Notes - Ezekiel's afterlife ideals - sc.3;ch.8 / among the Living

        Up, breakfast and the paper, it is now mid-morning. After Carol talked to Kim, Kim suggested you switch to Dr. Ian Rodway, your old student, as he is an orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in ‘degenerative spine problems’. You have an appointment with him this next Wednesday morning at ten at his Sharonville/(Blue Ash) office.

         I feel better with the change. I can’t imagine Dr. Roberts would have anything to say other than what he did the last time. Dr. Ian may say the same thing and if so, then I have a second opinion some ten or twelve years later.

         You had lunch at Smash Burger once again; a new favorite as the burgers are good and you can get sweet potato fries and good veggies for sides. Presently you are at Natorp’s picking up flowers for new neighbors in your development; Carol is the flower volunteer lady (flowers paid for by the Lakeside Community Association).

         Home. You have begun scene three and have to focus on Ezekiel’s possible concept of his idealistic sense of heaven. You found material to choose from in Wikipedia. Focus on what you have below:

*** ***

Hebrew Bible

Main article: Heaven (Judaism)

In the Hebrew Bible the heavens, Shamayim, are the abode of YHWH Elohim. [The Tetragrammaton (from the Greek) means the ‘word’ of four letters: refers to the name of the God of Israel: YHWH.]

Rabbinical Judaism

Main article: Olam Haba

. . . The Torah has little to say on the subject of survival after death, but by the time of the rabbis two ideas had made inroads among the Jews: one, which is probably derived from Greek thought, is that of the immortal soul which returns to its creator after death; the other, which is thought to be of Persian origin, is that of resurrection.

Jewish writings (?) refer to a "new earth" as the abode of mankind following the resurrection of the dead. Originally, the two ideas of immortality and resurrection were different but in rabbinic thought they are combined: the soul departs from the body at death but is returned to it at the resurrection. This idea is linked to another rabbinic teaching, that men's good and bad actions are rewarded and punished not in this life but after death, whether immediately or at the subsequent resurrection. Around 1 CE, the Pharisees are said to have maintained belief in resurrection but the Sadducees are said to have denied it (Matt. 22:23).

Some scholars (?) assert that the Sheol mentioned in Isaiah 38:18, Psalm 6:5 and Job 7:7-10 was an earlier concept than Heaven, but this theory is not universally held.

The Mishnah has many sayings about the World to Come, for example, "Rabbi Yaakov said: This world is like a lobby before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall."

Judaism holds that the righteous of all nations have a share in the World-to-come.

According to Nicholas de Lange, Judaism offers no clear teaching about the destiny which lies in wait for the individual after death and its attitude to life after death has been expressed as follows: "For the future is inscrutable, and the accepted sources of knowledge, whether experience, or reason, or revelation, offer no clear guidance about what is to come. The only certainty is that each man must die - beyond that we can only guess."

According to Tracey R. Rich of the website "Judaism 101", Judaism, unlike other world-religions, is not focused on the quest of getting into heaven but on life and how to live it.  (Wikipedia)

* *

Kabbalah Jewish mysticism

(Note: Not all Jews believe Kabbalah to be true; some even consider it to be very evil. Keep in mind that not all Jews believe in seven Heavens.)

Jewish mysticism recognizes Seven Heavens.

In order from lowest to highest, the seven Heavens are listed alongside the angels who govern them:

Shamayim: The first Heaven, governed by Archangel Gabriel, is the closest of heavenly realms to the Earth; it is also considered the abode of Adam and Eve.

Raquie: The second Heaven is dually controlled by Zachariel and Raphael. It was in this Heaven that Moses, during his visit to Paradise, encountered the angel Nuriel who stood "300 parasangs high, with a retinue of 50 myriads of angels all fashioned out of water and fire." Also, Raquia is considered the realm where the fallen angels are imprisoned and the planets fastened.

Shehaqim: The third Heaven, under the leadership of Anahel, serves as the home of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life; it is also the realm where manna, the holy food of angels, is produced. The Second Second Book of Enoch, meanwhile, states that both Paradise and Hell are accommodated in Shehaqim with Hell being located simply " on the northern side."

Machen: The fourth Heaven is ruled by the Archangel Michael, and according to Talmud Hagiga 12, it contains the heavenly Jerusalem, the Temple, and the Altar.

