLD’s Books of the Year on Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, your listener feedback.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 27th of December, 2024.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

It’s time for Culture Friday, and joining us now is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Good morning!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: WORLD’s Books of the Year are out, John, and I know some of these books you really got a lot out of—two in particular I’d like you to comment on, first the Brad Wilcox book Get Married. Per our books editor Collin Garbarino: the Wilcox book demonstrates that, no matter what cultural elites say, marriage provides the foundation for a healthy social order.

Then second, Life in the Negative World by Aaron Renn. But I want to start with Wilcox. What do you say?

STONESTREET: Brad Wilcox’s book was really, really important. It’s making a case that the church, by and large, hasn’t made for a long time. We’ve done a whole lot on things like “how to do marriage,” but we don't talk about the good of marriage. Of course, we miss the whole conversation on the definition of marriage but even the good of marriage.

You have this narrative promulgated around the culture: that marriage is the ticket to misery, that marriage is the ticket to bondage, particularly for women. It’s the quickest way to be unhappy, we’re told, the quickest way to be sexually unsatisfied (and poor and everything else), and that you can’t be your true self, especially if you’re a woman.

None of that’s ever been true. There’s never been a shred of data that could be considered legitimate and universal to back up that narrative. But it has been really, really powerful.

I guess we could blame the shows of the 1990s, you know, after ’80s television was dominated by The Cosby Show and Family Ties and Family Matters. The 90s had Friends and Seinfeld and Will and Grace, and then it just went downhill from there. And that narrative stuck in all kinds of different ways.

It needs to be unseated because it’s profoundly bad for people to think that marriage is bad, because marriage is profoundly good.

Nobody’s done this research better than Brad Wilcox and the Institute for Family Studies. He is the expert I look to on this fantastic book. Two thumbs up.

EICHER: On the Aaron Renn book, Life in the Negative World, our reviewer Hunter Baker says: Renn’s insights remain relevant despite the unexpected political success of Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Some might see it as a reversal of the “negative world” thesis. Not Hunter Baker. He argues that Trump’s win, achieved as it was with a diminished pro-life focus and a post-Christian Republican Party, rather highlights the complexities of Christian cultural engagement in modern America. What do you think?

STONESTREET: I appreciated Aaron Renn’s thesis when it was an article before it became a book.

I think it's always helpful when people, especially in a time of great cultural upheaval, try to do a “you are here.” They lay out the timeline and try to give you the ideas that are dominant, where those ideas are going to take you, and where the present situation came from. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims.

Ideas also have histories and antecedents. Knowing that frame, it can be really, really helpful. I think that's what the Bible tries to do. Jesus talks about that sort of thing when he refers to the signs of the times. So I always take any attempt as helpful—even if it’s something that I ultimately think is misguided, inaccurate or imprecise, or just misses some some details, because I see things differently.

That probably is where the thesis comes in for me, the negative world thesis that Renn wrote about in the book. I’d have a different timeline. I might use a couple different adjectives. I might change the framing of it a little bit. But honestly, this is the sort of project that has created so much conversation, it’s like The Benedict Option (Rod Dreher).

I joke with Rod that I’m for “Kuyper option.” Benedict and Kuyper have a baby, which I know is a loaded reference today, but that’s the thesis that we need to go to in terms of cultural engagement. But the fact that he wrote The Benedict Option has stood up to time and created the sort of conversation that the church needed to have, and was long overdue.

I think Renn’s work has played that same role, just the punching bag that he threw it out as, let's take this seriously, and he defends it, and people push back. That's made us all better. So, two thumbs up on that. 

As far as Baker’s analysis that the election of Trump doesn’t negate that, and that’s because not all of life is political, I would agree with that. There’s a whole lot more to culture and cultural hostility than politics.

To be honest, at least on a couple really important cultural issues for Christians, it's not clear where Trump’s going to land in the long run. So, you know, I don’t think it disproves Renn’s framework, but that also remains to be seen.

BROWN: So from books to basketball … just this week, Caitlin Clark was named the AP Female Athlete of the year for her impact on and off the court. A few weeks ago, Time Magazine honored her with its Athlete of the Year.

