wrdsandwrks

Happy Birthday to you M. You're a Star!

BFH. You are right. It's John Locke.

The first quotes are from his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

The ones on government are from his Treatises on Civil Government.

The TV show LOST has a number of famous philosopher/author names such as Hume and Rousseau. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for John Locke (Lost):

"The real Locke believed that, in the state of nature, all men had equal rights to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administer the laws. This philosophy is paralleled by the character of Locke, who embraces both nature and the need for organization among the survivors. Further, the flashback in which Locke donates his kidney to his father mirrors the historical relationship between the philosopher John Locke and Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, whose life was saved by Locke when the latter persuaded Ashley-Cooper to undergo an operation to remove a cyst on his liver."

B. you're up.

Here's another quote:

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

And another hint:

A major character on the TV show LOST is named after him and not by accident.

It's not Shakespeare or de Tocqueville.

This author is British and was born about 70 years after Shakespeare, in 1632.

Freedom of Men under Government is, to have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society, and made by the Legislative Power erected in it; a Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man: as Freedom of Nature is, to be under no other restraint but the Law of Nature.

Here's another quote and a hint. This author's ideas on government influenced the American founding fathers and was the basis for the phrase, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence.

"Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to judge of an punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offences of all those of that society, there, and there only, is political society where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, and by understanding indifferent rules and men authorized by the community for their execution, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of right, and punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society with such penalties as the law has established; whereby it is easy to discern who are, and are not, in political society together. "

Darwin?

George

No it's not Darwin.

Here's another:

EPISTLE TO THE READER -

I HAVE put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of my work; nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: and he is little acquainted with the subject of this treatise- the UNDERSTANDING- who does not know that, as it is the most elevated faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress towards Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best too, for the time at least. For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown.

Try this:

The volumes of interpreters and commentators on the Old and New Testament are but too manifest proofs of this. Though everything said in the text be infallibly true, yet the reader may be, nay, cannot choose but be, very fallible in the understanding of it. Nor is it to be wondered, that the will of God, when clothed in words, should be liable to that doubt and uncertainty which unavoidably attends that sort of conveyance, when even his Son, whilst clothed in flesh, was subject to all the frailties and inconveniences of human nature, sin excepted. And we ought to magnify his goodness, that he hath spread before all the world such legible characters of his works and providence, and given all mankind so sufficient a light of reason, that they to whom this written word never came, could not (whenever they set themselves to search) either doubt of the being of a God, or of the obedience due to him. Since then the precepts of Natural Religion are plain, and very intelligible to all mankind, and seldom come to be controverted; and other revealed truths, which are conveyed to us by books and languages, are liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to words; methinks it would become us to be more careful and diligent in observing the former, and less magisterial, positive, and imperious, in imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter.

Well, I guess anotherDan must be off fishing or something -

So, in the interest of moving this thread along

I'm going to post something.

New Author:

"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things;

look here, - three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab;

the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold

is but the image of the rounder globe, which like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn

but mirrors back his own mysterious self."

"Call me Ishmeal."

Is it Melville?

Hey Jonny,

Happy Belated Birthday and Best wishes for a Great Year!

Keep those great stories coming!

Numbers 30

2If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth

God is balanced and his word (from what I see) is balanced

There is an admirable way to divorce (break vows in the larger sense) for right reasons that the Lord would not object to –

IMO

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

Dot,

From what I know of your situation, these versus from Corinthians would be applicable:

I Cor. 7:12, 13, 15

But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother whas a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her, and a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.

But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.

From what I've seen, you did everything you knew to do to hold up your end of the marriage vow. He chose to leave. So according to the New Testatment, you're not under any obligation. God wants you to have peace.

I'm sure it's not easy, but don't beat yourself up over broken vows. You didn't break it.

Here's another poem:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

I recently read this poem in my daughter's 4th grade literature book. I can't think of the name of the author right now.

(((((((((wrds))))))))))) I knew this before, but we are kindred spirits!

Thanks Dan! I knew it too. (((((((((((((((Dan)))))))))))))))

And thanks for starting this Name the Author Game. It's a lot of fun and good learning too.

Wrds,

Giving up reading, that is so sad. And I'm so glad that you got over it and started reading and enjoying it.

I love to read too!

And apparently, I was a total reprobate when I was in TWI. On the WOW field I hid

Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and various other books, one at a time of course,

under the front seat of my car and would go to the park alone to read them.

Thanks, b.! I can see why you hid them in your car. I remember getting in trouble for reading "The God Smuggler" when I was a WOW. I guess it wasn't "wayish" enough or something.

I believe it's Anna Quindlen - another Pulitzer Prize winner.

Right! B. You're up!

The first quotes about reading were from her book, "How Reading Changed My Life". The last ones from her latest book: "Good Dog. Stay."

I picked Anna Quindlen because her book, "How Reading Changed My Life" had a very strong emotional impact on me. I hope you guys don't mind me sharing it here.

I was sitting in a Barnes and Noble bookstore about 5 or so years ago, doing one of my all time favorite things to do. At that time it was even more rare for me to have the opportunity at sit in a bookstore and read a book, because my children were younger then. I like to browse around and collect a stack of books that sound interesting and sit down in one of the chairs and read for as long as I can get away with it. So I picked up "How Reading Changed My Life" and started to read. I hadn't gotten very far into the book, when I started to weep uncontrollably. I mean deep sobs and tears started and I couldn't stop them. It was a good thing I was hidden away in the back of the store because I was quite embarrassed. It's just that some of the quotes I put up here, and others about her reading childhood like, "But I felt that I, too, existed much of the time in a different dimension from everyone else I knew.", reminded me so much of my own childhood. When I was a child I read in bed until "just one more page" wouldn't buy me any more time and the lights were put out, then under the covers with a flashlight until I was discovered. I would read in class with a book hidden behind a textbook, trying to look like I was paying attention.

