A puff of wind

When I read this beautiful Psalm, Dixi, Custodian, I think of my days studying physical anthropology and homo erectus:

"truly, even those who stand erect are but a puff of wind." (Psalm 39:6)

The Psalmist continues "we heap up riches and cannot tell who will gather them."

No, I do not intend to be gloomy.  There is a comfort in knowing that the Psalms account for our existence, that Scripture has this unmistakeable knowledge of who we are.

Image of homo erectus tautavelensis from Wikimedia Commons.

How we deal with the Truth

Today, the church recognizes the beheading of John the Baptist.  We read in Saint Mark, Chapter 6, the account.

Rembrandt, from Wikimedia Commons, The Beheading of John the Baptist, provides for us the light and dark, the human faces, the passion, the arc of history, the hatred.

Augustine of Hippo characterized it this way in a homily: "...a cruel dispatch, like that of a beast, through hatred of the truth..." (from Monastic Breviary, Matins According to the Rule of Saint Benedict, Society of the Sacred Cross).

Pride, Social Equality and the Condition of Man

From my homilist today, a commentary on the Preacher's canonical subject: pride. What is the cause of our constant bickering about equality (or equity or covetousness or any one of a number of social inventions) from social justice to social preening to entrepreneurship to warfare?

"The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker." (Ecclesiasticus 10:12)

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons: Illustration des Bibelspruchs aus Jesus Sirach 25, 17.


When we compare ourselves to one another yes, perhaps there are distinctions.  When we compare ourselves to God Almighty, the distinctions blur into dust and ashes.


Let us apply our hearts unto wisdom and not withdraw them from our Maker.

Blessed Augustine of Hippo

It is not difficult to find something completely relevant to contemporary life in the text of Augustine; oftentimes, alarmingly relevant.  Today, on the feast day of Saint Augustine, I offer the following from the Confessions (text from Oxford University Press, www.oup.com, Henry Chadwick translation):

"In this immense jungle full of traps and dangers, see how many I have cut out and expelled from my heart, as you have granted me to do, God of my salvation (Ps 17:47; 37:23).  Nevertheless, when so many things of this kind surround our daily life on every side with a buzz of distraction..." From Confessions, Book X (Memory), 56.

Illustration of Augustine from a 6th century fresco, Lateran, Rome - Wikimedia Commons.

Consider how this "buzz of distraction" encircles our lives and let us ask the God of our salvation to grant that we may cut out and expel from our hearts these traps and dangers.

Living Water

What an extraordinary and curiously perplexing claim is "living water."  Jesus declares this in the midst of a Pharisee inquiry:

"...If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." (John 7:37)

Illustration from the Bowyer Bible by Jan Luyken, from Wikimedia Commons.

Corollary of Saint Paul

Or is Saint Paul's statement (About Ourselves) a corollary of Job?  This is another ingenious encapsulation of the human condition; a variation on the theme of humanity.

"If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall prove me perverse." (Job 9:20)

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons, Blaubeuren Chorgestühl Hiob, 1493.

A weaver's shuttle

Job, in his reply to Eliphaz, describes his nightly misery, familiar to many of us:

"When I lie down...I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day." (Job 7:4)

 And further Job sharpens his very accurate descriptions of life as a human:

"My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope." (Job 7:6)

 Consider the beautiful weaver's shuttle and the beauty it assists in producing at the very hands of the suffering human.


Illustration of weaver's shuttles from Wikimedia Commons, Väv, Skyttlar.

Handmade coats and garments

Imagine the legacy of the woman Dorcas, known for her skillful construction of clothing, and to have this recorded in Holy Scripture!

"...all the widows stood by him weeping, and shewing the coats and garments which Dorcas made, while she was with them." (Acts 9:39)

How beautiful to be remembered for such a skill!  This is a wonderful legacy.  We should all aspire to something as pure, noble, and simple.  Think of the example of Dorcas.  Think of the presence of the Lord, the ever constant reality.








Illustration, Raising of Tabitha, by Masolino da Panicale from Wikimedia Commons.

The Promise of a Full Life (Well...Job's version)

Chapter 5 of the Book of Job tells us from the beginning that "...man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." (Job 5:7), but Job also learns that he has a promise of a full and complete life:

"Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season." (Job 5:26)

God is good to his promise.  When you see corn shocks, think of Job.  Think of God's promise to you.








From Wikimedia Commons, Corn Shocks from Forestville, Minnesota.

Returning from a deep sleep - what is in a deep sleep?

We read in Job of what has forever vexed us: thoughts in the night.

"In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men..." Job 4:13

from Wikimedia Commons, Schedelsche Weltchronik, 1493.








Curiously, and speaking to our own experience, the author continues that "it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof..." (Job 4:16)