Hebrew

This year, I am in Hebrew 201, or the intermediate level. Yikes! Labeling parts of a sentence in Hebrew, asking for directions in Hebrew, and talking with correct grammar in Hebrew... eesh. Actually, "eesh" is the word for "man." But I digress.

I learned today that the Hebrew word for "Hebrew" or "ever" (עברית) comes from the verb meaning "to wander." So essentially, the Hebrews are wanderers... like when they were in the desert for years and years.

I find it interesting that they are still labeled the wanderers.... Israel is supposed to be their God- given land, but pretty much every other nation has been against that from the beginning. If Israel is destroyed, or taken over, at least they will still have a fitting name.

True Story

"Give me a new idea," I said,
While thinking on a sleepless bed;
"A new idea that will bring to earth
A balm for souls of priceless worth;
That'll give men thoughts of things above,
And teach them how to serve and love,
That'll banish every selfish thought,
And rid men of the sins they've fought."

The new idea came, just how, I'll tell:
"Twas on bended knee I fell,
And sought from Him who knows full well
The way our sorrow to expel.
SEE GOD IN ALL THINGS, great and small,
And give HIM praise whate'er befall,
In life or death, in pain or woe,
See God, and overcome your foe.

I saw Him in the morning light,
He made the day shine clear and bright;
I saw HIM in the noontide hour,'And gained from HIM refreshing shower.
At evening, when worn and sad,
HE gave me help, and made me glad.
At midnight, when on tossing bed
My weary soul to sleep HE led.

I saw HIM when great losses came,
And found HE loved me just the same.
When heavy loads I had to bear,
I found HE lightened every care.
By sickness, sorrow, sore distress,
HE calmed my mind and gave me rest.
HE's filled my heart with joyous praise
Since I gave HIM the upward gaze.

'Twas new to me, yet old to some,
This thought that to me has become
A revelation of the way
We all should lie throughout the day;
For as each day unfolds its liight,
We'll walk by faith and not by sight.
Life will, indeed, a blessing bring,
If we SEE GOD IN EVERYTHING.

A.E. Finn

I love this poem! By Samuel Taylor Coleridge, this epic poem tells the ghastly tale of a mariner who shoots an albatross and must do penance.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light-house top.

The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the Sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled."

-there's a lot more, it's pretty long; but that should give you a sense of the captivating rhythms Coleridge uses.

The poem was first published in 1798, anonymously in an anthology of poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth entitled Lyrical Ballads. Go read it!

Daniel + Tarantula = EEEK!

So, tonight Daniel comes home from youth group, and he walks through the door with a TARANTULA in a jar!!!

Yes, my mother & I freaked out. We took some pics, and he was then ordered to go release it- far, FAR away from our house.

We were so spooked because I've actually caught one in the house before... granted, it wasn't as big, but still!!! What if one crawls in my bed or something?! Yikes!

So much for getting sleep tonight.

Jane Eyre

Is this where the expression "plain Jane" comes from? Far from being plain, I rather enjoyed the book; and found Bronte's style far more readable than Jane Austen's. The story was acceptable, too... although the bit in front of Jane's life at the orphan school seemed to go on forever. But I suppose Bronte included it so that we could get the full perspective of life from Jane's view- to fully appreciate how un-loved she felt most of her life. Poor thing.

Even though the book was readable, I found some of the character dialogue to be too romantic- nobody, and I mean nobody, would really talk this way:

"My living darling!These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, and thus- and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."

"Which I never will, sir, from this day."

"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned- my life dark, lonely, hopeless- my soul athirst and forbidden to drink- my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have fled before you: but kiss me before you go- embrace me, Jane."

Please.

Some of Bronte's descriptions were a tad over- the- top, as well:

"...a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist,"

"A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills..."

"That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote..."

And one of my favorites: "A rude noise broke out on these fine ripplings [sic] and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave- wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong in the foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds, where tint melts into tint."

O--K. Somewhere she goes on and on about an "alabaster brow" too, but I can't seem to find it.

Anyway, except for the laughable romantic semantics, I would recommend the book. It is, after all, a classic- and one of the more entertaining ones too (that is, if you can get through the orphan school!).