I haven’t the slightest idea what I want to say tonight. I am completely void of any ideas, which is nothing unusual for me. It was Monday. I didn’t get my list of “things to do” today because I miss placed the list. I just now found it. It has been a “Murphy’s Law” day. (Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can wrong will go wrong”.)  Everything will probably be better tomorrow. My classes start back next Tuesday. My son returns to work this weekend. I need to read more before class starts and clean the living room. I think I will clean it tomorrow after I finish handling business. At least one thing the weather will be dry because the rain has moved off to the east.

I know it is getting spring cleaning day. Which means: I need to get out the chain saw, put a new blade on it, and shave my under-arms and legs.  I should go to a salon and get my legs waxed. I don’t know I haven’t decided.

My daughter did take me to the grocery store this afternoon. I was happy at that. I went to the corner CVS this morning to get a thing or two on my own. I have been sort of stuck in the house due to bad weather and haven’t been able to get out like I should. I have had invitation to the ball games (here on campus) and I should have gone just to get out. I didn’t though—I stayed the hermit except for having to go somewhere to get something specific.  

After starting to read on the new text for my next two classes, I became really excited over them.  Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is one of my classes with Dr. Speller. Last year she did an open microphone, all day reading of this epic piece. I volunteered to read. I had never read Milton before and WOW! I loved it. She gave me a little input as to what the verses were about that I read. I really got into the essence of the word.

I already knew that during Elizabethan Renaissance one of the entertainments of many were to translate Greek, Arabic or Hebrew (biblical passages) and read them at court as poetry. This was common among the Psalms.

“When the blest seed of Terah’s faithful son, After long toil their liberty had won, And passed from Pharian fields to Canaan land, Led by the strength of the Almighty hand, Jehovah’s wonders were in Israel shown, His praise and glory was in Israel known.” (Milton) 

“When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion.” (King James Authorized Version)

Both of these passages are Psalm 114. I studied intently Mary Sidney Herbert’s Psalms which I loved; but, unfortunately Milton’s words are deeper, more eloquent, and very moving.

I love learning new things. I enjoy reading something that takes a person somewhere; most of the time it is like an experience to another world with different feelings. I use this method of reading called “projectionism.” I become the character(s) in the book. When I studied the book of Ezra, I was a woman standing on the steps of the proposed temple listening to the scribe, Ezra, read the genealogies and the accounts of my ancestors. I cried. I was then one of the women who had been enslaved by the Babylonians and then released to go home.

As in Psalms 114, I am a woman leaving Egypt, the only home I ever knew. I am just one of thousands descendents who will be traveling for a long time in the desert and I will learn new things: the culture of my ancestors.

Every time I read the word of God, I have never read it before. Each time is a fresh new time for me to learn something. I do. I may have read a passage a dozen times, but I learned something new that I missed the last time. I become enriched in the Word of God.

Keep in prayer Michael Newsome who will be having a medical procedure done; pray for Angela Branson Jordon who will be having a surgical procedure done; keep in prayer each other.

Anything I write is my opinion. You do not have to agree with it. I will respect you regardless. I challenge everyone to check your Bible scriptures out on your own.

God bless you and always keep you safe.