Psalm 89

Psalm 89 (RSV)

1 I will sing of thy steadfast love, O LORD, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations.
2 For thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens.
3 Thou hast said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant:
4 `I will establish your descendants for ever, and build your throne for all generations.'"
5 Let the heavens praise thy wonders, O LORD, thy faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!
6 For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD,
7 a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and terrible above all that are round about him?
8 O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as thou art, O LORD, with thy faithfulness round about thee?
9 Thou dost rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, thou stillest them.
10 Thou didst crush Rahab like a carcass, thou didst scatter thy enemies with thy mighty arm.
11 The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine; the world and all that is in it, thou hast founded them.
12 The north and the south, thou hast created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise thy name.
13 Thou hast a mighty arm; strong is thy hand, high thy right hand.
14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before thee.
15 Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance,
16 who exult in thy name all the day, and extol thy righteousness.
17 For thou art the glory of their strength; by thy favor our horn is exalted.
18 For our shield belongs to the LORD, our king to the Holy One of Israel.
19 Of old thou didst speak in a vision to thy faithful one, and say: "I have set the crown upon one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people.
20 I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him;
21 so that my hand shall ever abide with him, my arm also shall strengthen him.
22 The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him.
23 I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
25 I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers.
26 He shall cry to me, `Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.'
27 And I will make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth.
28 My steadfast love I will keep for him for ever, and my covenant will stand firm for him.
29 I will establish his line for ever and his throne as the days of the heavens.
30 If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my ordinances,
31 if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments,
32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with scourges;
33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love, or be false to my faithfulness.
34 I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
35 Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.
36 His line shall endure for ever, his throne as long as the sun before me.
37 Like the moon it shall be established for ever; it shall stand firm while the skies endure."
38 But now thou hast cast off and rejected, thou art full of wrath against thy anointed.
39 Thou hast renounced the covenant with thy servant; thou hast defiled his crown in the dust.
40 Thou hast breached all his walls; thou hast laid his strongholds in ruins.
41 All that pass by despoil him; he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
42 Thou hast exalted the right hand of his foes; thou hast made all his enemies rejoice.
43 Yea, thou hast turned back the edge of his sword, and thou hast not made him stand in battle.
44 Thou hast removed the scepter from his hand, and cast his throne to the ground.
45 Thou hast cut short the days of his youth; thou hast covered him with shame.
46 How long, O LORD? Wilt thou hide thyself for ever? How long will thy wrath burn like fire?
47 Remember, O Lord, what the measure of life is, for what vanity thou hast created all the sons of men!
48 What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?
49 Lord, where is thy steadfast love of old, which by thy faithfulness thou didst swear to David?
50 Remember, O Lord, how thy servant is scorned; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples,
51 with which thy enemies taunt, O LORD, with which they mock the footsteps of thy anointed.
52 Blessed be the LORD for ever! Amen and Amen.

Patriotism, Twain-style

"As Regards Patriotism"

written by Mark Twain around 1900

It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that it perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent upon him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to any one else or not.

In Austria and some other countries this is not the case. There the State arranges a man's religion for him, he has no voice in it himself.

Patriotism is merely a religion -- love of country, worship of country, devotion to the country's flag and honor and welfare.

In absolute monarchies it is furnished from the Throne, cut and dried, to the subject; in England and America it is furnished, cut and dried, to the citizen by the politician and the newspaper.

The newspaper-and-politician-manufactured Patriot often gags in private over his dose; but he takes it, and keeps it on his stomach the best he can. Blessed are the meek.

Sometimes, in the beginning of an insane and shabby political upheaval, he is strongly moved to revolt, but he doesn't do it -- he knows better. He knows that his maker would find it out -- the maker of his Patriotism, the windy and incoherent six-dollar sub-editor of his village newspaper -- and would bray out in print and call him a Traitor. And how dreadful that would be. It makes him tuck his tail between his legs and shiver. We all know -- the reader knows it quite well -- that two or three years ago nine-tenths of the human tails in England and America performed just that act. Which is to say, nine-tenths of the Patriots in England and America turned Traitor to keep from being called Traitor. Isn't it true? You know it to be true. Isn't it curious?