Machon: The fifth Heaven is under the administration of Samael, an angel referred to as evil by some, but who is to others merely a dark servant of God.

Zebul: The sixth Heaven falls under the jurisdiction of Sachiel.

Araboth: The seventh Heaven, under the leadership of Cassiel, is the holiest of the seven Heavens provided the fact that it houses the Throne of Glory attended by the Seven Archangels and serves as the realm in which God dwells; underneath the throne itself lies the abode of all unborn human souls. It is also considered the home of the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Hayyoth. (Wikipedia)

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         We will use parts from the above with Ezekiel. The Seven Heavens concept will be intuitively ‘seen’ by Ezekiel in a vision. It is important for Ezekiel to continue to have visions (in the story) while in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. Post. – Amorella.

       Moving on to supper time and the evening news programs. One of the important considerations in these books is this point:

**

Jewish writings (?) refer to a "new earth" as the abode of mankind following the resurrection of the dead. Originally, the two ideas of immortality and resurrection were different but in rabbinic thought they are combined: the soul departs from the body at death but is returned to it at the resurrection. This idea is linked to another rabbinic teaching, that men's good and bad actions are rewarded and punished not in this life but after death, whether immediately or at the subsequent resurrection. (Wikipedia)

**

         In the folklore and our books once the Dead are resurrected (in our case they successfully rebel after the second great rebellion that begins with Eisenhower’s farewell speech – the beginning of book six) a new earth is created by the Living with the counter-intuitive help of the Dead. The driving force of the New Way is service to/for the children who in turn will provide service to the elderly. The society is driven by personal service as money drives people today. That’s the meat of it.

         This is very romantic and idealistic, Amorella, with shades of Arthur’s Camelot in the wings. 

         In the books ‘service’ will be shown to be driven by practicality, by a bottom line of humanity, boy, not economics. – Amorella.

         I don’t think I could write such a piece with a straight face.

         You won’t. That’s the point. This is hangman’s humor, boy. – Amorella.

         Pretty depressing to think on.

         Think why that is, boy, and the books will speak for themselves for those willing to tackle who and what they are as individuals and as a species. – Amorella.

         I like the misery of it. Such a hollow sense of sick humor brings the gift of a large silent smile.

         All by keeping your mouth shut. That’s the dream – we’ll see how it plays if and when the books are completed. – Amorella.

         I think I might lose the few reader I have with this.

         You are writing not to win or lose readers, boy, you and I are writing the books because an imaginary angel once asked you: “Who Are You?” The books and blog are an honest a response as any as you could write while among the Living. Post. – Amorella.

Notes - up and out / a bushy thought / a good life reminder /

         Up mid-morning. Breakfast and the paper. Carol went to breakfast with her friends and returned to find you checking your email.

         In the upcoming scene Ezekiel makes an error in judgment in terms of the Styx and Jordan. What difference will this error make?

         Absolutely none. Metaphysics is not physics gone wild. Physics is metaphysics attempting to be gone wild. The real rebellion, boy, has to do with science whose real law, real core, is metaphysics, at least as far as these books are bound. The heartansoulanmind attempt to right the natural rebellion, physics, the nature of law. – Amorella.

         I think I’m Alice and peering down the rabbit hole.

         Alice is fine but you are peering up and out of the rabbit hole not down. – Amorella.

         It seems we are back to the conclusion of Bob’s “Dedication”.

**

Land lubbers we all will one day be

Thankful to finally shake a leg on solid ground,

Thus say I, Richard, while on these rolling waters.

**

         Essentially. Post. – Amorella.

         You got the mail. Carol is talking to Alta on the phone. You are sitting in the living room looking out the front window at the honeysuckle bushes and the many red berries hanging near the leaves. You had a sudden thought:

         Perhaps this is how a human might look outside the rabbit hole – a bush of thought with small eyes instead of berries to see how it is on solid ground. A thought growing as a rooted bush for stability. Leaves nourished by the ‘light’ not of this universe.

         You wonder, ‘Why do I think such things, and out of the blue?’ And I respond, ‘The day is dry and clear; time to mow the yard and rake the leaves after.’

         The thought makes sense to me, all those eyes, each with a different perspective, multi-lenses in an imaginary camera for a close up perspective, to sense the thought to grow more stems and leaves and berries.  

         Post. Almost time for lunch and an afternoon of lawn work. – Amorella.

