The Psalmist at Harvest Time

This delightfully agrarian reflection from Psalm 65:

9 You visit the earth and water it;[b]
    you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
     you provide their grain,
    for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
    settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
    and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
    your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
12  The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
    the hills gird themselves with joy,
13  the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
    the valleys deck themselves with grain,
    they shout and sing together for joy.

Chesterton and Aquinas

Reading Chesterton's biography of "The Dumb Ox". There is (as is always the case with Chesterton) such a wealth of wit and insight here, that Aquinas' quote, as related by Chesterton, seems appropriate:
     "When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, 'I have understood every page I ever read.'"

Were I Aquinas, it would be enough to say I have understood every page I have ever written. But that was probably far too modest a goal for such a prodigious mind.

A Truly Astonishing Observation

This from Eugene Peterson's The Pastor:

"Pastor John of Patmos knew his Bible inside and out. The Revelation has 404 verses. In those 404 verses, there are 518 references to earlier scripture. But there is not a single quote; all the references are allusions. Here was a pastor and writer who was absolutely immersed in scripture and submitted himself to it. He did not merely repeat, regurgitate, proof-text. As he wrote, the scriptures were re-created in him. He assimilated scripture. Lived scripture. And then he wrote what he has lived....I wrote an article on Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I recognized it as a tour de force of spiritual theology. I made the comment in my article that there was hardly a page in the book that didn't have an allusion to the Bible, yet there was not a single quote...She wrote to me,"I have been treated very generously by my reviewers. But nobody has ever noticed that the book is saturated in scripture. I wondered if anyone ever would. Thank you for noticing.'"

The Ten Plagues, as Rendered by the Psalmist and Wycliffe

This from Psalm 78:43-52

As he setted his signs in Egypt; and his great wonders in the field of Tanis.
And he turned the floods of them, and the rains of them, into blood; that they should not drink.
He sent a flesh fly into them, and it ate them; and he sent a paddock, and it lost them.
And he gave the fruits of them to rust; and he gave the travails of them to locusts.                            
And he killed the vines of them with hail; and the (syca)more trees of them with frost.
And he betook the beasts of them (un)to hail; and the possession(s) of them (un)to fire.
He sent into them the ire of his indignation; indignation, and ire, and tribulation, sendings-in by evil angels.
He made (a) way to the path of his ire, and he spared not from the death of their lives; and he closed together in death the beasts of them.
And he smote all the first engendered thing(s) in the land of Egypt [And he smote all the first begotten in the land of Egypt]; the first fruits of all the travail of them in the tabernacles of Ham.
And he took away his people as sheep; and he led them forth as a flock in desert.

Ash Wednesday

Here's a great couple of posts from Daniel Montgomery, pastor of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, about why churches should celebrate Ash Wednesday and observe Lent. Some good insight on a day and a calendar period that many Christians still view with suspicion.

http://daniel-montgomery-sojourn.com/5-reasons-you-should-observe-ash-wednesday/

http://daniel-montgomery-sojourn.com/how-we-do-ash-wednesday-at-sojourn/

Merton on "movements"

"All movements fill me with suspicion and lassitude. But I enjoy talking to people (except about movements). I think the best thing is to belong to a universal anti-movement underground."
     ---Thomas Merton, in a letter written to Walker Percy, 1967

Wycliffe Crushing it Again

This from Psalm 46:4-5:

"The fierceness of the flood maketh glad the city of God; the highest God hath hallowed his tabernacle.
God in the midst thereof shall not be moved; God shall help it early in the gray morrowtide."

Pretty great stuff, for a "heretic".