glad he wrote

There are kindred spirits.

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out. 

― Ryokan (1758-1831)

Mud everywhere.

Soon, in Maine, green grass and colorful flowers.

All by themselves.

his edge, a chip

Trying not to

think

about it

"There's nothing in my head" the golfer said in post second round interview.

A commentator, afterwards, wondered if that were possible.

He was not on his cushion.

His head was full of doubt.

Day three of the Augusta Masters soon to dawn.

Dripping drumroll from roof melt laying down a slow beat.

walking through

Is God that which we walk through?

Is God that Reality through which everything moves and has their being?

The reality of God is the Reality which is God.

It takes no effort to be surrounded by God.

Awareness of this surround is what used to be called spiritual life.

Now, life itself is all that is necessary to realize God.

Wu wei.

listen, willingly

If you listen.

Intelligently.

Something reveals itself.

 “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” (– Aristotle)

Receiving is one thing. 

Entertaining is one thing

Accepting is another.

Be willing to listen.

We need one-another.

backward and forward

There are times when unusual scholarship about a little noticed topic fits perfectly into an afternoon's reading.

Just as something one way becomes something another way without leaving its original way.

With the emendation restoring the palindrome, the vocalized text of v. 4bcc reads wehäyä he äqöb lëmîsôr wërôsîm lëbiq â, and it means "And the rough landwill become a smooth land, and mountaintops will become a deep valley." Why did the author of Second Isaiah compose a palindrome here in Isa 40:4b, reversing on one side of a pivotal waw the consonants he placed on the other side of that waw? For one thing, Second Isaiah was the sort of person who

     23 The original text is the text produced by the author, "the copy [or textual tradition] that contained the finished literary product and which stood at the beginning of the process of textual transmission" (Ε. Τον, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991] 171). The archetype is the text that can be reconstructed from the existing evidence in manuscripts and in ancient versions. Sometimes, there is "a large interval of time between the date of the archetype . . . and the original composition" (ibid., 167).

     2 4 "A diagnostic conjecture is an educated guess, sometimes no more than a filler or place- marker for a corrupt text" (Ronald S. Hendel, The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition [New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998] 9). 

         

559 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 66, 2004

took delight in chiasms and concentricities generally. 25  He was creative. 26 
Beyond that, Second Isaiah had a particular reason to compose a palindrome at this particular, introductory, point in his work. In the rest of his work he would write of the reversal of historical events, of a return westward from an exile eastward, and he surely saw that a palindrome was, of its very essence, a form expressing reversal, manifesting movement in an opposite direction. Furthermore, in Isa 40:4b he was using the symbolism of geophysical reversal: rough land wouldbecome smooth, high mountains would become deep valleys.

     25 Anitti  Laato ("The Composition of Isaiah 40-55," JBL 109 [1990] 207-28) has shown a5chiastic macrostructure in Isaiah 40-55 as a whole. Freedman ("Structure of Isaiah 40:1-11") has viewed Isa 40:1-11 as a whole made up of a first part (vv. 1-4) and a second part (vv. 6-11) set around a "certerpiece" (v. 5); he has also noticed a reverse order of the divine names in each of the two parts.  

     26 On literary artistry, and on sometimes playful delight in variety as an explanation of variant spellings in the OT, see James Barr, The Variable Spellings of the Hebrew Bible (Schweich Lectures, 1986; Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) 194-97.

(from, Palindrome in Isaiah 40:4b: Allowing Restoration of an Original Reading, AELRED CODY, O.S.B. St. Meiηrad Archabbey St. Meinrad, IN 47577 

  560 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 66, 2004

The slender cat looks over my shoulder this sunny Thursday anniversary of a time long gone but fondly recalled.

Life together, even if apart, remains life together.

where’s thus

If you don’t know, don’t know —  be grateful.

If you know, know — be humble.

If you neither know nor don’t know, be among us — you are our teacher, our help and salvation.

Who can accept this as what is right before you?

what words do

There is a new being born whenever two beings step into interrelational presence with one another.

Words marry beings.

We are
Not
Alone.

and still don’t

Why do

I listen?

I don’t know —

That’s why

buzzer

Virginia, National Champions!

morphing

1.

He slept last evening

after prune juice

and water

as lullabies played

Brahms and Disney

two weeks until

first birthday.



2.

She slept for

good as wood chair

pulled to side

of bed, I sit --

flickering residue

images of prior

night cable news

no longer of

interest.



3.

The nurse's dog

in main lobby

separates head

from doll's body

as CNA fills notes

her droll words

explaining

everything.