         You are waiting for Carol at Pine Hill but declined a walk because the sun is too bright and warm and you have to mow the grass after lunch. One bit of exercise is enough on any one day, that’s been your philosophy for at least fifty years.

         I notice the Dead walk around and have conversations and sex once in a while but as they need no exercise what do they do?

         It is not a coincidence, boy, that they don’t do much more than you do. How’s that? – Amorella.

         Stands to reason even without much thought. Funny, actually, and on its face, it was a pretty dumb question.

         I see a little guy who is about two, in an orange T-shirt and blue jeans running ahead of his parents to the playground. I don’t ever remember running anywhere as a little kid but perhaps I did. I had those shoes and supports like Forrest Gump. I remember hating high school football practice because after all that work we still had to run a lap, and if we were caught goofing off in practice we had to run two or three more laps. I liked our coach though, Mr. Jim Scarfpin. He was an awesome man, old school coach like Knute Rockney. This was 1956-1958. We were in a scrappy little high school league called the Mid-Six, then the Mid-Eight (mostly small towns around Columbus). He died suddenly and we got a new coach but I cannot recollect his name at the moment. . . . Lunch at Panera/Chipotle and a stop at the Kroger’s on Tylersville. I’m ready to start the mower and be done with it as it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. I suppose I should erase this as it has no relevancy to present day.

         If it has no relevancy then why did it come to mind? – Amorella.

         I don’t know. Most of my thoughts are of no value as far as the books are concerned; writing the blog is a pleasant way to pass the time without actually accomplishing much.

         From my perspective and observation, this is the way it is for most of the world. Earning a living, surviving, but beyond that, not much. You are at least aware of your value as you write for free. – Amorella.

         A valid point, Amorella. You’re right, why should I feel bad for doing something for nothing?

         Coming up for the local news shortly then the national. You finished the yard with Carol’s help – most of the leaves picked up and you cleaned your driveway as well as the neighbor’s. Plus, Carol cut the grass southeast of the yard and Tim’s northwest side too so you are feeling better about his help last week. Tit for Tat as the old saying goes and this is without coveting the neighbor in the process. – Amorella.

         Why do you say these things, Amorella?

         To keep your sense of humor honest, boy. You’ve always had a risqué mind; well, since you were ten or so. Your fraternity brothers didn’t call you “Garbage Gums” for nothing.

         I don’t like to think about those times of great immaturity. Many in the frat wore those BFD sweatshirts, blue with large white letters “BFD” on the front. I told both Grandmas’ it meant we were honoring the local Blendon (Township) Fire Department but I knew they didn’t believe me. It seemed like the thing to do at the time, most everyone thought it was funny. The best was when Bob Pringle and I wrote up some Christmas cards for the faculty and staff at our small Christian college, Otterbein (Evangelical United Brethren [scripture and hymns used to be in German] then they became the United Methodists during our time as students). We wrote up the Baby Jesus Birthday Card and wrote on the inside, “Who Is Responsible?” Some of the faculty and staff were not too pleased although we heard through the grape vine that some faculty thought it amusing but they didn’t dare own up to it publically at the time. I know I have mentioned this incident before but it was /is funny to think on. Besides, now Bob is dead and it is good life reminder of him and me doing stuff together.

         Time for a break, boy, news and supper and probably a catch-up television show or two. Relax. – Amorella.

Notes - clearing the path / a semblance forms / shaw-an-shakespeare

         Breakfast and the paper mid-morning. Slow response and moderate arthritic pain early morning. Cool weather trigger you imagine.

        

         The Merriam-Webster word of the day is a good one – Moiety, which means ‘one of two equal parts: half. ‘MOY-uh-tee’, I even like the sound of it though it does not convey its meaning. And, I like this example:  “She was asked to describe the tribe’s two moieties. She said the Winter and Summer people provided the basic religious and social structure. . . .” From Joanne Barker’s 2011 book Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and Cultural Authenticity.

         The beginning of a regular day, unlike yesterday when Scott showed up and worked on toilet installation only to find the ‘marble plates under the toilet were not long enough for the bottom of the new toilets; he installed one temporarily and you have the ‘plates’ to choose from today as he dropped the choices off early this morning. This will cost you more – for the plates and a bit of added labor.

