That’s a bit depressing.
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But if we knew all about everything, we would know enough to imagine other things!
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Yes … I am sorry…it is the part where she loses her kindly guardian, Matthew. Montgomery, the author, had Anne once say that she liked to make people cry when they read her stories. There was a lot of death back then, especially at the turn of the 19th century. It is interesting to read how they dealt with it… However, Montgomery does a great job of empathy…she observés, for example, how with a great loss, sometimes it seems odd that nature goes on the same…it seems there should be a change of some sort…I am sorry. I should have chosen another one.
Thanks
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I remember at our extended family reunion one year when a sixth cousin showed up with a genealogical chart going back six generation beyond the four generations represented at the gathering, how shocked us kids were to learn that our ancestors used to have seven, eight, and even nine children but only a bit more than half of that made it to adulthood, most of those never reaching double digit ages. In fact the couple the extended family traced back to was the first in seven generations whose children all reached adulthood and had their own children (nine of them).
I’ve seen something similar in cemeteries, spots where parents were buried then next to them a son or two who died in a war next to kids who never got old enough.
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“Notice that I am not postulating a ‘God of the gaps’, a god merely to explain the things that science has not yet explained. I am postulating a God to explain why science explains; I do not deny that science explains, but I postulate God to explain why science explains. The very success of science in showing us how deeply ordered the natural world is provides strong grounds for believing that there is a deeper cause for that order.”
– Richard Swinburne in Is There a God?
I was looking around the cemetery where my Mom is buried, and she had a sister die in infancy of diphtheria. That old part of the cemetery had gobs of little tombstones with lambs on them honoring children who died young, mostly of vaccine preventable diseases these days, which is the worrisome thing about what is going on in the U. S.
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I remember one grave that had six small headstones – in the space one adult grave would take. Beyond those from the parents’ spot was one showing a flight sergeant in WWII and a USN lieutenant in the Korean war. Ages at death ranged from two years to twenty-five. It was agonizing to see so many kids’ markers, and all of them died before the parents.
One worrisome thing! I’m somewhat encouraged by the number of people I see wearing masks, many of them because they have a sore throat or something and understand that wearing a mask helps keep it from spreading – sharing isn’t always caring (I’d like a mask that says that!).
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He is the uncontrollable mystery. Christ in his humility condescended to be the uncontrollable mystery born on the bestial floor of Bethlehem’s stable that the Creator might enter creation as a creature. The Creator fully participated in the struggles and toils of all who are called human. While still in his infancy, the Creator became a refugee as his family fled to Egypt to escape a cruel despot. In youth and young manhood, the Creator became a carpenter working rough-hewn timber with calloused hands. On Good Friday the calloused hands of the Creator-carpenter were nailed to rough-hewn timber and the tree of Calvary became the center of the cosmos—the center that holds, the center that heals, the center that inaugurates the world to come. The tree of Calvary is the wood between the worlds.
Zahnd, Brian. The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross (p. 194). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
Merry Christmas everyone!
And to follow that with a somber prayer taken by memory from a few verses of a song I just heard sung last night (interspersed with verses from ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’)
O Bethlehem, Bethlehem, you have no peace tonight. Surrounded by walls and soldiers with guns, children in their sights.
May our crucified and risen Christ continue to evict the great satan from our hearts and from our midst. And may you, O Bethlehem, and the poor refugees in you know peace again.
-Merv
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Reading the editors’ pages on wikipedia articles is informative. They remind me of some of the discussions here. People who are serious, knowledgeable editors don’t put up with nonsense and demand justification for edits, additions or hobby horse claims/views that others might keep trying to include in an article. It’s impressive. Wikipedia has come a very long way.
The best articles have extensive citations, which the reader should follow, if the article is to be used for any purpose beyond basic intro to a topic, or a quick look up.
Biographical information of living persons, though, should be taken with a grain of salt. Some people seem to create their own pages that can be used for marketing things like their “block buster” “ground breaking” " insightful" new books. If a bio seems too good to be true, it probably is.
The Google AI summaries can be useful, but as you showed @Mervin_Bitikofer, they can simply be wrong.
I have played a bit with ChatGPT and have told it when I know it’s wrong. It is most gracious at being corrected, and then looks for more resources and tries again for a better answer. I wonder if Google AI overview can be “corrected” in a similar way.
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I wonder: when ChatGPT gets corrected, does it incorporate that correction into its data base?
I forget what the claim was, but I once corrected it about something Thomas Jefferson supposedly said, providing a link to the Jefferson historical society which showed that the quotation was spurious and where it actually came from. It would be nice to think that in the future ChatGPT would not only refrain from asserting that claim again but would correct others who make it.
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A New Year’s meditation and prayer from Søren Kierkegaard’s Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses from volume V of the series “Kierkegaard’s Writings”, edited by Howard and Edna Hong, page 7.
THE EXPECTANCY OF FAITH NEW YEAR’S DAY
PRAYER
Once again a year has passed, heavenly Father! We thank you that it was added to the time of grace and that we are not terrified by its also being added to the time of accounting, because we trust in your mercy. The new year faces us with its requirements, and even though we enter it downcast and troubled because we cannot and do not wish to hide from ourselves the thought of the lust of the eye that infatuated, the sweetness of revenge that seduced, the anger that made us unrelenting, the cold heart that fled far from you, we nevertheless do not go into the new year entirely empty-handed, since we shall indeed also take along with us recollections of the fearful doubts that were set at rest, of the lurking concerns that were soothed, of the downcast disposition that was raised up, of the cheerful hope that was not humiliated. Yes, when in mournful moments we want to strengthen and encourage our minds by contemplating those great men, your chosen instruments, who in severe spiritual trials and anxieties of heart kept their minds free, their courage uncrushed, and heaven open, we, too, wish to add our witness to theirs in the assurance that even if our courage compared with theirs is only discouragement, our power powerlessness, you, however, are still the same, the same mighty God who tests spirits in conflict, the same Father without whose will not one sparrow falls to the ground.
Amen.
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“What can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.”
–Christopher Hitchens, quoted by his friend, Francis Collins, in his new book, “The Road to Wisdom.”
(And then he goes on to discuss how to entertain opposing viewpoints with kindness and respect; in context, I take this to mean that supplying evidence is part of respect in dialogue, too)
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He is right of course about dismissing what is asserted without evidence but that could conceivably lead to leaving out much of value. I have no evidence for thinking Shakespeare wise in the way of humanity but anyone who doesn’t look for themselves will lose out on many good things.
But dismissing particular conceptions of God seems to be one of the best ways to arrive at a sense of what the word refers to … so long as one doesn’t toss out the baby with the water too soon.
Hmm … “too soon”? How about “ever”. Once you get a glimmer what the word refers to, who would want to throw that out?
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Some lines that have been running through my mind lately–
Hello, Old Friends
Hello, old friends.
There’s really nothing new to say.
But the old, old story bears repeating,
And the plain old truth grows dearer every day.
When you find something worth believing,
Well, that’s a joy that nothing could take away.
And so, we meet again,
After all these many years.
Did we sow the seeds we’re reaping
Now that the harvest calls us here?
It seems that love blooms out of season,
And much joy can blossom from many tears.
And so, old friends,
You must forget what you had to forgive,
And let love be stronger than the feelings,
That rage and run beneath the bridge.
Knowing morning follows evening,
Makes each new day come as a gift.
–Rich Mullins
Prompts for Listening
“That must be really hard.”
“Tell me more.”
–Kelly Corrigan
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I stumbled across this in some other reading–
“The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.”
– Sophocles
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