Yet it was not a thing to be very seriously ashamed of. A man can seldom -- very, very seldom -- fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy. For many a year -- perhaps always -- the training of the two nations had been dead against independence in political thought, persistently inhospitable toward Patriotism manufactured on a man's own premises, Patriotism reasoned out in the man's own head and fire-assayed and tested and proved in his own conscience. The resulting Patriotism was a shop-worn product procured at second hand. The Patriot did not know just how or when or where he got his opinions, neither did he care, so long as he was with what seemed the majority -- which was the main thing, the safe thing, the comfortable thing. Does the reader believe he knows three men who have actual reasons for their pattern of Patriotism -- and can furnish them? Let him not examine, unless he wants to be disappointed. He will be likely to find that his men got their Patriotism at the public trough, and had no hand in their preparation themselves.

Training does wonderful things. It moved the people of this country to oppose the Mexican war; then moved them to fall in with what they supposed was the opinion of the majority -- majority-Patriotism is the customary Patriotism -- and go down there and fight. Before the Civil War it made the North indifferent to slavery and friendly to the slave interest; in that interest it made Massachusetts hostile to the American flag, and she would not allow it to be hoisted on her State House -- in her eyes it was the flag of a faction. Then by and by, training swung Massachusetts the other way, and she went raging South to fight under that very flag and against that foretime protected-interest of hers.

Training made us nobly anxious to free Cuba; training made us give her a noble promise; training has enabled us to take it back. Long training made us revolt at the idea of wantonly taking any weak nation's country and liberties away from it, a short training has made us glad to do it, and proud of having done it. Training made us loathe Weyler's cruel concentration camps,* training has persuaded us to prefer them to any other device for winning the love of our "wards."

There is nothing that training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach or below it. It can turn bad morals to good, good morals to bad; it can destroy principles, it can re-create them; it can debase angels to men and lift men to angelship. And it can do any one of these miracles in a year -- even in six months.

Then men can be trained to manufacture their own Patriotism. They can be trained to labor it out in their own heads and hearts, and in the privacy and independence of their own premises. It can train them to stop taking it by command, as the Austrian takes his religion.

Visual by www.PDImages.com

Martyrdom of the Bab

Martyrdom of the Bab. The Bab was a Persian merchant who claimed to be a manisfestation of God and was the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh. The word "bab" means "gate" in Arabic.

He was executed on this day in 1850 at the age of 31 after a 6-year ministry.

Information on the photo used above is available here.

Selections from the Bab's writings are available online here, here, here and here.

Psalm for Sunday

Psalm 48 (NRSV)

1 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain,
2 beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King.
3 Within its citadels God has shown himself a sure defense.
4 Then the kings assembled, they came on together.
5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic, they took to flight;
6 trembling took hold of them there, pains as of a woman in labor,
7 as when an east wind shatters the ships of Tarshish.
8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God establishes forever. Selah
9 We ponder your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.
10 Your name, O God, like your praise, reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with victory.
11 Let Mount Zion be glad, let the towns of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.
12 Walk about Zion, go all around it, count its towers,
13 consider well its ramparts; go through its citadels, that you may tell the next generation
14 that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will be our guide forever.

Sunday Psalm

Psalm 9 (NRSV)

1 I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

2 I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

3 When my enemies turned back, they stumbled and perished before you.

4 For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgement.

5 You have rebuked the nations, you have destroyed the wicked; you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.

6 The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins; their cities you have rooted out; the very memory of them has perished.

7 But the Lord sits enthroned for ever, he has established his throne for judgement.

8 He judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with equity.

9 The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

10 And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

11 Sing praises to the Lord, who dwells in Zion. Declare his deeds among the peoples.

12 For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.

13 Be gracious to me, O Lord. See what I suffer from those who hate me; you are the one who lifts me up from the gates of death,

14 so that I may recount all your praises, and, in the gates of daughter Zion, rejoice in your deliverance.

15 The nations have sunk in the pit that they made; in the net that they hid has their own foot been caught.

16 The Lord has made himself known, he has executed judgement; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.

17 The wicked shall depart to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.

18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish for ever.

19 Rise up, O Lord! Do not let mortals prevail; let the nations be judged before you.

20 Put them in fear, O Lord; let the nations know that they are only human.

World Refugee Day

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

is an impartial, non-political humanitarian organisation mandated by the United Nations to lead and co-ordinate international action for the world-wide protection of refugees and the resolution of refugee problems.

