4:9, #600: Patience

I think the fact that this is post #600 shows that patience is one of those things you might actually have even when you think you don't and show it over the course of time. In fact, for all you Born Agains out there reading this here dohicky, PLEASE DON'T EVER PRAY 'FOR PATIENCE!!!' You've already GOT it as part of the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." When you say, 'Lord give me patience' the actual translation of the mental email is...'please give me one or more of those trials James 1:2-4 talks about that will make me use the patience I've already got in a way that it'll mature me in the faith!!' For all you Bible scholars who passed through Camp Cornelius at one time or another, that would be my 'dynamic equivalent' translation in the Newly Annotated Sexton Bible, should I ever get around to getting one in print among all the various English translations.

Of course, then the question arises whether or not mine would actually be 'an English translation' or would it more accurately/linguistically be considered 'an American translation,' considering we're two peoples separated by the same language...or something like that, as I recall.

I'm including the public domain picture above as yet another good example of patience...in this class by artist Spitzweg. Click on that photo and check out the incredible detail in the whole thing. I've currently got it on my desktop since I think it's cool, and I have a feeling that it might show up in Whatever Happened to Ishmael? sometime down the road, once Old Pappy Ishmael hits land. Oh, and for those of you who may have clicked on the link to WHTI? and have not told me to 'abandon ship' with my noveling, tankewberrymuch. If you've thought about it...Stifle it, Edith! as Archie Bunker was wont to say on the TV show "All In the Family."

Oh, another good use of patience is playing 'Glory of Rome' on Facebook...man, it takes time to do stuff! But, hey, that gives us addictive personality gamers a chance to multitask with another blogging opportunity while waiting for our palace to be upgraded or a report to come back from our scouts telling us we'll get our butts kicked if we try and go up against whatever region's being scouted. Hey, that reminds me...if any of you Friends want to play the game...it's somewhat of a variant of Age of Empires combined with Heroes of Might and Magic...join the game and let me know so I can offer you a cohort-ship and make you a general of your very own legion!

Well, I'm hungry in the real world, so I'm off to the Grey Havens for something that's waiting for me in the fridge that will take NO patience to eat!
Got end of the year resolutions?

4:8, #599: Snow

Well, here it is, the first major snow fall of winter 2010-2011. It's shaping up to be a pip as it started out coming up the East coast with a curling motion that's turned it into a classic Nor'easter! Yippee, Skippee! By the way, the pic is from last year's 'snowicane.'

Since it's the first one, and I have the plow on the truck already and the truck down by the Grey Havens in position to begin plowing at the appropriate time, and since there is no pressure to get anything cleared away except perhaps Carriage House Hill...yes, WTSers of past days...the Student Center is now The Carriage House and Bookstore Hill is renamed, too, in my little part of the planet; SNOW is not currently a four-letter word. Get back to me towards mid-February and I might have a different opinion, but for now we're copacetic!

Speaking of that, I guess I'd better take a walk outside to change my position here at the computer where I've been composing more of What Ever Happened to Ishmael? and perhaps enjoy the joys of tobacco; which, fyi was 'created good' there in Genesis 1!!
Got a light?

4:7, #598: In Praise of Fat

Back in the 80s I was talking to a guy who was a diesel truck mechanic who dressed out around 300lbs. He told the story of working on a truck with the cab tilted forward while it was snowing and the truck was broken down on the road.

He didn't realize that the fuel pump kept pumping fuel over top of him from a broken fuel line and a spark ignited the fuel; which set him on fire for a time. Someone extinguished the fire, called the paramedics, and when the guy was stabilized in the hospital, the doctors told him the excess amount of fat he had actually had protected his internal organs from burning, saving his life.

He vowed never to worry about his weight again. He pointed out that the experience 'burned like Hell' and I pointed out to him that it probably did not, exactly, and shared the gospel with him. Don't know what happened from that, but added him to my on-going Salvation List.
Guess eternity will tell the tale of what came later...

4:6, #597: Names

Great, great grandmother must have had a premonition about her youngest child even while he was still floating around in the amniotic fluid of his first nine-month habitation. Our family Bible which has come down to me indicates that she was a staunch Calvinist who chose to attend a Presbyterian congregation her entire life after she had 'seen the light' as a young girl, as she was wont to say, according to the stories handed down through the years. She was also a prolific writer...which might explain from whence my proclivities come...and had carefully written comments and notes throughout the large volume she apparently read daily for more than 60 years.