I want to get your take, John, on Clark’s comments after the Time Magazine recognition. Here’s a snippet of what she said… “I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege. A lot of players in the league that have been really good have been black players. The league has kind of been built on them…”

She goes on to say, “ The more we can elevate Black women, that’s going to be a beautiful thing.”

Before you weigh in, let’s listen to a pastor in Chicago…his name is Corey Brooks. Here’s what he had to say about Clark’s comments.

BROOKS: We’ve been through all this before. I remember a reporter asking Red Auerbach, the legendary Celtics owner, if Larry Bird was the new “great white hope.” Auerbach looked at his cigar and then said, “No, great hope.”

Bird himself had to deal with these questions his entire career. Most people my age remember when Isiah Thomas said that if Bird were black “he would just be another good guy.” I remember the way Bird handled it with great character—he refused to take the bait and rose above it all. That is the discipline that we’re missing from our hyper-racialized society.

BROWN: Some people took as an apology. But John how did Clark’s comments about white privilege leave you?

STONESTREET: Well, I mean, I don't think she owed anybody an apology. I do appreciate that a number of times through her career, she's taken credit. She’s actually said, even in that interview that raised so many hackles—including my own—she did say, she would refer to her run as historic.

It was.

There’s nothing like what she did, other than the Larry Bird/Magic Johnson entrance into the NBA. It remains to be seen whether it’ll have that sort of long-term financial impact, and whether there’ll be a Michael Jordan of the WNBA to follow the Caitlin Clark—whoever she is.

Listen, she’s a product of the University of Iowa. Maybe she got those ideas honestly from there. They’re bad ideas. That’s part of the critical-theory mood. But maybe she’s being humble and trying to thank the people that she feels needs to be thanked.

I wouldn’t use terms like “white privilege.” You know, that’s one of the things we talk about all the time at the Colson Center around world view: that the words you choose to use, and what you mean by those words, smuggles in ideas all over the place. I think that’s why so many people had problems with what she said.

But she’s a 20-some-year-old kid, and in our celebrity driven culture, one of the problems we have is putting people up on pedestals way too early. Because someone’s a celebrity, you know, somehow it’s “historic.” I was watching TV after the DNC, when someone announced that Taylor Swift was going to endorse Kamala Harris and called it historic. She’s a singer! I remember when Johnny Depp condemned the invasion of Iraq during the Bush administration. I thought, “Well, he can have an opinion, but why do we care what the pirate of the Caribbean says about the war in Iraq?

Part of me wants to go back and say, “let’s not expect too much.” But because we do, maybe we should all go back and read Neil Postman a couple more times. I sometimes think about that line from Narnia, where the professor is saying, “It’s all in Plato, all in Plato.” I look at these stories, and I want to say, “It’s all in Postman, all in Postman”—just in terms of how we kind of think in a celebrity-driven way.

But listen, I'll keep watching her remarkable talent. Never followed women’s basketball, other than my daughter’s basketball team, of course. But Caitlin Clark has changed that for me, and it's a lot of fun for a big basketball fan when you see somebody bring that level of innovation to the game.

Hopefully she’ll get some some wise voices in her life too.

EICHER: If it’s a matter of accuracy, if it matters, I just want to say, “hey, kid, how about some thanks not so much to the black women of the WNBA but the black men of the NBA who are subsidizing the WNBA?”

There’s no free lunch and the only way the WNBA can keep losing money—even with the boost Caitlyn Clark brings—is because the NBA is covering the debt. You know?

STONESTREET: It’s completely legitimate. You don’t have a WNBA without the NBA. You don’t have an NBA without an awful lot of money that has been generated and raised around the world. You don't have that without Michael Jordan. I was looking at some of the growth that he brought to the league around the world. It's just unbelievable. I haven’t even been close to having any sort of way forward that was profitable or even break-even, until Caitlin Clark. It’s just unnecessary for her to talk about white privilege or anything like that. She's doing something that nobody else did and doing it really well.

EICHER: Well, what a year, John. We don’t talk again until 2025 … so goodbye to 2024 and Happy New Year, my friend.

