This Is me Putting off Hebrew

Tonight I made a theological statement. "GOD . . . he's got his crap together!" Today in my class, "Job and the Literature of Faith and Doubt" we discussed the play Prometheus Bound by Aeschlyus. In it we discovered that Zeus is a selfish, sadistic, capricious, oppressive, vindictive, et cetera, and et cetera. After having spent the past 14 weeks discussing the book of Job it was impossible to not compare God to the gods. By comparison, God really does have his crap together. While one would not necessarily call him 'cuddly' after reading Job, we do at least get the picture that he genuinely cares for the world he made and the creatures he put in it. Unlike the eternally wise Zeus, God does not use his sovreignty over the world to dominate it, but to care for it.

A Good Poem

I and Pangur Ban, my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight
Hunting words I sit all night

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love.

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Ban, may cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light.

Anonymous Irish copyist from a ninth-century manuscript of Reichenau