There were all sorts of dates throughout the Old Book that indicate that she was in the habit of reading it from Genesis to Revelation about every 18 months or so; which is significant when we realize that Pappy Ishmael was born on the very day she read the story of Hagar's departure with her son of the same name. As I said, she believed her youngest was going to be a wild one even as she carried him, as many mothers down through the ages have anticipated behavior, both good and bad, of their yet unborn offspring. None of the relatives on either side of our clans had had the name of Ishmael and there were no financial supporters to flatter, so her choice of 'Ishmael' can only be explained by providence, fate, or perhaps the fact that she screamed the name repeatedly while pushing the baby out and prior to one of those incantations the doctor asked, "What will the child be named?"

In any event, Ishmael it was. Fortunately for him, he was born in an age when Biblical names were popular, so his 'brand' was not as heinous as that of Cain's. From what we can piece together, however, he would have adequately defended himself had the local New Yawkers of similar age chided him for his mother's choice of names under somewhat stressful circumstances. The question arises, of course, as to why great great grandfather did not alter the naming process; turns out he was thinking of the same name before the birth event and was delighted to hear his wife not only acquiesce, but advocate the name.

As William Cowper, whose works also adorned great great grandmother's shelves, so adequately wrote long before the blessed event, 'God moves in a mysterious way'...children to be born.

4:5, #596: Whatever Happened to Ismael?

Queequeg's coffin had kept great grandfather Ishmael afloat. As he put it when he retold the tale to Mr. Melville, "the unharming sharks...glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths..." implying they were without appetite in the same fashion as the lions in Daniel's story told in the Old Book. He even had a bit of one-upmanship in his detail, adding that 'the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks." Family tradition has it that great grandfather's flair for language only got more pronounced as he waxed eloquent about his adventures...frequently accompanied by hearty doses of grog or some other palatable liquid!

Well, you've possibly read that the Rachel picked great grandfather up as yet another orphan of the sea with the mostly satisfying 'Finis' as the last word of the story. It was not the last word, let me tell you. Mr. Melville recounted Ishmael's story in 1851 Anno Domini when great grandfather was still a young man in his prime, with the inevitable 'Novembers of the soul' following in the cycle of the spiritual year that all mankind encounters. Not surprisingly, given the Providence of his rescue from a Hell-bound voyage, Pappy, as he came to be known later in life, encountered many more adventures and actually lived to a ripe old age.

But more of that later...

4:4, #595: The Dickens, You Say

Well, I finished A Christmas Carol a bit ago and have a few more things to say. The scene is Ebenezer and Christmas Present overhearing this conversation about Tiny Tim's church going behavior:

'As good as gold,' said Bob, 'and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.' (My italics again.)

Then, in discussing Tim's possible demise, the Spirit reminds Eb of his harsh phrase, "If they're to die, let them do so and decrease the surplus population. This response is even edited out of the 1951 version:

'Man,' said the Ghost, 'if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.'

Finally, when Christmas Future's got him, they see the Cratchits once again, hearing just this phrase read 'from a book' by young Peter Cratchit:

'And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'

Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

The answer to Dickens' narrator's question: Matthew 18:1-3, “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

So, for those who aver that Dickens was only writing a social gospel story, I would contest... Avaunt, Thee, rump fed runions!! (Tip of the hat to Willie Shakespeare!)

Got hot gin punch?

4:3, #594: Unknown Dickens

I'm sitting here reading A Christmas Carol online...let's hear it for technology this time...after watching the Alistair Sims' classic, 'Scrooge,' last night on the 167th anniversary of the publishing of this classic, and have discovered some things not usually made public in or about the Dickens' classic. For instance, in the first chapter when Marley confronts Ebby with the call to Christian evangelism:
'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said, 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?' (My italics.)

Then, when the Ghost of Christmas Present shows up, Scrooge attacks Christian Sabbatarian behavior and is reproved thusly:
'Spirit?' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, 'I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.'

'I!' cried the Spirit.

'You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,' said Scrooge. 'Wouldn't you?'

'I!' cried the Spirit.

'You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,' said Scrooge. 'And it comes to the same thing.'

'I seek!' exclaimed the Spirit.

'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.

'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'

I don't like long posts, so I'll wrap this one here.

Source:[ http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DicChri.html]