It was a part of me that I had let die when I was sixteen years old and I took the PFAL line of "put away all your other reading materials for three months" to heart and put them away for three months that turned into thirteen years. Even thirty or so years later, after being out of TWI since 1987, this was part of me that was still dead. Oh I still read books and lots of them, but there was something missing. Something in the back of my mind still said that I had to be reading something "spiritual" or at least something practical. Anyway something came alive in me again after that. I've regained something that was lost. And I'm trying to catch up on all that lost reading time...

I don't know ANY of the quotes, but I'm starting to recognize that voice (and that says a lot about a jou--- I mean, author).

So do you have a name for the journalist/author?

Maybe these will be more recognizable...

“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed,”

“...there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”

I think the only other time I've seen the word catafalque was in a Batman comic featuring Catwoman...

George

George, Amazing what you can learn from comic books...

Here are a few more.

Years later I would come to discover, as Robinson Crusoe did when he found Man Friday, that I was not alone in that world or on that island. I would discover (through reading, naturally that while I was sprawled, legs akimbo, in that chair with a book, Jamaica Kincaid was sitting in the glare of the Caribbean sun in Antigua reading in that same way that I did, as though she was starving and the book was bread. When she was grownup, writing books herself, winning awards for her work, she talked in one of her memoirs of ignoring her little brother when she was supposed to be looking after him: “I liked reading a book more than I liked looking after him…"

"I would even go to Washington, which is saying something for me, just to glimpse Jane Q. Public, being sworn in as the first female president of the United States, while her husband holds the Bible and wears a silly pill box hat and matching coat."

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."

The writers of books do not truly die; their characters, even the ones who throw themselves in front of trains or are killed in battle, come back to life over and over again. Books are the means to immortality: Plato lives forever, as do Dickens and Dr Seuss, Soames Forsyte, Jo March, Scrooge, Anna Karenina, and Vronsky. Over and over again Heathcliff wanders the moor searching for his Cathy. Over and over again Ahab fights the whale. Through them all we experience other times, other places, other lives. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. “Book love,” Trollope called it. “It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.” Yet of all the many things in which we recognize some universal comfort--- God, sex, food, family, friends—reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung, at least publicly, although it was really all I thought of, or felt, when I was eating up book after book, running away from home while sitting in that chair, traveling around the world and yet never leaving the room. I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.

However did you deduce that.

You're up.

It was elementary my dear Raf.

I'll post a quote in a bit.

"In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties."

...

"How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."

"How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment.

Could it be Arthur Conan Doyle?

One more:

[that's] what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella knew, what Stamp saw and what made Paul D tremble.

That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind.

Not just work, kill or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore.

Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. The best thing ... was her children.

Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing.

Alice Walker?

I thought I would weigh in here with what I've been thinking about and learning about this subject lately. First, I'm very suspect of any "doctrine" taught by TWI, whether about the nature of God, or heaven, hell, death etc. We were so indoctrinated to believe what was taught in PFAL and the explanations given to explain away contrary views.

Lazarus in Abraham's bosom: Luke 16:19-31

The great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12

The mount of transfiguration - Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and Peter, James and John in Matthew 17:1-4

Luke 23:43 And Jesus said unto him, "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."

the spirits of just men made perfect in Revelation

There are others but I don't have a lot of time right now. So the Bible does indicate that the dead are alive, in spite of what we learned in PFAL, but there are also verses that indicate what's called "soul-sleep" until the Resurrection.

So, I've been thinking, what if both are true? We live in a limited arena of space and time, limited to three space dimensions and one time dimension. But the realm of heaven is outside of time and space, so what if those who leave this earthly realm through death, go immediately to the heavenly realm which is outside of our limited view of linear time. To us and our limited view they may be "asleep", but to them, they are immediately transported to the "eternal life", which is outside of our limited view of space and time.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I recently came across this which may explain it better than I:

"Soul Sleep" or Immediate Resurrection

"If we assume that God is outside of the space/time continuum then why must we continue to think of the life after death is in a linear progress? Could it not be that when one dies one is also outside of this linear path and thus, regardless of one’s point in history, all arrive at the same moment? Christ’s return then is not “delayed” but is always in the future and always at this moment."

Paw and Ralph,

Thanks so much for that honest recap of the events of those dark days. So happy they are behind us, but it's good to be reminded of what we came out of and through.

Here's one of my favorite authors:

"This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms held tight around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. It might have been five minutes she listened or half the night. The second part was black-colored --a slow march. Not sad, but like the whole world was dead and black and there was no use thinking back how it was before. One of those horn kind of instruments played a sad and silver tune. Then the music rose up angry and with excitement underneath. And finally the black march again."

Madeleine L'Engle?

Tonight at sunset marks the beginning of Passover 2008.

Tonight Jewish families will sit down together for the traditional Passover Seder meal.

My family has been having our own Passover Seder for years now. I have found it to be an especially meaningful time, especially to teach my kids about what Jesus Christ did for us as the Passover Lamb, and how He inaugurated the New Covenant at his Passover Seder with His disciples on the eve of his crucifixion.

Does anyone else celebrate Passover?