         It was my fault for not thinking about the plates. I had those added when we built the house because I had read that the plates between the floor and the toilet keep the seal tighter (which it has done). The problem is that the plates were much bigger than the bottom of the toilet. The bottom of the new toilet exceeds the toilet one inch. Alas, who would have guessed. Scott good-humoredly said, “That’s construction,” and then said he would be back next week. . . . We picked out the marble simulation for beneath the toilets. I took a needed nap while Carol dried her hair, took a hot bath with jets and bubbles. Good lower back health, rest followed by rushing hot water. It works for a while. Good to be retired and have the time for such personal matters.

         Carol is finishing online, then to lunch or to the doctor’s office for her flu shot and your picking up copies of recent records for Dr. Roberts at the Cincinnati Spine Institute.

         I know what the man will say, ‘lose a hundred pounds’. That will be it. The last time he said ‘you have arthritis in your neck and lower back; it is progressive and nothing can be done but losing a hundred pounds.’ One day it will have progressed and so will I. When I’m dead I’ll lose more than a hundred pounds which finally will not be regained. We have to pay the piper (a bit of physics) one way or another. I can still walk, albeit more slowly. Sixty-nine is not that old. I’ll get about for a while longer even if it means a nap and a hot bath most every day.

         Glad you have that settled, boy. Nothing like clearing the path once in a while. Post. – Amorella. 

       Again, shades of Robert Pringle in the verbal mist. Most delightful.

         Lunch at Panera on Mason-Montgomery Road and then down to the doctor’s office and on to Bethesda Outpatient Imaging to pick up X-Rays for next week’s office visit. Diagnostics appear to indicate progress in arthritic conditions of lower back. They don’t address the atrophy in calf of the right leg. Perhaps that will be noted after next month’s blood test with no Simvastatin taken. You plan on waiting until after the talk at the Spinal Institute before conferring with your second opinion family member, Paul.

         That sums it up nicely, Amorella. Sounds like a plan. It is dark clouded and raining again but we are home. Does Ezekiel meet with Merlyn again before Merlyn runs into Arthur? I assume when Ezekiel and Arthur are together they take a bird’s eye view, like the gods on Olympus might do under more normal mythological standards.

         All standards are metaphorical from here on out, boy, in case you didn’t catch the drift earlier. These books are full of the poetic element in terms of imagery; after all, these are Merlyn’s dreams which you have the eye to capture, in the limited vocabulary of your words alone.

         Indeed. I understand I have limitations built in. A subtly constructed dark glass can still hold an even subtler liquid form for those gutsy enough to make a search.

         As you write with heartansoulanmind the reader must read with heartansoulanmind. Not an easy undertaking for one who cannot distinguish among those basic three-in-one human elements. The word meaning flows from where the addressing is coming from. A fog in the mind is not a fog in the heart, nor is it a fog in the soul. Nor is the fog a sentence in any case. The fog can gather or it can lift night or day. A semblance forms, however, whether one is conscious of it or not. – Post. – Amorella.

        This coming scene with Merlyn is after the one with Ezekiel who will be talking with Meir, Tiresias and Takis.

         I have found the lines Ezekiel is thinking on in the opening of the scene: (chapter seven, scene ten)

        “We are dead, Ezekiel.” Tiresias paused in consideration,” then continued, “Our souls survive along the same river. You know this by the name Jordan and we Greeks know it by the name Styx.”

         Yes. It fits well with “And there shall be a causeway there which shall be called the Way of Holiness,” as Ezekiel puts the two together. He does not know of the bridge being built and assumes the bridge is actually the River itself. He sees it as connecting the Living with the Dead not separating them.

          The River by any other name is still the River.

         By Jove, I think you’ve got it. Post while you are a-head for a change. – Amorella.  

         The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. I know my  Shaw-an-Shakespeare. 

Notes - what a phrase / a hawk from a handsaw

        Up and working on house cleaning. Mid-morning and it is mostly done. Toilets were supposed to go in today but you did not check your email in time, so another day. Rooms are clean now, however, so all is not a loss.

         “Cleaning house” has a lot of meanings. Once house cleaning begins it goes until it’s over, one room at a time. I am never too happy about it until it’s done, then I am thankful such energy has left the body and mind until another day, preferably, long off. (Maybe I’ll be dead and miss the next one, not a bad trade-off.)

         You smile thinking about your old college teacher, Dr. John Coulter who died after finals and had not had a chance to grade all those essays, a job he did not well like. – Amorella.

