yes i said yes i will Yes

I want to make a record somewhere of some of my "favorite" selections from the Scriptures. "Favorite" seems frivolous, but you (who?) know what I mean. Ones that resonate.

If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:17-18. I just came upon this today, coming home from a rally for health care reform legislation.

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD ?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. Proverbs 30:8-9.

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire. Matthew 5:21-22. So much as calling a man a fool puts one at risk of hell fire...I remind myself of this while watching cable news and having horrible derisive thoughts about many of the hosts and talking heads.

I'm working my way unsystematically through the epistley part of the New Testament...I had read all the Gospels a handful of times but balked at anything else (except Revelation, for its surreal/nightmare/mystical literary attributes mostly). And I still have a skepticism about Paul. I can't explain it. I just have a Paul block. But all the letters by or attributed to Peter and John, for example, that stuff just knocks me out. It's super repetitive and simplistic in a way, but it cuts to the bone. And anyone who's ever seen a real bone will tell you how strikingly, disconcertingly white it is.

I was trying to think of a title for this post, which doesn't have a clear focus and as such doesn't lend itself to easy titling, and I just thought of the last line of Ulysses, of Molly Bloom's soliloquy. It's just so wonderful and I don't know why very much and don't care to think about why particularly. That's my rebellion against four to five years of liberal arts education. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan...I read Ulysses when I was seventeen, give or take a year. What can a seventeen-year-old, intelligent but no prodigy, get out of Ulysses? I don't know, but it was wonderful. It's one of those books where every so often you read a line and your heart flutters and you feel faint and you hold the book firmly to your chest. All the best ones do that.

Peter and John do that. Paul not so much.

I always want to read Ulysses again, because I know I'd get so much more out of it. Just like I'd get even more out of it if I read it again at the age of twenty-nine and so one. That's assuming I continue educating myself, so I can pick up references and whatnot. But I can't read. Or, rather, I can only read very sporadically. I read a couple hundred pages of Tom Jones and was liking it, but then set it aside. Started reading Norman Mailer's last, the one about Hitler, and was liking it but set it aside. Those are the most recent ones, but there's at a bare minimum a dozen books like that I've read an eighth of.

I'll ramble more later. I'll make a handful more blah gingham entries then disappear again for a few months.