STONESTREET: Well, yes, goodbye to 2024 I agree, in some ways, good riddance, but Happy New Year. There is hope. Christ is risen

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, December 27th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It… WORLD arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino has a review of that Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

[Bob singing]

COLLIN GARBARINO: Director James Mangold achieved critical acclaim with his biopics Walk the Line and Ford v Ferrari. His new movie, A Complete Unknown, is about Bob Dylan’s early career, loosely adapting Elijah Wald’s book Dylan Goes Electric! Viewers get a glimpse into the life of the only songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as the music scene that he reshaped.

The film takes place over the four years between Dylan’s arrival in New York City in 1961 and his controversial set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. During this brief timespan, Dylan went from being “a complete unknown” to a cultural icon whose mere presence could elicit shrieks from young female fans. Tousle-haired Timothée Chalamet offers a gifted, understated performance as Dylan. He even does his own singing throughout the film.

[singing]

The film begins with Dylan making a pilgrimage of sorts to Greystone Park Hospital to visit his idol Woody Guthrie who’s suffering from Huntington's disease. While visiting Guthrie, Dylan meets fellow folk singer Pete Seeger who takes the young “Bobby” under his wing.

PETE SEEGER: You think of yourself as a folk musician now though, yeah?

BOB DYLAN: I don’t think to myself as a folk singer, you know… this folk music thing. I mean, I do sing folk music when I do it’s sort of a modified version.

Ed Norton gives a phenomenal performance as Seeger, and he too does all his own singing. Seeger introduces Dylan to New York’s folk scene, and it doesn’t take long for people to notice Dylan’s genius. One of those people is Joan Baez with whom he strikes up a romantically charged collaboration.

Another is Sylvie Russo, played by Elle Fanning. She’s a lightly fictionalized version of Dylan’s girlfriend at the time who can be seen clinging to him on the album cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Sylvie works as an activist, and after meeting Bobby at a church concert, she begins to look upon him as another cause that needs her attention.

SYLVIE: There’s a lot I want. You do too. You’re ambitious. I think that scares you.

Part of the plot revolves around the Sylvie-Bob-Joan love triangle. But the film isn’t primarily driven by Dylan’s love of women. It’s driven by his passion for music.

Throughout the film’s 2-hour-and-20-minute runtime, the young troubadour constantly scribbles in notebooks and feels out chord changes as he works on new songs. His genius comes from a fearless dedication to his craft, and he craves songs with feeling. At one point, he calls Baez’s songs “too pretty.” It seems as though he’s flirting with the more established folk singer, but he’s actually offering a real critique.

BOB DYLAN: You try too hard. To write.

JOAN BAEZ: Really?

BOB DYLAN: Yeah. If you’re asking.

JOAN BAEZ: I wasn’t.

Chalamet’s Dylan doesn’t mince words when he speaks his mind. Yes, he’s a genius, but he’s also a little bit of a jerk.

The film is rated R for bad language and near constant cigarette smoking. But it’s a fairly mild R. The language isn’t pervasive, and director Mangold shows admirable restraint in depicting Dylan’s love life.

We never really see the true Dylan. But that’s sort of the point. The movie plays fast and loose with the facts, but the real Bob Dylan’s been lying about his past for his whole career. The film’s title comes from the song “Like a Rolling Stone.” And it’s a good metaphor for the enigmatic bard. He’s inventing and reinventing himself, and we get the sense that in 1961 not even Bob Dylan knew who he really was.

The young Dylan longs to live free from the expectations of others. He finds himself in a perverse situation—wanting to be known, while at the same time wanting to hide himself from fans and friends alike. The more he feels the world is constraining him, the more he wants to escape, even though he doesn’t know what he wants to escape to. It’s not long before Dylan feels that folk music itself has become too constraining.

BOB DYLAN: You know, I sent you an advance of my new record.

PETE SEEGER: Sure. Yeah. I got it.

BOB DYLAN: Did you ever listen to the music you’re telling me not to play?

A Complete Unknown shows how Dylan almost single handedly reshaped the American music landscape, and part of the film’s genius is that it deftly uses the songs to help tell the story. In the 1950s, folk music was considered subversive: a man or woman alone with a guitar speaking truth to power. Folk musicians believed their social movement, much of it tinged with socialism, derived moral authority by singing songs of the people in a stripped down style. In the 21st century, it’s easy to forget “This Land Is Your Land” was a protest song.