         Dark humor can be laced with a private smile for an old friend of mine. He was a good man, and by all accounts perhaps he still is. I hope Bob finds him and they have a good chat; that is, if we survive physical death. Like hope, the imagination cannot close the door on possibilities and the probabilities can easily be ignored.

         After half a ham and cheese sandwich and a glass of ice water for lunch, and I have decided to use a more original Jewish translation of the two lines.

**

“And an highway shall be there, and a way,

and it shall be called The way of holiness;”

From: qbible.com/hebrew-old-testament/isaiah/35.html

**

This popped up in all caps, should I leave it this way?

         There is no need to go to a Hebrew translation. I prefer that you don’t in this case. – Amorella.

         I thought this translation would be closer to the original; to the contextual words Ezekiel would have known the lines.

         If this were nonfiction, boy, the shit would hit the fan. – Amorella.         

         Very funny, Amorella, my shit, no doubt.

         There is no shit on this side of the fence so I guess it would be yours.

         If this were nonfiction I would be labeled in madness.

         Anyone who believed it would be labeled in madness, boy. That’s the fun part. – Amorella.

         What a sense of humor, as bad as my own, which stands to figure of course.

         You are an old fool, orndorff, endearing to me; otherwise I wouldn’t be here, but endearing to yourself, not too much. – Amorella.

         Methinks; not too much to my friends either. I think I was endearing to my grandparents once but that wore off.

         Everyone is endearing to someone boy even if it is out of sympathy.

         I don’t need any sympathy or empathy or anything – I am a rock as Dillon used to sing.

         More power to you, kid. –  Amorella.

         What a phrase. What wit.

         Post. – Amorella. 

        You watched Castle and The Gifted Man after another great pizza from Papa John. Your and Carol’s favorite: large, half veggie; half works. Carol had two pieces and you had three. Castle was themed around a superhero in a comic and The Gifted Man, a new show focused on a driven neurosurgeon meeting his now dead once wife of ten years earlier. You found yourself secretly identifying yourself with him except I am no ghost of an ex-wife, and I am not using you, if anything you are using me. This is the nonfiction. You can observe it throughout the postings. You do not see me as a physical being. Sometimes for over twenty years when you close your eyes you see an ‘eye’ appear, a single eye with eyelashes, sometimes it blinks as you look into it. Originally you thought it was ‘angelic’ but to you the eyelashes make it less so as you cannot imagine the physical form of an Angel with hair on its body. Nude, yes. Adult male or adult female, yes; but no hair and no finger or toenails either. Both would be unbecoming to your imagination. Even imagination has limits, boy, and the above are examples of yours.

         What you (Amorella) write is how I once saw an aspect of what I thought was you – the dark eyelashes were/are feminine. The silent eye and eyelashes would be as the ghost in the story. The blinking I witnessed a few times but I did not sense an eyelid, just the movement of the eyelashes into a blink mode. I know it was/is imagination to keep me mentally stable, on solid ground, so to speak. The same reason I wrote and told Patti that I now sense Bob sometimes as I/you write through the wit. This is a coping mechanism. Writing has always been a coping mechanism. It is for many people. The published Merlyn books are a kind of proof, a verification of my having a real imagination and real human thoughts.

         Writing makes your imagination and reason sharable. How else can one share herorhis imagination laced in reason? For you, it is only grammar – that is the vehicle. A word, a phrase, a sentence. A horizontal rope of words for your heartansoulanmind to dangle from. The stage which you pass through everyday is physical reality. It exists head to toe and you frame it in imagination and reality, almost everyday. Now, that is your reality. Something to sleep on. Post. – Amorella.

        It is true. This is pretty much how I see each day. I still experience what is real to most everyone else. I am in the world. I shall the real world internally but it is more fun to balance the real world with reason and imagination. That's how I see it. What does it hurt? I know a hawk from a handsaw. 

Notes - Book of Isaiah, Chapter 35 for Ezekiel's use / Ezekiel the bridge builder

        You were up early, got the papers and put the front end of the car in the garage so Carol wouldn’t get wet from the morning soaker. She left but forgot her phone. Lots of traffic and the rain brings potential Monday rush hour problems. Today you need to download the month’s blog posting for your own record. We can also work on scene three. A little switch of pace. Ezekiel will be thinking about the Holy Scriptures to that point in time. You’ll have to find some references as to how far back they go. – Amorella.