There is a 6-page pdf full-color leaflet that can be printed and shared that gives an overview of the need and the purpose of the day. There is a poster here. Many other resources are available, including curriculum materials for teachers, lesson plans and teaching tools that suggest helping people become more empathetic and open-minded in addition to promoting other particular values.

The United Methodist Church encourages us to reach out to refugees. The United Mathodist Committee on Relief has a strong emphasis on helping refugees:

Through UMCOR's Refugees/Immigration programs, congregations that reach out to refugees and immigrants in a spirit of welcome and sharing find their own lives enriched and their understanding of the world broadened. They gain a deeper insight into the biblical command, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it" (Hebrews 13:2).

Since 1940, UMCOR's mission - providing relief in disaster areas, aiding refugees and confronting the challenge of world hunger and poverty - has helped to heal the hurts of humanity in nearly 100 countries.

More resources and information on the issue and how we as individuals can help can be found at the sites linked above.

World Sauntering Day

Today is World Sauntering Day. Have a nice stroll, just for fun, and enjoy the time.

Dinner and a Movie

Another in a series of easy meatless meals, but I was so exhausted by the time I got home that I ended up not even eating. The others had baked potatoes with the fixin's of their choice while we watched House of Flying Daggers. #2 Son liked this movie even better that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The Daughter thought it was entirely too sad to be enjoyable. It was a tragic tale.

Short-order Food

What with being up before daylight and going straight through until my flat tire at 8:00 tonight, fixing supper was out of the question. We picked up MickyD burgers at the drive-through after the itty-bitty spare was installed by AAA, who came after a little over an hour.

What a day!

Meatless Supper

We had fried okra, a couple of kinds of beans, salad with tomatoes, and cheese bread with The Daughter's home-made fudge for dessert. The Daughter made the cheese bread, too. She's a great cook.

.999... = 1

Don't believe me? Check it out here. Or here.

The Ironic Catholic Haiku Contest

Winners have been announced. My favorite, though not the winner, is this one:

I always wondered
Why is God a mystery?
Guess I'll never know.

--Anne Watson

Tacos

Tonight we had tacos. We aren't eating beef right now, so we had a choice of refried beans or cheese with the usual fixin's. I found the recipe for the cheese tacos at this cooking site. We altered it some, but it was still tasty. And it is very easy.

Remember the Bud Ice Penguin?

Dooby Dooby Doo....

Spaghetti

Tonight we had spinach spaghetti with a veggie sauce. I use the Prego "Chunky Garden" instead of making my own since my clan seems to like it just as well ---better, really. I used to add some meat to it, but I'm avoiding beef due to what I see as the agriculture and beef industries' unwillingness to test adequately for Mad Cow Disease and we'd rather have our sausage on pizza. The spinach noodles have sometimes been hard to find, but lately they've been on the shelf at Kroger. The Daughter had seconds, but this dish is not a great favorite with #1 and #2 Sons.

Sunflower Pest

My poor sunflowers have fallen victim to head-clipping weevils. The photo below is from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln site.



The weevils girdle the stem, causing the stem to fall over near the top where the flower has just reached blooming stage. I've had sunflowers before but have never seen anything like this. I think I'll plant zinnias next year.

Trinity Sunday

Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds;
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God;
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father,
by Whom all things were made:
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man:
And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried:
And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures:
And ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father:
And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead:
Whose Kingdom will have no end:

And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life,
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified,
Who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins.
And I look for the Resurrection of the Dead:
And the Life of the world to come. Amen.

Sunflowers

I love sunflowers. I didn't plant any this year because I thought the patio might be too small for them, but the birds were a bit messy at the feeder and sunlowers growing under the birdfeeder was the happy result. The photo posted above is from pdphoto, but I do have one tiny little sunflower that bloomed yesterday. There are lots of buds that look like they will be opening soon. I'm already planning where I'll plant sunflower seeds next year.

National Hunger Awareness Day

Today is National Hunger Awareness Day. There are local events to raise awareness of the problem. There will be an interfaith service here sponsored by the Memphis Food Bank and held at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church.

What can you do? You can advocate, raise awareness, donate, sponsor an event or volunteer. Suggestions can be found here.

World Environment Day

Today is World Environment Day. The United Nations General Assembly established the annual observance in 1972 to stimulate awareness of the environment and enhance political attention and public action. The theme for this year is Deserts and Desertification and the slogan is Don't Desert Drylands! You can find links to news on the subject at Topix.net. Send somebody a card to celebrate and spread news of the event.