All of this leads to his controversial electric set at the Newport Folk Festival.

ORGANIZER: I hear Bob is playing electric now.

ALAN LOMAX: Not on our stage he isn’t. There is no rock ‘n’ roll in Newport.

PETE SEEGER: There is no need to be dogmatic.

The film sets up the true-believing soft-spoken Seeger as the foil to Dylan, who is less interested in social justice than he is in his art. Dylan’s mercurial personality and musical experimentation were seen as a betrayal by the folk music scene that had made him a star. The folk establishment had no idea that “the times they are a changin’.”

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, December 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Time now for Listener Feedback.

We begin with a quick correction: Back on December 11th … in a story about wildfires in Southern California … we misidentified public-safety officer Robert Luna as a chief of police. That’s wrong. He is rather sheriff of LA County.

Next … some were confused by our use on a recent Doubletake of the term “unthaw.” Some say that’s incorrect … redundant at best, contradictory at worst. Because after all, to thaw is to move from frozen solid to frozen no longer. To unthaw in that sense would be to do the opposite, under this view.

At WORLD, though, we follow AP Style … except in the case of the exceptions … and AP’s authoritative dictionary … and therefore ours … is Merriam Webster. Here’s the entry: “Although unthaw as a synonym of thaw is sometimes cited as an illogical error, it has persisted in occasional use for more than four centuries. … First known use, 15-98.” That’s the final word until it’s not.

BROWN: Speaking of Doubletake …

BRETT: Hi, this is Brett calling from Tennessee. I just finished listening to the two-part series “In Glass” on IVF and adoption and I just really appreciate that you guys covered this story. I'm actually early in the pregnancy right now through embryo adoption. So I appreciate both the thoughtful, and critical discussion that was had around it. I think Christians just really need to have a knowledge and a theology about this and it starts by having conversations like this. So I just wanted to say thank you for doing that report and I did share it with a couple of the gals I know who also went through embryo adoptions and listened to the first part and I know they appreciated it.

EICHER: Listener Ian McAllistar from Hinsdale, Massachusetts left us a voicemail about a story this month about a woman who took the first dose of a chemical abortion pill, then had second thoughts, but struggled to find the information she needed to reverse the process.

IAN MCALLISTAR: I just listened to Leah Savas's excellent, compelling piece on abortion pill reversal. Just wanted to thank you for that. Really fascinating, well put together. I had heard a lot of that material before but never put together that way, in such an amazing, kind of all in one story like that. So thank you very much for all the great work you do. Keep up the good work and we’ll keep listening.

Our technical production guys are an absolutely crucial part of the team working late, working holidays and they don’t say much, but the work they do makes quite a statement.

I love it when listeners recognize the skill they bring …

MATTHEW TUCK: Matthew Tuck … Los Gatos, California. Special praise for the music editors who chose Live and Learn as the outro music for Colin Garbarino’s review of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Fans of the video game franchise will recognize that as coming from Shadow’s first appearance—Shadow being an important character in that film. I wanted to praise you for your attention to detail. Thanks so much.

BROWN: After last week’s shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, we featured excerpts of a prayer service held at City Church. Here’s listener Scott Roberts of Branson, Missouri.

SCOTT ROBERTS: It was so precious to be able to listen to those people, and it was as if I was there, being able to mourn with those who mourn. Thank you for all you do.

EICHER: Next, Matthew Wagoner from North Carolina left us a voicemail after learning Bob Case was coming back with his occasional series on the Great American Songbook:

MATTHEW WAGONER: You guys have been part of the family, and each morning, when I listen, I just feel like I'm hanging out with my family. Thank you so much for your ministry. Even though it's 19 degrees this morning, my heart is so warm because I heard that you guys are going to be bringing Bob Case back occasionally. Bob reminds me of my deceased Uncle David, just such a warm, jolly fellow, and I am really looking forward to hearing his voice again and hearing from the American Songbook. Thank you guys so much for all you do. I love you. We're praying for you, and we so enjoy supporting your ministry. Love you guys, bye, bye.