         This is odd, it is as if scriptures can pertain to the Dead as well as the Living.

         Do your research before you make any assumptions. – Amorella.

**

(From Wikipedia)

How the Bible is Dated

There are numerous ways in which the various copies of the books of the Bible are dated:

Manuscripts

Manuscripts can be dated from their archaeological context (i.e., pottery and other datable objects found with them), their script (handwriting changes over time and styles can be dated fairly accurately), and other means. The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew bible/Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, have been dated to the two centuries before the time of Christ, although a fragment from the Book of Numbers has been found which dates from the early 6th century BCE.

Language

Scholars believe that they can date the Hebrew of the bible fairly accurately by comparing it with the grammar and vocabulary from inscriptions found in archaeological sites. For example, the Documentary Hypothesis dating is largely based on internal linguistic differences within the text which date different sections to different eras, while P. J. Wisem hypothesizes that books may date to the 2^nd millennium BC based partly on similarity to other ancient narrative structures.

External references

Much of the Hebrew bible has a historical setting which can be compared with non-biblical sources and with the archaeological record (for example, references to the kingdoms of Moab, which existed in the 13th century BCE, is consistent with traditional dating of the Book of Numbers).

**

 Torah

Main article: Documentary hypothesis

The traditional religious view on the origin of the Torah is that it was written by Moses between 1446 BC and 1406 BC. While this view is still held by conservative Christians and Jews, modern scholars argue that the whole of the Torah was composed in the mid-1st millennium BC as a “prequel” to the prophetic books (books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings).

**

Isaiah 1-39 "Historical Isaiah" with multiple layers of editing, 8th century BC // Also composed in eighth century: Amos; Nahum; with Zephaniah in the seventh century.

        

Sixth century: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, and Habakkuk

**

Oldest manuscripts

The oldest known preserved fragment of a Torah text is a good luck charm inscribed with a text close to, although not identical with, the Priestly Blessing found in Num 6:24–27, dated to approximately 600 BC. The oldest complete or nearly complete texts are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls from the middle of the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD. The collections contain all the books of the Tanakh except for the Book of Esther, although not all are complete. . . .

From: all above from Wikipedia (some undocumented)

**

         The above is general background for our fiction but what we will use here are lines from Isaiah. - Amorella

         Continuing with Wikipedia as a common source I find:

**

Structure

The following is from Margaret Barker's commentary on Isaiah in Eerdman's Commentary on the Bible

▪                Ch.1: various poems, possibly compiled as an introduction to the final form of the book

▪                Ch.2-12: oracles about Judah and Jerusalem reflecting the late 8th century expansion of Assyria into Syria-Palestine

▪                Ch.13-23: oracles against the nations

▪                Ch.24-27: the "Isaiah apocalypse"

▪                Ch.28-31: more oracles about the 8th century crisis

▪                Ch.32-33: oracles about kingship

▪                Ch.34: oracles against Edom (a kingdom bordering Judah to the south)

▪                Ch.35: oracle of salvation for Israel

▪                Ch.36-39: stories about Isaiah during the Assyrian crisis

From: Wikipedia: Book of Isaiah

**

         Let’s focus on the specifics of chapter thirty-five. You may use your own New English Bible for translation. – Amorella.

         Below is from pages 854-855 of The New English Bible with the Aprocrypha, bought 5 June 1972. “This edition was recommended to us (Carol and myself) by the good monks of Mosteiro de Sao Bento, Estado de Sao Paulo, Brasil and by friend [and colleague, the French professor at Escola Graduada,] Roger Allain.” [Written in the inside cover.]

**

Book of Isaiah, Chapter Thirty-five.

Let the wilderness and the thirsty land be glad,

let the desert rejoice and burst into flower.

Let it flower with fields of asphodel,

let it rejoice and shout for joy.

The glory of Lebanon, is given to it,

         the splendour too of Carmel and Sharon;

these shall see the glory of the LORD, the splendour of our God.

    Strengthen the feeble arms,        

    steady the tottering knees;

say to the anxious, Be strong and fear not.

     See, your God comes with vengeance,

with dread retribution he comes to save you.

Then shall blind men’s eyes be opened,

    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

    and the tongue of the dumb shout aloud;

for water springs up in the wilderness,

and torrents flow in dry land.

The mirage becomes a pool,

    the thirsty land bubbling springs;

    instead of reeds and rushes, grass shall grow

    in the rough land where wolves now lurk.

