Dear Wife is "watching" two Great-Nieces: the one who lives next door, daughter of niece, and one from a couple miles up the road, daughter of nephew. They're playing together decently, a rarity, but both are due for a nap, soon. Niece gets off work around 4 p.m., not sure about what's going on with nephew's wife -- his birthday is today and I think he's off today, she was going off to donate platelets for some Cause or another.
I've been doing laundry and stuff around here, just got done with another load of dishes (by hand, note). Ran down to ATM to get money to pay the rent on this hovel. Hope it makes it through the winter but I'm starting to have my doubts on that. After that, it could get real difficult for us.
I've been watching the News off and on. Not much good going on, and things seem to be spiraling out of control, worse and worse. I'm tempted to say that this won't end well. Certainly has that appearance.
I am reminded of the poem that Yeats produced, after that great bloodbath of the First World War, the one that the worthless imbecile Woodrow Wilson called the "war to end all wars". He was wrong on that, of course, but then he was wrong about nearly everything. So he's worshiped by the "progressives" to this very day.
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Written in 1919. Sounds like the front pages today.
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Today's Old Testament reading is taken from chapters 4 and 5 of the Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon 4
1 Behold,
thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes
within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from
mount Gilead. 2
Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up
from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among
them. 3 Thy
lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples
are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
4 Thy neck is like the tower of
David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers,
all shields of mighty men.
5 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins,
which feed among the lilies.
6 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will
get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
7 Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. 8
Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from
the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions'
dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
9 Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my
spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one
chain of thy neck. 10
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love
than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
11 Thy lips, O my
spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and
the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
12 A garden inclosed is my
sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
13 Thy plants are an orchard
of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
14 Spikenard and
saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and
aloes, with all the chief spices:
15 A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. 16
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that
the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden,
and eat his pleasant fruits.
Song of Solomon 5
1 I am come
into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my
spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine
with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.
2 I sleep, but
my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,
Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is
filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
3 I have put off my coat;
how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?
4 My beloved
put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for
him. 5 I rose
up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my
fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.
6 I opened to my
beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul
failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called
him, but he gave me no answer.
7 The watchmen that went about the city found me, they
smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil
from me. 8 I
charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye
tell him, that I am sick of love.
9 What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O
thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved,
that thou dost so charge us?
10 My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. 11
His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a
raven. 12 His
eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk,
and fitly set. 13
His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like
lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.
14 His hands are as gold rings set with the
beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.
15 His legs are as
pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as
Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.
16 His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether
lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of
Jerusalem.
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And the New Testament passage is chapter 13 of 2nd Corinthians.
This marks the completion of this epistle.
II Corinthians 13
1 This is the
third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses
shall every word be established.
2 I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were
present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which
heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will
not spare: 3
Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not
weak, but is mighty in you.
4 For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he
liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall
live with him by the power of God toward you.
5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in
the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that
Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
6 But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. 7
Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear
approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as
reprobates. 8 For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. 9
For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we
wish, even your perfection.
10 Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being
present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord
hath given me to edification, and not to destruction.
11 Finally, brethren, farewell.
Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the
God of love and peace shall be with you.
12 Greet one another with an holy kiss. 13 All the saints salute you. 14
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
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