That’s kind, and I’m glad to hear it said like that. The work we do of course is motivated by love for Christ and for His people, and so that love does flow both ways. Thank you all so very much.

BROWN: And one last voicemail this morning, this one came in from another grateful listener, Carlan Wendler, a medical missionary who listens in Burundi. He sent us this voicemail along with a poem that he wrote.

CARLAN WENDLER: Thank you guys for all that you do at The World and Everything in It. You educate, inform, inspire, and actually give a little modicum of peace in a world that is always torn apart by so many conflicts and challenges. I thank you guys… I wanted to read you this poem for Thanksgiving. I'd actually love it if George Grant would read it, but I think … maybe that's not possible … it's called: How will a stone praise you? From Luke 19:40…

I’ll jump in here to say our producer Paul Butler sent his poem over to George who not only enjoyed it, but did record it.

So, that’s how we’ll end the year of listener feedback with George Grant reading “How will a stone praise you?”

GEORGE GRANT: How Will A Stone Praise You? by Carlan Wendler

Some birds can whistle, warble, call;
While kid and lamb bleat in their stall.
Colt and mare snort, whiny and neigh.
Calf and cow lo amidst their hay.
Frogs will croak while chirp the crickets,
And squeak the mice of field (and) thicket.
The bees they bustle, buzz and hum;
And lizards slither when they run.
Quacks and honks and cries and roars,
Creation’s praise mounts. It soars.
But how will a stone praise You?
Leaves can rustle, crumple, crack
And brushing branches veer and tack.
Rain can beat and drum and flow
While shushing is the fall of snow.
The waves they batter, lap or bash —
As peals of thunder clap and crash.
The rushing river sounds applause,
And glaciers grind and pop their flaws.
Howls the wind…or whispers near;
All things are heard to Maker’s ear.
But how will a stone praise You?
A thrown stone whizzes, a dropped stone clacks
With ruckus down a valley’s cracks —
Or finds a pond to plunk and splash
And gurgle, gargle, breathe its last.
Great stones groan and grate and grind —
While small stones gravel grovels fine.
Shifts sands will sweep and swish.
And lava grumbles with a hiss.
Yet You have chosen in Your grace
The human voice to give You praise.
And though you gave us great surrounds,
All You ask are grateful sounds.
So breathe again into this clay
And raise a note of joy today.
Replace with flesh this heart of stone
And let it beat a thankful tone.
We thank You for the gift of life —
For coming down amidst our strife.
We thank You for the Cross and Grave
And Path of Pardon that they pave.
We thank You for Your family’s name,
For Union though we’re not the same.
We thank You that the Son of God
Was hidden in an earthy clod.
So how could a stone not praise You?

EICHER: Thanks so much to everyone who wrote and called in this year. We’re grateful for the time you give to listen each day and for your feedback.

We love it when you interact with what you hear on The World and Everything in It …

If something we’ve reported makes you think, makes you act, raises a question you hadn’t thought of before, helps you understand something you didn’t, please join the conversation. 

BROWN: You can email us: editor@wng.org. You can include an audio file and attach to your email. You can even phone it in at 202-709-9595.

And that’s Listener Feedback!

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, it’s time to say thanks.

First, thanks to you if you’ve made your gift to our Year End Giving Drive. If not, there is still time … wng.org/YearEndGift.

And now thanks to the team members who helped put the program together this week:

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Emma Perley, Mary Muncy, Grace Snell, Bob Case, Lindsay Mast, Janie B Cheaney, Bonnie Pritchett, Juliana Chan Erickson, Travis Kircher, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, and Collin Garbarino.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Mark Mellinger, Lynde Langdon, Travis Kircher, Lauren Canterberry, Josh Schumacher, and Christina Grube.

Thanks to the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early … Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Our producers are Paul Butler, Kristen Flavin, and Harrison Watters…with assistance from Lauren Dunn and Benj Eicher.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Psalmist writes: “The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” —Psalm 145 verses 17 and 18

Be sure and worship with your brothers and sisters in Christ in church on the Lord’s Day! And, Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

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