And there shall be a causeway there

which shall be called the Way of Holiness,

    and the unclean shall not pass along it;

it shall become a pilgrim’s way,

    no fool shall trespass on it.

No lion shall come there,

no savage beast climb on to it;

    not one shall be found there.

By it those he has ransomed shall return

    and the LORD’s redeemed come home;

they shall enter Zion with shouts of triumph,

crowned with everlasting gladness.

Gladness and joy shall be their escort,

and suffering and weariness shall flee away.

From: The New English Bible, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1971. Pages 854-855.

**

         I am a little apprehensive finding a use for such a passage in a fiction even though I feel The Bible, though real and considered Holy by many, is written by people inspired but not to the point of their being angelic-like and/or God-like in the sense their words were transcribed without error in their original and without error in translation. I see the work as poetry at best and the use of poetic devices throughout the books.

         Then why even a little apprehensive?

         My mother instilled in me at an early age to have a great respect for the book itself, in that I should not pile other books on top of it in my room when I was in fifth through eighth grade. It was not good to treat the book impolitely, that was the message as I remember it. Even as an adult agnostic I find myself caught in my mother’s words.

         As it is a rainy, cloudy day, you and Carol are going to lunch at Smash Burgers at noon and the Regal Cinema to see a fast paced movie thriller titled, Drive. Post, and later, dude. – Amorella.

        Drive is an interesting character building film that in some ways reminded me of a classic film (and before that a book), The Quiet Man. Bloodier and more violent than I would have expected. The main characters grow on you though: B+/A- in my book. The last Potter film is an A for comparison.

         You ran a couple errands after the film then stopped for a late afternoon walk at Pine Hill Park. This time, as Carol did her longer walk, you trudged over and across the earthen dam and down the hill to the north then across the bottomed land and up the steps to the car and found this took more energy than walking over to the second lake and sitting on the bench a spell before returning to the parking lot. No sitting, no stopping on this short north trek. Your blood tests are normal but you have to stop taking Simvastatin for a month starting today. Tomorrow morning you find out your lower back X-Ray results. Nothing on the MRI tests as of yet. Time for the news and perhaps a recent show or two you have copied.

         Another week of new shows then we can decide which of the new ones we want to keep watching. CSI’, ‘CSI-NY’, the ‘Mentalist’ and ‘Blue Bloods’ are the best of the police/detective shows on the regular channels. The only comedy we really like so far is ‘Broke Girls’. I am curious about where Ezekiel and Isaiah: 35 are going to go. The two lines that catch my soul are:

                  “See, your God comes with vengeance,

                  with dread retribution he comes to save you.”

         You soul quivered when you saw the words earlier because of two words not two lines: “vengeance” and “retribution”. Why, because you have an ‘intuitive’ imagination of what some call “The Old Testament” God.

         It seems fitting, after all we are not talking Christianity or Islam here. Ezekiel would see aspects of the Torah as understood and perhaps written in Ezekiel’s lifetime  . . . “these shall see the glory of the LORD, the splendour of our God.”

          

         Three hours later and it is difficult getting back into form. I do not know what Ezekiel would have thought of these lines of the Torah. I can imagine he would have memorized them in life, but I do not see how they are relevant to this book and this chapter.

         You are not Ezekiel, my boy. Your focus on lines are not what Ezekiel would appreciate as he sees G---D (in this story) as a bridge maker not a destroyer of bridges. As such these are the important Biblical lines in scene three:

                  “And there shall be a causeway there

                  which shall be called the Way of Holiness,”

         This will tie in with the women going to the bridge-building in the previous scene.

         It will. Post. – Amorella

         I am amazed how much this posting shows my cultural bias.

         You have to become the characters. It was easier in the earlier books, but you cannot easily see yourself in the same light with Ezekiel the Prophet even in your imagination you steer away because, to you, to do so, to even pretend to be a Biblical hero would be a form of blasphemy. You have an honest reverence for the concept of Holy Words, not the words themselves. This goes back to Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and The Profane, a book you lectured from in the third or fourth quarter Mythology class for juniors and/or seniors at Indian Hill in the seventies and/or eighties. Reverence is seen as a conceptual form of politeness and respect. This does not disagree with your agnostic beliefs. You have built your own bridge between the spiritual and the profane I am drawing from it, orndorff. – Amorella.